So I've sometimes wondered why many live-action directors are enamored of motion capture. This sort of explains it:
Spielberg: ... The greatest thing about this medium is, it stays in a constant state of fluidity. ... [B]ecause it stays so fluid, it’s so exciting to get an idea, maybe two years after the initial performance capture production is behind us, and to be able to actually shoot a whole new series of scenes and make them fit into the current cut. ...
Peter Jackson: [E]ven though it’s technology, I think we figured out a way to give ourselves enormous freedom as filmmakers. It was like shooting a super 8 film.
Spielberg: It WAS, because in those days, I would just run around with a camera, really running back and forth getting all my coverage with a little Kodak three-turn 8mm movie camera…and this was very similar to that, except…I had all the x/y buttons on my right, I could crane up and down, I could dolly in, dolly out. I could basically be the focus puller, the camera operator, the dolly grip. I wound up lighting the movie with some of the artists at Weta. I did a lot of jobs that I don’t normally do myself on a movie.
So do we understand why live-action directors love the process? They get to go back to their hyper, teen-age years where they did everything. Camera, makeup, costumes, lighting. And directing.
Working in mo-cap is a return to the glory time when they commanded the whole kit and kaboodle. You can't get more control than that.
Of course, you have to work with a bunch of computer people, but they're anonymous drones, right? ("Wrists" or "lettuce pickers", as Bill Hanna so charmingly called them.) No glory needs to be shared. The director, snapping out orders to his minions, is all.
(Here's the other part of the interview.)
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The whole idea behind pre-visualization is to try variations and make creative decisions in pre-production, when it is relatively cheap. That way, by the time you get to the set and the big money is being spent, you can go straight to the desired result.
The way these directors are using motion capture is that they're making a lot of their creative decisions in post-production. Instead of saving money, it's driving up costs. It also, in my opinion, leads to weaker films as the directors are not as focused on what they want on screen before they shoot it.
Is it cost effective for Spielberg to be doing the jobs of technicians who are paid less than he is and who specialize in their craft?
Alfred Hitchcock worked out his films completely before getting to the set. John Ford cut in the camera so that the studio couldn't change the film he wanted to make. Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng laid out and timed their cartoons before the animators got them and then only got to see one pencil test. Nobody thinks that these directors were hurt by making their creative decisions early rather than late.
Motion capture is allowing live action directors to be self-indulgent and inefficient and they are blind to the problem.
AMEN!!! It's like doing "coverage" in CG. It's a useful tool in some instances--but in MOST cases it's a crutch for laziness and a lack of imagination.
At least no one-- even the Academy--does not consider what they're up to "animation."
Oops--that is " no one--not even the Academy--considers motion capture "animation."
Yes, and the more control Spielberg and the rest of these 'filmmakers' get over their movies, the worse the movies get, and the worse their director's skills get. They are making worse and worse crap by screwing with every frame. They have all lost the big picture pursuing gimmicks, bells and whistles.
The stupid shark didn't even work in the first place!!
Speaking of the shark not working... Sometimes its working with limitations that bring out the best in an artist.
^ All great points above!
To that, I'll add that this "it stays in a constant state of fluidity" attitude comes at the price of burning out talented crew. There are several recent animated films, with directors who don't understand animation, who have taken the same approach. I see more and more people who have had enough, and bail on the feature film industry. It's not just mo-cap, it's anything that involves CG. This self-indulgence is destroying the industry.
DreamWorks TV animation once released an article crowing about a new way of working that involved re-boarding everything on the Avid, after the fact. This happened on their "Invasion America" series and the technique was nothing to have bragged about. The current digital mo-cap mindset is just another way of fixing things that should have been nailed down at the outset.
Yes, and inside the microchip, there are no limits. Which is the heart of the problem. At what point did filming an actual movie become merely a formality of production? It has also undermined employees jobs, their potential for contributions to the films, and narrowed their opportunities to build on their skills in order to enhance the production and make the end product better. It has turned film production into even more of an assembly line manufacturing system. Except without union benefits. Technology dehumanizes the workplace. But what else is new. Spielberg's, Lucas', and Zemeckis' most important legacy is far more tragic than people realize. Embracing the microchip has come at an enormous cost to the art and the community.
Michael Cimino shot a million feet of film for the roller-skating sequence in "Heaven's Gate."
When Clint Eastwood was told this, he said: "That's not being a director. That's being a guesser."
Yeah, I guess taking down a major international insurance conglomerate isn't a good business model, or a good model for much of anything. Stockholders are much more involved these days, for better or worse...
EGO
The current digital mo-cap mindset is just another way of fixing things that should have been nailed down at the outset.
Actually, it's much worse than 'fixing things' implies. It's what Clint Eastwood said - they're just guessing, and when they don't like the results, they make another guess, and then another.
It's quite a bit different than Cimino's meglomania and that long gone era. These movies at the outset are greenlit, by committee, from intellectual property rights, then written and re-written to death to find an actual story, maybe some character if there is some time. Then, when they finally find something mediocre that won't get laughed completely out of the theaters, they spend a fortune trying to cover their tracks with CG effects. They are obligated to somehow make the FX better, or more unique, than the other CG laden mediocre movie that they are up against that weekend. With a marketing blitz, the box office comes rolling in for a month or so, and then on to the next one. And audiences are generally idiots, so this all tends to work pretty well.
^^ding ding ding^^
We have a winner! Too true and as a VFX artist (yes, I'm no longer in the union so according to some, I shouldn't be allowed to comment on my industry here), it would be so nice to not have to give up my life for 5-6 months at a time trying to put lipstick on a pig that's been cooking for 2 years or more.
You should be in a union. You perform a craft for this town and your skills are no less valuable than the writer who has to rewrite the crap script for the intellectual property that the corporation owns and needs to build a revenue stream from. No less valuable than the director who has to shoot the wall-to-wall green screen with bitchy celebrities in tights. If they want their f'ing 'franchise', they need to pay some health and pensions for as long as that retarded comic book hero is re-booted - ie, for perpetuity.
I would love to be in a union. I was only employed at a TAG shop for 6 months and ended up with over a year's worth of health insurance which was great since the next gig had me as a 1099 person even though I worked on their premises with their equipment (I won't get snookered like that again). It's tough to fill out a card though when you get laid off every 6 months or so - even when you know you're coming back to the same facility in a few months time.
"And audiences are generally idiots, so this all tends to work pretty well"
Oh, how nice of you to come down from your ivory tower to grace us with your opinion. Pearls before swine to be sure.
This "Oh, I'm so much better than you little people" crap attitude is disgusting. For most ppl movies are the equivalent of popcorn; satisfying while you eat it but of no real value. They are not high art, they are a distraction and an escape and there is not a God damn thing wrong with that. Do I like mocap movies - no, so I don't go see them but I don't cluck my thick tongue at those who do enjoy them or at those who work on them.
Put down the mirror Narcissus, no one outside of this little animation circle jerk gives a rat's ass what you think.
Wait a minute, I think I know you. You're the executive I work paycheck to paycheck for. Sorry I bagged on your recent CG sweatshop blockbuster that you own the rights to forever. Not enough dough socked in the bank yet? Lose a bundle in the downturn?
"new way of working that involved re-boarding everything on the Avid, after the fact."
George Lucas tried this on clone wars and his tv crap. It didn't work, but the producers were so afraid to tell him so, they had to quietly hire storyboard artists to plan every shot and never told him. I've heard even his assistant, jane bay is in on the scam....mainly to keep him calm.
"Guessing" is right. But then all of Lucas' tv garbage is like that.
And regarding Cimino....imagine--he brought down United Artists with a $40 million film budget! And now scientology aims to bring it down again.
The statement "it stays in a constant state of fluidity" really means, "I don't know what I want, but I'll know it when I see it."
I don't think we should so quickly shun this new technology. It is still in its baby stages and will improve (compare Polar Exress to Christmas Carol, Avatar, and the Tin Tin trailer.) Saying that mo cap limits one's imagination and skills as a director is not valid.
It's like blaming Spielberg and Cameron for their usage of non-traditional CG in the early 90s. If filmmakers had backed out then, then Gollum would have been a puppet!
Yoda was a great puppet-much better looking than he was as a CG effect-creased latex skin and all.
That goes for a lot of instances of model/practical work in films vs. CG. This is not a diss on CG or its technicians and artists, but sometimes what's really there in the room just looks better the eye can often tell when it's computerized.
The eye is far more forgiving to the big screen if the brain is focused on what matters, good characters and good story. Audiences start picking apart the fx only when they are not sold on the things that matter. Their eyes wander around the screen looking for confirmation that they did indeed waste their ten dollars. They will often note in focus groups that the fx were crap when what they probably don't realize is that it was just that the film was crap. And on top of that, with so much green screen these days, audiences can even pick up on the fact that the actors themselves can't stand what they are working on. You can often sense the humiliation on the actors faces as they are forced to react to characters that aren't even there. It's subtle, but it is there. And it is hilarious. When Ewan McGregor has to stand there and say "Hey, Dex!" to the stupid diner creature, you can see the pain on his face and feel his realization that he is stuck in the middle of a dressed up B movie. It's like he's having to give sperm at a sperm bank with the nurses all watching.
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