You may not know his name, but you definitely know the characters he\u2019s given life to. He\u2019s the man behind Gollum, King Kong and Caesar in Planet of the Apes. His name is Andy Serkis, a pioneer of a new breed of actors called synthespians or virtual actors, who use performance capture technology.\u00a0Senior Lecturer of Internet Studies, Dr Tama Leaver, discusses why synthespians aren\u2019t given more credit for the characters they create.<\/p>\n
Performance capture technology is the real-time recording and digitalisation of the actor\u2019s every movement which is then used to drive a complex digital model which then forms the fictional characters we see on screen. Those on set see the synthespian moving, acting and sounding like the character (or animal) they are playing with hundreds of tiny, motion sensor nodules and cameras positioned all over their body.<\/p>\n
[youtube]http:\/\/youtu.be\/5TsHcomGhpM[\/youtube]<\/p>\n
As technology advances, more of the synthespian\u2019s performance can be directly transposed onto the face of the digital actor character they are playing, which begs the question, why aren\u2019t synthespians getting more credit for their work? Why is it that Gollum and King Kong are household names but the man who acted out those characters, Andy Serkis, isn\u2019t?<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many, the question of where the acting ends and the computer generated imagery begins, undermines the authenticity of a performance captured role as a performance<\/i>, but no performance exists in a vacuum,\u201d says Dr Tama Leaver.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery actor\u2019s appearance is constructed through costume, make-up and lighting, their dialogue taken from a script, the eventual role on screen painstakingly led by a director, and carefully filtered and refined during the editing process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Performance capture is similar in many ways, but with the additional digital processing to translate the motion and facial expressions of an actor onto an often non-human character.<\/p>\n
[youtube]http:\/\/youtu.be\/hlWyAePmAYM[\/youtube]<\/p>\n
Serkis researches his characters like any other actor would. He studied gorilla movements in Rwanda to prepare for King Kong, channelled a cat coughing up a hairball to get Gollum\u2019s voice correct, and he wore false chimpanzee teeth to help with his speech in Planet of the Apes. His dedication to playing each role accurately is profoundly obvious in the final cuts.<\/p>\n
Huge names in the movie industry such as Peter Jackson, James Franco and Andy Serkis himself have been very vocal about the legitimacy of synthespian performances, saying that they are integral to the digitised character and worthy of critical attention and praise the same as any other actor.<\/p>\n
As Tama Leaver states, \u201cAndy Serkis\u2019 role as Caesar is central to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and as numerous online features emphasise, this is\u00a0his<\/i>\u00a0acting, and\u00a0his<\/i>\u00a0performance. Whether this is the year that such a digital performance is captured by the Oscars or not remains to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
What are your thoughts? Should synthespians have the right to the same accreditation notoriety as the celebrities they act alongside?<\/p>\n
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