Of course, motion capture has been around since the days of Out of the Ink Well, Snow White and Gulliver's Travels. Then it was called "rotoscope." Now it's digitized and goes by the handle "Mo Cap."
Whatever the name, SAG looks to be discussing the procedure with movie producers in 2011.
... [T]he Screen Actors Guild is investigating how thesps perform the work -- a signal the issue may emerge as a factor in next year's contract negotiations. In an announcement this week, SAG invited members and non-members who do the work to a Dec. 3 session at the guild's Hollywood headquarters to discuss the impact of performance capture. The contract department staff and members of the TV/Theatrical Standing Committee will attend. It's the first such meeting SAG has held on the issue ......[SAG] members have expressed the desire for language spelling out motion capture work during the "wages and working conditions" process to formulate contract proposals. But the companies have responded during negotiations by asserting that mocap -- the emerging lingo for the work -- is a "non-mandatory" subject of bargaining and not open to negotiation.
Looks to me like their might be some teensy collision coming up here.
I really have no idea what terms and conditions SAG has for Mo Cap, but if they're sniffing around, I imagine they want to make the terms better, because ...
... thesps have expressed concerns in recent years over the dearth of specific language in the master contract over how motion capture performances are covered ...
TAG and the IA cover computer work on some Mo Cap features, but the actors in the wired suits are SAG's department. Guess we'll see how this shakes out.
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6 comments:
Animators, TAKE NOTE! This article will affect you.
There is a huge difference between rotoscope and mo-cap, especially the way it's used in "Christmas Carol."
The old fashioned hand drawn rotoscoping as used in "Out of the Inkwell" and Disney features like "Snow White" etc., were used as a basic action armature, which was then reworked into a character design bearing little resemblance to the original actor/dancer/model. In Mo-Cap, with the possible exception of Gollum, we are meant to recognize the actor which is what leads to all of those familiar image/copyright issues.
That's not the difference. Time is the difference, as in movement. Disney choreographed the live action movements like a ballet, and the animators used only KEY POSES. A lot of roto is just traced movement--not a lot of thought put into it (inkwell, bakshi).
Motion capture captures the movements of fully capable actors and turns them into zombie like, weightless, unappealing mush.
Performance capture has its place, but so does keyframing. Both have a long life ahead of them.
Animators are here to stay.
And the mo-cap "performers" will get $15 million to "perform" a few weeks, while the animators get $800 a week to fix it all on tight deadlines, and out of union jurisdiction (in many cases).
Ditto to above poster. Here we go again. Take note, animation artists. You are the actors. Studios negotiate with A list actors to borrow their celebrity clout. SAG has absolutely nothing to do with it. Working conditions? Really? Give me a fucking break.
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