The Mo-Cap Battle Between Actors and Animators

[PunkRex]

Serkis should be awarded, after all everything about the movement down to the most subtle of eye movements is all down to him. The cgi stuff is a kin to putting a actor in a suit. Look at the Godzilla movies - do you praise the actor for the role or give a lot of the credit to the suit designers? Its the actor that makes it come alive.

But without the suit designers, it would never be there to begin with, even the best actor can't pull off Godzilla if all he's given is a green felt-tip pen and a pair of plastic fangs. The artists behind the actors put way to much work to just be ignored like they are. Animation is a painfully long, difficult process, to have someone take all the credit is ludicrous.

 

[faefrost]

I've never understood why the Acaedemy did not simply create an award for "Best Composite Performance", years ago. An award that acknowledges all sides of the character. From the combined efforts that gave us Darth Vader and R2D2 onwards, through things like Smaug and Golum. Credit both the actor and the animation team for creating something real from nothing and making us believe. Is that not after all the ultimate goal of all of this?

 

[Petromir]

Is it that time again?

There's little in cinema that isnt a collaboration.

It is increadibly difficult to decide what was the bit that really made the scene. Even some clear things are muddier than it may appear. Take a line of improv (Say Han Solo's "I know") while the actor takes a big chunk of credit, the director and probably the writer, and even the other actors likely influenced the actors feel for the charecter and moment that lead to it. Even once you've apportioned who's responsible for coming up with said line, it working is again a function of other things, the other actors reactions, the editors cuts,the cinematographers framing and lighting (among a ton of other choices there usually made in consultation with the director, gaffer etc), the work of the makeup artist and wardrobe department.

 

[Verlander]

I did a Digital Animation degree. Making a model move realistically is the hardest part, and where true talent lies.In motion capture, the actor does a majority of that hard work for you. I've oversimplifying to the Nth degree, but that's the abridged version - digital makeup is the perfect term for what they do, and if they start bitching about it, it shows how insufferably elitist and disparaging against makeup artists that they are. Those guys do killer work.