ILM: Animation and VFX of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Interviews with ILM VFX supervisor Pablo Helman

Andy Serkis Talks Acting And Performance Capture

More interviews with Andy Serkis

'The Hobbit' VFX Breakdowns

There are some really nice VFX breakdown clips of The Hobbit over on the LA Times website. I enjoyed The Hobbit! I saw it twice - once in London and once in Houston, TX. I thought the story and pacing of the film was a bit lackluster but the character performances were amazing!

VFX Supervisor Scott Squires on 'Acting and Animation'

VFX Supervisor Scott Squires recently posted an in depth article on his blog  concerning the ongoing debate over the relationship between animation, motion capture and acting/actors. He makes some solid points and adds  great perspective from his extensive career in vfx. It's definitely worth a read.

// Acting and Animation  
via Effects Corner 

The Andy Serkis Mocap Performance Channel

Andy Serkis has a new Vimeo channel dedicated to video clips and featurettes showcasing some of his motion capture work. Sadly not much is mentioned about all the animation that is added to his performances in post. There's no question Andy is a fantastic actor but there are dozens of equally talented animators helping to bring these CG characters to life on the other side of the mocap camera. Below are a few 'comparison' clips from Planet of the Apes.

More clips here // Andy Serkis Channel on Vimeo

And lastly some food for thought.

// Should Andy Serkis's monkey capture a mo-cap Oscar? via the guardian film blog


// Can Peter Jackson's Weta studios allow anyone to play a gorilla? via the Independent


Andy Serkis says "At first with Gollum it wasn't even performance capture, it was motion capture and then the facial performance was shot on 35mm film. Then the animators rotoscoped – basically painted frame by frame over my expressions, matchframing every facial expression I made. "
"You don't actually get to see the visual effects until months down the line when they all start to come in and the visual effects shots begin to replace the actual thing, well after the final edit. And the animators can calibrate the character on the computer: you can dial the curvature of the spine, so you'll notice by the end of the movie Caesar's absolutely upright. He's more human in his movements."



Also, here's the Andy Serkis insert from this month's Hollywood Reporter magazine.  

 

Digital Acting Blog

Check out Mincho Marinov's Digital Acting blog. Some interesting articles and perspective from a mocap / performance capture point of view.

The Digital Acting Blog 


thanks Oz for the heads up!