This article nearly began as a standard complaint about
Oscar nominations. Michael Fassbender overlooked for Shame, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross ignored despite an exceptional
score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...
Then I realised that some of the snubs about which I felt most strongly shared
a common thread. The Adventures of Tintin
– a film I’ve mentioned before on The Bubble – received just one nomination, though admittedly for a well-deserving score by
the legendary John Williams; Rise of the
Planet of the Apes, last year’s ‘intelligent blockbuster it’s acceptable to
like’, is nominated only in the Visual Effects category. Now, while it may be
obvious that these are both special-effects heavy multiplex pieces, it’s
perhaps less apparent that each of them uses a particular technique which the
Academy – and the film industry in general – is proving reluctant to accept.
Though it’s been in use for years, performance capture (or motion capture) is
still struggling for the recognition it deserves.
Even those who haven’t heard the term before will probably
be familiar with some of the products of the technique: they include Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong
in the remake, The Polar Express, the
young Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy and,
of course, Avatar. They also include Tintin and Caesar, the principal ape in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (I’m sure
I’m not the only one who would like to pretend Beowulf never happened). An actor wears specialised markers at key
points on their body and face, allowing their movements to be sampled multiple
times per second. This data is then mapped onto a 3D model, meaning that the
actions of the performer are carried out by the digital figure. As a result,
filmmakers can benefit from all of the subtleties of an actor’s contribution,
inevitably lacking in a purely computer-generated character, without
sacrificing that character’s visual appearance to the demands of costume and
makeup.
The big question is ultimately how to categorise performance
capture. The film industry seems undecided as to whether it’s just a visual
effect or a manner of representing a performance – and there really is a big difference.
Just look at the difference in the two names given to the technique:
‘performance capture’ puts the emphasis on the whole contribution of an actor;
‘motion capture’ implies nothing more than a collection of actions converted
into data. The latter is a huge underestimation of the performer’s significance
– Andy Serkis, for example, researched primate behaviour extensively to play
Kong, even further to prepare as Caesar, and every move those characters make
belongs to him. He is directly responsible for the audience’s response to his
character, just as he would be in a live action film. The same can be said of
his work on Gollum, or Zoe Saldana’s performance in Avatar (easily the best thing in that film that wasn’t the
visuals); they are characters who must be approached like any live action role.
Given the added difficulty of acting in such a manner – without full costume or
other accoutrements which help actors to get a sense of character, place and
period, often without a complete set – considering performance capture simply
as a form of animation seems insulting.
The other side of the coin is an entirely purist view of
acting as a craft. Prejudice remains about the idea of a technical team
mediating a performance, leaving an impure form of acting. Still, given the
advances made in recent years, especially in facial performance capture, it’s
becoming harder and harder to see where subtle gestures and movements could be
lost, and when appearances have to be altered, it is to enhance the character
without losing what the performer has given. Saldana would never have been able
to play a 9’ tall, strangely shaped blue cat-person in a pure live action film
owing to the fact that, while there are plenty of tricks to give the illusion
of height, she isn’t blue and isn’t strangely-shaped. At the very least, she
would have needed extensive makeup, and doesn’t that work on the same principle
– altering an actor’s appearance to aid their performance?
This brings me back to the Academy question. Tintin won the Animated Feature Golden
Globe, but wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar, despite the fact that it
beautifully blended performance capture and CGI to make a visually impressive and
irresistibly fun adventure, which karate chops the inexplicably nominated Kung-Fu Panda 2 to pieces. Still, this
can perhaps be put down to the timing of an autumn release and the success of
Spielberg’s other piece of award-bait War
Horse. More significant is the snubbing of Caesar – while there might be a
case for saying that Serkis is let down by the film itself, the same has been
said of Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
as well as many previous nominees, and it’s all too tempting to suspect that
Hollywood’s uncertainty about performance capture explains why Rise was only deemed worthy of a Visual
Effects nod.
I strongly suspect – indeed, genuinely hope – that Andy
Serkis will win an Oscar one day for a performance capture role. He probably deserved
one for Gollum. I fear, however, that like Alfred Hitchcock, he will be ignored
by the Academy until the latest possible moment, when an honorary statue will
be thrust into his hands. Here’s hoping that, as studios and filmmakers have
increasingly embraced the storytelling possibilities offered by the technique,
the opportunities it affords actors will be equally appreciated.
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Be nice. Gingers suffer enough.