Motion Capture Technology Quotes

When you are shooting traditional motion capture, it's a big footprint on set. There are, like, 16 cameras that are needed and constraints over the lighting.

With 'Avatar,' you're beginning to see the need for less and less actors and less of an appreciation for live acting.

When I first did 'The Lord of the Rings,' I was acting on the set with the other actors, but then I had to go back and repeat the process on my own to do the physical capture on a motion capture stage.

'Mars Needs Moms' was motion capture, where you walk into a space that's essentially a black box with cameras everywhere. It was so technical. You have these mandibles with cameras on your face and a helmet, and you have to hit certain marks. You couldn't shoot this stuff without the green-screen aspect.

One of the things that motion capture and/or voice acting does is allow you to continue your career, change it, or bring a new aspect to it.

I'm always keen to use my body in my work, so I'm looking forward to the motion capture for Smaug. Both Gollum and King Kong were primates, whereas I'm playing a serpent, so it'll be interesting - I'll have to tie my legs together, possibly, or else they'll be kind of splayed out to the side as a reptile's should be.

Motion capture has become very specialized but also still just a tool of filmmaking.

Motion capture is amazing. I prefer it. You wear a 'Power Ranger'-esque suit, you have tape balls on you, you have 60 cameras around you capturing your every movement and there's no hair, no makeup.

Of course you're nervous, but we're really excited to be able to share what we're going to share. And it's cool, because what we're going to be doing, I think for fans especially, we think is really cool, because part of the process that most people don't ever get to see [is] that before these movies are movies starring photo-real apes, they're movies starring the image of Andy Serkis and the other actors, who are playing apes.

I even agree with the new digital ways of filmmaking, where you don't even have physical film in the camera, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to use it.

As an actor, you're just trying to get work in any medium. I remember when I started out, I did motion capture for video games, and then I did a terrible Best Buy commercial for Best Buy employees.

If James Franco's wearing a costume, and I'm wearing a motion capture suit, we don't act any differently with each other because of what we're wearing. We're embodying our roles.

Motion capture is exactly what it says: it's physical moves, whereas performance capture is the entire performance - including your facial performance. If you're doing, say, martial arts for a video game, that is motion capture. This is basically another way of recording an actor's performance: audio, facial and physical.

Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.

The technical aspects of doing motion capture and actually, you know, capturing the motion, is very different. It's an interesting learning curve to be part of because you have so much gear on you.

The most challenging roles were Disney's 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Mars Needs Moms' because they were both motion capture, so there was a lot of physical work involved.

Motion-capture is not a genre. Motion-capture is a tool and technique and what we tried to do was to really use both motion-capture and traditional animation to build a system.

We don't have any intention of beginning a trend of re-creating actors who are gone.

I stepped away from stunts and into acting right around when stunt people started getting put into motion-capture stuff.

You don't need great actors to do a 3D picture. All of this condescending stuff that they put out? "Oh, we will always need actors." Bullshit! They are able to take anybody and put some markers on them, and have them walk through an empty room. Then they paint in the background.

One of the interesting things about motion capture technology is kind of how it's all put together. The idea is to make it as much a "normal" acting experience as possible and then being able to do all these amazing technical things with it afterwards.

People used to say, 'Andy Serkis lent his movements to Gollum,' and now they say, 'Andy Serkis played Caesar.' That's a significant leap.

My belief about performance capture is that it's a technology which allows actors to play extraordinary characters. But from an acting perspective, I've never drawn a distinction between playing a conventional, live action character and playing a role in a performance capture suit. And from a purely acting point-of-view, I don't believe there should be a special Oscar category because I think it sort of muddies the waters in a way.

If you're in a motion-capture studio, you have spherical, reflective markers, which are picked up by cameras that emit infrared - it reflects it, and then the cameras pick up the data.