Andy Serkis provided the voice and acting for Gollum, which the animators used as a foundation in delivering the character's final performance. All images © 2002 New Line Productions. All rights reserved.

In The Two Towers, a favorite scene of audiences was the schizophrenic argument of the submissive, frightened Smeagol with his belligerently self-protective alter-ego Gollum. With the two personalities cleverly juxtaposed, we see in a moment the wonderful, expressive range of actor Andy Serkis and the team of Weta artists who successfully brought the performance to life.

Gollum is, without question, one of the highlights of The Two Towers, and considered to be among the best performances of the film. It is no mean feat for one character to arouse so much contempt and pity. Yet we hold our sympathy for Gollum somewhat at arm's length; it is a hesitant trust. We want to like him, but don't know quite what to make of him.

A Host of People and Techniques
With the motion and voice originally supplied by Serkis, the final on-screen presence was crafted and honed by a team of 18 animators. Bay Raitt, the creature facial lead for the movie, likes to use the following analogy: "Andy Serkis wrote the music, then [animation director] Randy Cook conducted it, and the animators are the ones playing the music that you see in the film."

Gollum was created through a combination of techniques. To begin, Serkis would be on set, shooting Gollum's scenes with the live actors. Serkis' movements would be match-moved as a rough performance onto a digital puppet for the animators to use, so they could begin blocking in the face and the beats. Then, Peter Jackson would decide that the performance could be pushed a little more, and Serkis would come in again to do his scenes on a motion-capture set.

Bay Raitt, creature facial lead for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Motion-capture data oftentimes has all sorts of problems, because it doesn't capture faces, hands or feet very well. So, before the data would get to the animators, the motion editing department would fix the feet and hands, and all of the pops and jitters. Then, given video reference, the animators would start animating the fingers and hands, the feet and face, on top of the motion-capture. Sometimes, in this process, new dialogue for Gollum would come up, and the animators would start over again. In sections, they would get direction from Jackson that certain aspects of the performance look good, while other aspects could be completely reinvented. For example, instead of Gollum looking scared in one moment, perhaps he would be called upon to look tough. The animator would then take a section of the animation, delete Serkis' performance, and re-keyframe it. This could be for certain body parts, or just the head and neck, or the whole character. Raitt explains, "So, when you watch the actual sequence, it's not motion-capture, it's not motion editing, it's not keyframing, it's not rotoscoping...It's a mishmash of all of the above."