The Amazing Andy Serkis

Andy Serkis, or you may know him as Gollum, Kong, or Caesar, is one of the greatest performance capture artists of our time. Performance capture, or motion-capture, is having humans provide "human movement" which is then applied to another "medium." With Andy Serkis, he has provided movements for characters such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Kong in King Kong, and Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. 

Serkis to play performance-capture character in new Star Wars film

While filming for a movie involving motion-capture technology, Andy Serkis has to wear a skin tight suit with dots all over his face (facial motion-capture) to detect subtle expressions. He then wears 53 other markers around his body to capture those movements. On his website, Serkis describes it as, "where an actor's movements and expressions are electronically tracked and translated into computer generated imagery (CGI) to bring a film character to life."

In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), we see Andy Serkis play Gollum, who was first cast only to provide the voice. With Andy on set, it proved to be important because it's how Gollum was then developed. The production team then took the physicality of Serkis, and found a way to capture that and bring it to the digital character of Gollum, and the idea was motion capture. With motion-picture technology being so new at the time, they hadn't perfected capturing Serkis's movements and translating it to another medium and having it seem like Gollum had a lot of depth to itself such as wrinkles, muscle movement, or light reflection. Although to be fair, at the time it may have looked very real, and as the technology advanced, Gollum looked more and more realistic in recent movies, like The Hobbit.

Serkis as King Kong 

In King Kong (2005), Serkis plays Kong and it is again achieved through motion picture technology. They place the dots, or markers, on his face where motion-capture cameras can sense them, then they could see where those markers are moving in 3D on a computer, and they can then figure out what muscle groups in his face are moving, which is then applied to Kong's face. The markers are able to capture the emotions and expressions Serkis conveyed in order to make Kong seem as real as possible.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) really got to see Serkis's amazing motion-capture performance. Producer Dylan Clark says, "Andy Serkis is unlike any other actor. He can inhabit characters that don't speak and emote in ways that we don't really see often in movies." Serkis describes motion-capture as the audience seeing apes on screen, but apes which he has infused with his heart and soul performance. One of the major improvements since other motion-capture films is the detail and imagery they're getting out of the cameras which gives them more facial information, which is helpful in really making the apes look more real.

Finally, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). Serkis again plays Caesar and is able to portray him so well with motion-capture. What made the character of Caesar look more realistic was WETA, they were using motion-capture cameras, tracking markers, and witness cameras in order to capture all the intricate details of the actor's performance. Then they were able to track that detail into a photorealistic model of an ape on a computer. The tracking markers were now able to be applied to the body using velcro so the actor was able to roll around, jump, and really inhabit an ape's performance. What WETA did with its technology advances was beneficial to Serkis who is able to portray an ape in such a unique way, and have WETA capture it.    

What Andy Serkis does with motion-capture, as I've said, is the best our time has seen. No one is able to portray characters the way he has. Actors and actresses he has worked along side with always comment on how easy it is to act with him because he does so well embodying his character. Whether it's Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, or Caesar in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, you'll be amazed that it's a single person conveying those characters. It's his body movement and expressions that bring those characters to life. To see Andy Serkis in action, you can see the behind the scenes of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes here.