Commentary 20 Nov 2007 08:39 am
mo’ Cap
- Beowulf has created an enormous stir in the animation community – or, at least, one would think so given the number of comments on blogs like Mark Mayerson‘s or Cartoon Brew‘s. Lots of angry animators are venting against the computer fans who don’t seem to understand their complaints.
I have a bunch of random thoughts and questions I’d like to add to this topic:
- - Why weren’t people as irritated by the MoCap of Monster House? Was that film any more animated than Beowulf that it should have been given a pass, nevermind an Oscar nomination?
- There was a film competing for the Short Animated Oscar called Once Upon A Christmas Village. This was the only MoCap short in competition this year. Aside from its vulgar humor, I was admittedly biased against it for its lack of real animation. The question is: if MoCap films are denied competing in the animated feature race, should the same be true for shorts?
- The Pearce Sisters is an excellent use of cgi to create 2D animation. It’s done well, and leads the way for such modes of production. The question is what happens when MoCap is used to create 2D animation? Will it offend as many people?
- Why has there been a large number of people comparing MoCap to rotoscoping? One is drawn and redrawn, timed and retimed. The other is touched up live action. Why do I see a difference and others argue against that point? I’m confused. Animation is frame by frame filmmaking. Nothing else. Even rotoscoping fits into the form. MoCap is shooting live action which is transposed via computer into something else and then touched up. I realize this is a simplification of the process, but it took some of the animators who animated Snow White, using their rotoscoped drawings, many years to get to the point where they could properly handle their scenes.
- Obviously, Disney has invested heavily into Zemeckis‘ MoCap operations. The Christmas Carol will be up next with Jim Carrey – the human cartoon – gesticulating wildly as Scrooge. How long will it be before the Pixars of the world are proclaimed obsolete and replaced by MoCap?
- If the cost of Beowulf was $150 million – more than Ratatouille and more than Shrek 3 – why was it done in MoCap rather than key frame? What was the saving? I doubt it was for artistic expression. Perhaps it’s the only way Zemeckis was able to maintain control of an “animated” film.___________________________________________The future of the animator?
Am I the only one who doesn’t think I am an alarmist? The rest of my life is set; it’s the future of animation I worry about. Really, I’m just an observer at this point.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 9:45 am 1.david e said …
As a fan of animation and not a professional what I see is a collective diminishing of expectations from the viewer. As graphics in video games comes closer to looking like mo-cap Hollywood product we’re getting closer to that point where they will both meet, where their relative costs drop, and that will become the new standard.
There will always be animation, in the same way that movies didn’t eliminate television, but as the technology boom spawned active retro crafters and hackers so will mo-cap revive an industry of artisans and craftspeople in the animation community. It only takes a little poking around the internet to find the blogs and websites of CalArts students and graduates who are showing off the influence of the Nine Old Men they’ve never met. And there’s one student in particular who seems to be channeling Mary Blair.
Zemeckis is using his digital sweatshop and mo-cap to hide behind the fact that he hates working with humans. If he could work with a bunch of robots to make his movies he’d do it in a heartbeat. When you remove humans from the equation you get cold, empty art. For all it’s technical brilliance there is absolutely nothing that inspires me to want to see Beowulf. Ultimately, I think the product’s end user and format is an iPod screen, and that’s the market that needs to be watched in terms of where all this is headed.
Sorry for getting so wordy.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 10:21 am 2.Michael said …
David, that’s an excellent comment. Thank you.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 11:49 am 3.otherthings said …
Q: Why weren’t people as irritated by the MoCap of Monster House?
A: Because the director of Monster House didn’t go around claiming that he had reinvented cinema.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 3:11 pm 4.Taber said …
We’ve been having heated debates on this topic at my school and so far it’s boiled down to the fact that most audience members can’t tell the difference. Amazing though it may be, most of my friends and relatives can’t tell the difference between CGI, hand drawn, mo-cap, or even claymation.
I have a theory of my own which mirrors the trends in art from the past. I think we’re just trying to find ways right now to head toward the pinnacle of “realistic” imagery and motion, and Mo-cap is one of the bumps in the road.
The thing I will be REALLY excited about is when we finally achieve the “real as life” mark and then have nowhere left to go but out towards surrealism, expressionism, etc. THAT will be an interesting day.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 7:11 pm 5.Scott said …
Michael said:
“How long will it be before the Pixars of the world are proclaimed obsolete and replaced by MoCap?â€
Michael, every time some new technology is introduced everyone goes crazy and claims that the sky will fall. There are still black & white movies made, correct? People paint, go to see stage plays, music concerts… things they could surely get from easier methods. Heck, people still read even though a flashier way of being told stories exists… movies!
You yourself have stated many times how animation and performance capture are different mediums. Why then do you and so many others continue to compare them? They’re a totally different thing, so why can’t they just co-exist? We can have animated pictures, and motion capture pictures. Just because one exists does not mean something else has to cease.
Animation will live on as long as people continue to make it.
David e said:
“Zemeckis is using his digital sweatshop and mo-cap to hide behind the fact that he hates working with humans.â€
What? How is making a motion capture picture cutting out the people that are necessary to make an entire feature film? How is this also any different from directing an animated feature?
“If he could work with a bunch of robots to make his movies he’d do it in a heartbeat.â€
I think its amazing that you’re able to tap into his brain like that. I have some requests, if you don’t mind…
People, grow up and let the man make his performance capture pictures if he wants to and stop with the teasing, name calling, and mud slinging (and on sites /blogs supposedly written by “professionals‘). He’s a master filmmaker who has earned the right to do what he wants.
on 20 Nov 2007 at 10:02 pm 6.John Celestri said …
Mike, I apologize for the following rant (and if I unintentionally offend anyone).
My biggest problem with motion capture is that those who proclaim it as another type of “animation” (as in 2D and stop-motion) have no real understanding of what animation is and the knowledge an animator must have in order to create a believable screen performance. An animator must understand the principles of motion, acting, etc. in order to produce a personality that appears to think and react of its own volition–not a puppet/line drawing manipulated from outside.
Animation and music have a commonality in that to produce a good work in either art form, the artist/musician must understand the underlying principles of that art form.
Motion capture is like someone taking a song (written and performed by another musician) and adding layers of acoustical effects to the recording, to the point that it hides that original performance, but is still being carried by that performance. The effects cannot stand by themselves. And that performance was not created by the effects person.
Motion capture is eye-candy. And as with all candy, too much makes one sick (at least it does me). There’s nothing wrong with candy/special effects, but for the most part it’s used to hide the weakness in the film script’s development. I wish producers would spend 1/10th the amount of effort used on candy-coating to make the script more substantial and satisfying (to me, at least).
on 21 Nov 2007 at 12:02 am 7.david e said …
Scott,
I don’t generally like to get into back-and-forth comments, but Zemeckis himself is quoted saying he hopes to live to see the day he deals with as few people as possible on a film, and that he’d like never to have to deal with another actor. I’m not pulling things out of my hat, the man really thinks like that.
on 21 Nov 2007 at 6:16 am 8.slowtiger said …
I think the problem mainly occurs because we (and the Academy as well) take one technical step and name a whole category after it.
MoCap isn’t MoCap, as well as Rotoscopy isn’t Rotoscopy. You can use the gathered data “as is” without further tweaking, or you could meticulously re-time, combine, or replace each frame with animation. (This sentence already gives away that MoCap is something different than animation…)
I don’t agree to your preference of Rotoscopy over MoCap. Rotoscopy can as well be used “as is”, like another Photoshop “artistic filter” (the always mentioned a-ha “Take on me” video fits into this), or it can be tweaked to the point that the original footage doesn’t shine through at all.
Even the bit about “must be frame-by-frame” does not seem to constitute animation: I’ve seen lots of what was called “eperimental film” which was treated frame-by-frame, but not called animation at all.
Again, I don’t think it’s enough to look at just one step in the whole process of generating a film to categorize it. I think a multi-vector approach would be better. There are a lot more dimensions to consider: are the visuals photo-realistic or imaginative? What kind of story is it, or what other kind of structure? Is the film detaioled, or is it stylized or simplified? In the end the only interesting questions will be: Is it a good film, and do I like it?
I don’t like MoCap, not the examples I’ve seen so far. It does for movement the same as crappy Photoshop manipulations do for graphics: the seams are visible, and the result doesn’t appear as a whole. Even Machinima look better to me, because they don’t try to hide their collage approach. But maybe we just need another 20 years of MoCap to stop noticing that and love the jump cuts and stock movements.
on 21 Nov 2007 at 2:41 pm 9.Will Finn said …
Mark, Thanks for weighing in with me on this, I was starting to worry that I was crazy for raising my voice at all. It certainly makes me glad I stayed out of the recent “Is FLASH animation?” debate, although I have plenty of opinions on that too…
My main objection about the BEOWULF style performance capture is that if it becomes a standard, then the artistic requirements of being named an “animator” will be lowered to the point of pure technical skill. This happened before IMO at the nadir of TV animation, when at some houses anyone who could adequately expose pre-animated “stock” footage was granted status as an “animator”. This still seems as incredible to me as it did 25 years ago and until recently I thought we left those days behind.
Animation has always had a slender enough purchase on it’s status as an Art and this would go a good way toward damaging that… I’d hate to see that happen, and not just on my own behalf, but on behalf of all of those who elevated it to an art in the first place.
I hope it was clear too that I actually do make a distinction between results like BEOWULF and the more interpretive synthesis in MONSTER HOUSE, LORD OF THE RINGS, and KING KONG. It takes an animator’s art to manipulate these figures to their various points of exaggeration and emotional intensity. On KONG and Gollum, (the best examples of this, i think) we have an actor’s performance channeled into an entirely fantastic creature, and vividly so. The nature of that work relies on actual animation ability much more than in a situation where the entirety figure has been provided on one end by modelers etc, and the performance has been provided in it’s entirety by actors, on the other. It gets even more dubious when the models in question are made to look EXACTLY like the actors being “captured.” The crew however cannot be blamed when these are the restrictions placed on them by the leadership of the project.
on 21 Nov 2007 at 4:47 pm 10.Will Finn said …
Michael, my deepest apologies for calling you “Mark” above. I think I am in great need of a long overdue vacation: from mo-cap, from animation and everything else…
Happy Thanksgiving (You can call me Al)
on 21 Nov 2007 at 11:41 pm 11.Robert S. Jersak said …
As an aficianado (not an animator) who really appreciates the breadth of this discussion, I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t putting more energy into this mo-cap debate than is required. With a relatively meager box office opening, bolstered primarily by 3D gimmicry (or artistry, if you prefer), it seems to me that Beowulf is headed down the same path as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Yes, digital filmmaking is changing the face of popular cinema, but since when have some of the great moments of this beautiful artform ever been at the forefront of popular culture? Certainly Disney’s films have had their time in the sun, but it seems like the great revolutions of animation artistry have happened quietly, in small clusters, with people sharing screenings, tapes, or, now, YouTube postings. I wouldn’t trade these moments of appreciation for all the press in the world.
But I do want to see the great artists of the medium, like Mr. Sporn, get more of an audience. Ah, c’est la vie!
on 14 Jan 2010 at 3:09 pm 12.bongopedro said …
I understand the grumbles about mocap producing a lifeless robot quality to a lot (most) of the characters it is used for but I think there’s a lot being missed in this discussion. Mocap is an incredibly useful tool and is one of many digital techniques which enable us to create work that would have been difficult to imagine not so long ago. Particle systems are now used to produce loads of effects that would have once been animated. Both of these tools can have a greater or lesser amount of traditional animation applied to them if required. And the skills required to utilise this stuff well shouldn’t be underestimated. It takes a very good understanding of motion to use this elegantly. I think the Gollum character from Lord of The rings is a good example of what can be done. Most of this motion isn’t typically human, nor is it animal, and the more we see which we recognise as “human” in the character the more we are disturbed by it’s deliberate freakishness. It’s arguable that the effect would not have been possible through traditional animation processes.
I think it’s probably true that digital film making will have a negative effect on potential opportunities to utilise traditional animation technique, and, therefore, the incredible skill base which has been so lovingly developed so far, but it won’t kill it. Just like it won’t replace actors with “synthespians”! It will, however, open up great new opportunities for creativity once people get bored with the idiotic need to use CG to copy “realism”.
on 14 Jan 2010 at 4:17 pm 13.Michael said …
bongopedro, I agree with you. There was also a nicely done character in one of the Harry Potter films. Avatar makes great use of Mo Cap. The problem is that the most obvious use is the most prominent – Robert Zemeckis. And there is no doubt that they are trying to eliminate traditional animation.
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