A Christmas Carol: The Performance Capture Experience
Watch trailers, featurettes and clips from A Christmas Carol at AWNtv!
At a recent press conference, director Robert Zemeckis, producer Steve Starkey and their A Christmas Carol stars Jim Carrey, Robin Wright Penn, Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth talked about the process and challenges of making a performance capture film. As Zemeckis mentioned, the technology has moved from medical uses to helping to evaluate one's golf swing to moviemaking.
Zemeckis said that since his love affair with performance capture began on The Polar Express he's been searching for tales that could be told in new ways with this new art form.
Following Beowulf, Zemeckis said, "I just got hit with the idea that it could be A Christmas Carol, so I went back and read the book to refresh my memory on how I might have seen it and I realized this really hadn't been realized in the way that was actually imagined by Dickens as he wrote it. This could be the perfect way we could take a classic story that everyone is familiar with and re-envision it in a new and exciting way."
"Form always follows story. So when the idea of A Christmas Carol popped in my head, there was a chance to get an actor like Jim to morph himself into all these ghosts and characters and not do it in a traditional way with a 2D camera where all these other wonderful actors would play these ghosts and things like that."
When preparing his actors for the performance-capture films, he begins with an intense table read, where initially he acts out all the roles. "When we go into the volume, as well call it, which is this block of invisible inferred light that we do the movie in, [the actors] turn it on," said Zemeckis. "And so when we're working through the scene, we're recording everything, because there's no film; it’s just harddrives running. So you're doing a performance and you're doing a scene and we do the scenes from beginning to end like you'd do a scene in theater. We work the scene out, the actors work the scene out, and what's great is we record it and when we're really going to do it, if someone says, 'Gee Bob, I'd like to walk in from the other side of the room, because I think it would feel better,' we'd say just try it. So it's like we're doing these elaborate theatrical tech rehearsals. The whole thing is like a tech rehearsal, and he hone the scene down and then all of a sudden we look at each other and say, 'Is everybody happy? Does everybody feel good about that?' And when everyone does we say okay and we move on. We break for lunch."
When performance capture first broke onto the scene, there were murmurs that actors feared for their jobs. But Starkey contradicted that notion when he said, "When you talk to actors they have just as much interest in this new art form as we do. It's freeform and it's more like acting in theater. You're not encumbered by the mechanics of filmmaking but you still get to act and play these characters that otherwise you might not be appropriate for... because of your likeness you might not be cast in that role, but in this art form you can do the performance and they can create that likeness in the computer. So you get to play someone young or someone who is taller than you are or whatever it is."
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This movie has been out for ages and there is always someone doing their own version of this timeless classic. Each one has done it justice as well. They don't tear it up too much.
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How many more adaptations of the same story must we all endure for the sake of box office marketing? In reality, the story is a great one, but not one that can be orginally adapted in my opinion. The effects and animation were good, but not great. I would expect a major budget effort like this one to be a bit more than what I saw. The music was good and I would recommend if offered online with free mp3 music downloads, for seasonal enjoyment, but I wouldn't pay for the soundtrack.
While I don't have a problem with re-hashing old, tried and tested stories new productions need to bring something new to the party. This production, in my eyes, was stilted and jarring. I wasn't engaged by the presentation and for me engagement is a crucial factor in animated movies.
As noted by a previous commenter - motion capture movies have performed badly at the box office so maybe we need to go back to basics.
have created the Tolkien Saga with these technologies. And I do not mean the few special effects but everything. Now I just cannot get the personal characters out of my head when I read the books. So I only read the Lost Tales nowadays.
This one is a true delight getting back to the roots of the original story and trying very successfully to prevent diversion from the original story (description, chronology, ect.) the images are top notch and the cinematography is state of the art. Too bad that the 3D effect is a little off in some scenes.
This one is a must see even though some scenes may be too intense for younger audiences but skip paying extra for the 3D effect. They truly did not drive it home with the 3D effect.
The movie sucked... it took the spirit of the classic Christmas story and threw it in the trash! It was terrible. Why even make this movie? Like it hasn't been a thousand times already... geez. Freaking Hollywood is pissing me off. Can't they come up with anything new any more?!!!
I don't know about all this motion capture or keyframe stuff you guys are talking about. What I do know is that, the character moved horribly. it was very robotic and distracting.
The movie sucked
I saw the movie the other day, and I thought it was outstanding. A Christmas Carol really makes Polar Express show it's age. If you're still using that MoCap mess as a point for comparison it's time to get up to date. The mocap actually looks decent now and Jim Carey's performance is really able to shine through. It did not seem to have any major awkward moments that have plagued some of Zemeckis' early films.
As great as Jim Carey is, what really sells the movie is the creative cinemetograpy that shows all the untapped potential of using 3D as a medium. It's absolutely wild, especialy with the 3D glasses, and the experimentation probably would not have been possible without the aid of motion capture to speed up production. If you hate Zemeckis purely on the principle of Mocap, you're not giving him a full, fair assesment. There is so much more to a Christmas Carol in particular as a film than just the acting. It is really a shame all the coverage of his works foucs on the MoCap performances.
This may be a touchy subject for some people here, but the end goal is to make a film that would otherwise be impossible through live action. Keyframe Animation is just a one way to achieve those results in today's world. Zemeckis has just taken an approach against the norm that has ruffled a few feathers.
Here's the proof...
Final Fantasy, Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf, and Christmas Carol are all full CG movies that uses motion capture. they all have bad reviews and they all did terrible in the theaters. The only one that did well was Happy Feet. As a percentage that is 96% of full CG mocap movies fail.
Whereas over 90% of full CG KEYRAMED movies receive good reviews and do very well at the theaters.
The reason is because the average movie goer wants to see an animated film with characters that are stylized and cartoony. A movie with hyper-realistic characters and moving realistic is discomforting to the audience.
Every mocap movie gets the same reaction. The reason Happy Feet did well was because the characters were dancing penguins. That's it!
Sure Mocap is a tool, 3D is a tool, 2D is a tool, Stop Motion is a tool... there are many tools in film making. But you don't use a hammer to cut lumber. Mocap works well in live action movies, because you are comparing the cg character movements to the live actors. So it works. But in a full CG film, keyframe animation works better because it shows off the expression and emotion through the poses.
I believe that you can compare Beowulf to The Incredibles or Ratatouille, because they're both films and especially if they both fall into the animation category. Not comparing them is like saying you can compare Coke to Pepsi but not to Sprite.
Mocap is fine when used properly, but it is not fine to call it animation. Someone earlier said that Disney used motion capture on 101 Dalmatians with Cruela Devile's car. You're right(well not really, that's called rotoscoping) but, it wasn't used on the entire film. It was used properly for one aspect of the film, everything else was keyframed.
I agree that real animation is keyframed, whether it's 3D, 2D, Flash, or Stop Motion. I also agree that it is good to use videos, live actors, sketches, rotoscoping, and even motion capture and a reference only.
Look at you calling other people elitists for sticking to their opinions and not jumping on the mocap bandwagon. "Mocap is another tool. 3D is another tool. 2D is another tool" YOU'RE A TOOL! I like what Juan said "Just because mocap is a tool it doesn't mean it's the right tool for the job". Point well said!
When animators are tweaking mocap it means that they are fixing the animation. Accept it, that is what's happening.
MOCAP SUCKS plain and simple. It's a useless tool.
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