Advances Sure to Capture Attention at Siggraph by Carolyn Giardina

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Friday, August 3, 2007 Advances sure to capture attention at Siggraph By Carolyn Giardina

Performance capture — the method of dig- technologies. They include two projects from for use. itally recording an actor’s facial expressions Sony Pictures Animation, “Neanderthals” and In the case of CG humans, there already and body movements — is evolving to an untitled feature from VFX supervisor have been successes, largely for stunt doubles become a bona fide filmmaking technique for Jerome Chen; and a movie based on James or performances where the use of a live actor creating CG characters in both animated and Patterson’s “Maximum Ride.” would not be practical or possible. But for live-action productions. A preview of Para- Meanwhile, “Beowulf” director Robert actual acting — like sitting at a table having a mount Pictures’ “Beowulf” should under- Zemeckis’ performance-capture studio conversation — most agree that the industry score that message and make the technique a Image-Movers Digital is using the technique is not there yet. hot topic at Siggraph, the annual computer to make an adaptation of “A Christmas Car- In some cases, these efforts have resulted in graphics confab that opens this weekend in ol” for Disney that stars Jim Carrey as an area known as the “uncanny valley,” the San Diego. Scrooge and the three ghosts. point where the CG human is realistic but not A clip from “Beowulf” will be screened dur- Industrial Light + Magic, creators of a per- quite right, introducing a perceptual zone ing Siggraph’s Electronic Theater computer formance capture-based Davy Jones and crew known to cause a dip in empathy from an animation festival; it includes performance- on the second and third films in the “Pirates audience. VFX pros agree that the industry is captured Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins of the Caribbean” franchise, plans to use its getting closer to overcoming this hurdle, but- and Ray Winstone. Said festival chair Paul iMoCap performance-capture system on sev- Digital Domain vp advanced strategy Kim Debevec: “To capture a human performance eral upcoming productions. In addition, Libreri believes it remains a year or two away. and bring it into the digital world in a way that director David Fincher and Digital Domain From a technical standpoint, the removal represents the acting — we are just on the are known to have been examining capture of markers from the motion-capture process threshold of showing that it is possible.” methods for production of “The Curious is one direction innovation is heading. Numerous technology manufacturers plan Case of Benjamin Button,” which would Instead of markers, Mova’s Contour uses to demonstrate performance capture show Brad Pitt aging in reverse. an FDA-approved phosphorescent makeup advancements for face and/or body during Performance capture, combined with mixed with a base that is sponged onto the the confab, but Hollywood already is demon- highly skillful computer animation, can be actor and used to capture motion data. Also, strating a keen level of interest. used to help breathe life into a CG human or Organic Motion is readying a markerless “When one or more characters has to be character. Said ImageMovers executive vp body motion capture system that uses a synthetic by design, there are many discus- Doug Chiang: “This medium can liberate mocap stage. “We use new types of computer sions about using performance capture for the director.” vision to track and digitize the human shape live action as well as animation,” said Debbie In addition, performance capture has without the need to attach markers or any Denise, executive vp production infrastruc- found other applications, like previsualiza- types of devices,” Organic Motion founder ture and executive producer at Sony Pictures tion. and CEO Andrew Tschesnok said. Mean- Imageworks. “It frees up live-action directors An unusual use was identified recently at while, Image Metrics is developing technolo- to cast whomever they want in whatever role Mova, maker of the Contour reality capture gy to enable markerless facial animation by they want. I think it will become popular as system. Company president Steve Perlman capturing data directly from video. Mova will long as the character design supports the said that an “A-list actor” that he declined to demonstrate techniques at Siggraph with rationale. We are talking to three or four com- identify recently asked the company to cap- motion capture system developer Vicon. panies about significant characters for ture a collection of the actor’s performance at Efforts also are in place to eliminate the upcoming films that need to be synthetic by present age. Perlman said Mova is essentially mocap stage. ILM’s iMo-Cap, for instance, design.” creating a data library of the actor, which will allows the actors to perform on set or on loca- Imageworks — the company behind perfor- be stored on a hard drive. tion while a director is shooting the scene. mance capture-based “Beowulf,” “The Polar This offers stunning possibilities. Perlman “It’s not about technology; it’s about the cre- Express” and “Monster House” — already is suggested, for instance, that if the actor is to ative process,” ILM’s Michael Sanders said. developing three new projects to use its pro- appear in a flashback in a future project, the “It’s about not interrupting the film-making prietary Image motion performance-capture actor at a younger age is stored and available process.”