A Christmas Carol: The Performance Capture Experience
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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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You say:
"The purpose of animation is to create a representation of life. Animation is supposed to make the characters move and react naturally. The animator uses expressive poses, exaggerated expressions and dynamic actions to give personality to the characters. Mocap does the complete opposite of what it's supposed to do."
Well, if that's true, which I think it is, by the way, then there'll be a place for keyframe animators.
Gollumn in LOTR was captured for a large part by mocap, but it was the artists that made it lifelike by manipulating the mocap data by keyframing. I hope you agree that Golumn and even more so King Kong where very lifelike?
And stuff like the Incredibles (which is supposed to be cartoony, whereas Beowulf, Polar Express etc is decidedly not) is all keyframed and it shows, so what's your fear?
If people want to make movies using mocap it's their right. If it turns out lifeless than that's their problem.
And what is wrong with puppets on a string? Tell that to Geppetto :)
I agree that I would like to see Zemeckis do another 'normal' movie, but if he wants to make mocap movies (which IS an exiting technique, although maybe not fully fledged out) it is his right. He raises the money for it, he makes money of it and there's nothing you can do about that. That's just the way the world works. Deal with it.
Dear Jasper,
I see your point, but I do not agree at all. The point I was making is that motion capture has it's place in other aspects of film making (stunts), video games, etc. Yes, using motion capture is a tool and it may be easier, cheaper and faster, but you get a poor quality "animation". The purpose of animation is to create a representation of life. Animation is supposed to make the characters move and react naturally. The animator uses expressive poses, exaggerated expressions and dynamic actions to give personality to the characters. Mocap does the complete opposite of what it's supposed to do. Rather than making the character move realistically, the characters look robotic, lifeless, like puppets on strings. The proof is in the films, compare Polar Express to The Incredibles. The humans are more believable and accepted in The Incredibles. We as an audience connect more with The Incredibles than with Polar Express. The Uncanny Valley is in effect. It's doesn't make sense to me that movie makers would rather use realistic CG characters and use motion capture to copy human movement instead of using humans!
You said that you can't blame technology for problems... well tell that to millions of people who have lost their jobs to a easier, cheaper, faster machine that has replaced them.
Just because mocap is a tool, it doesn't mean it's the right tool for the job.
I understand what you're saying. While I don't think motion capturing will replace keyframe animation and it will have it's own funtion next to mo cap, I think you cannot blame a new technology for your problems.
That's like saying bread machines are putting bakers out of business. When bakers make better bread then machines, they will have their place.
If mo cap delivers the same results as your work for a fraction of the price and effort, then yes, it will affect you. But if you are good, you have tons of experience and insight to movement and emotion that mo cap machines will NEVER have.
Listen to Phill Tippet's reaction to the arrival of computer animation when Jurassic Park came about in this clip:
Start at around 8.00 min:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6WpgosOXNs
and then part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdNy5MeMWFA
Interesting, no?
I agree with Juan. Motion capture has taken the place of animators' work. And I've been studying animation for 8 years. I've gone to school for it, I've paid thousands of dollars to earn a degree in it and I'm still trying to pay it all back. All of sudden this technology begins to take out the "hard working" individual (almost like a worker on an essembly line who has put in 20 years only to be replaced by a computer) who create performance for a film, game, commercial, whatever. You just don't understand the impact this has to artists in this field. YOU REALLY DON'T!!
Dear Juan,
You are of the opinion that the way you should make an animated movie, is that you should make it in a specific way and using specific tools. This of course, is nonsense.
Any tool, be it mo cap, or keyframing, can be used to make wonderful films. It is not the tool that makes a performance of a character great, it's the use of that tool.
So if you don't like the result of Zemeckis's films and find them lifeless, you should attribute that to his USE of the tools.
You are being dogmatic. It's like saying that color photography doesn't have a place, and everything should be in black and white.
Mr Zemeckis,
Stop! Please stop your mad obsession with motion capture. You are misguided with placement of motion capture. While I agree with the usefulness of motion capture in other mediums, it does not belong or should be categorized with animation. Animation is the illusion of life, not a copy. Animation is created by highly skilled and talented animators, who create a unique and personality driven character. Animation is key framed, not an actor in a suit with dots all over it. Motion capture is what it is, capture motion - it is not performance. I am an animator, I feel that you are spitting on my art form by using motion capture. How would you like if someone invented a computer program that automatically would direct an entire film?
I have seen all the movies you have been involved with the use motion capture. I leave with the same feeling, the feeling of disgust and that my soul has been ripped from my body. I look at the screen and I see a lifeless and soulless moving corpse trying to tell me a story. Motion capture has it's place in video games, simulations, and in movies that have stunts too dangerous for a normal stunt person. Please stop, stop, STOP making mocap movies. You made wonderful movies in the past. Back to Future and Forrest Gump to name a few. Make more of those, the world will love you for it.
Before I finish, do not make a Roger Rabbit sequel! Thank you
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. casino online
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