I was talking with a friend of mine who worked as an animator on the movie - Beowolf. There has been much discussion online, at the pub and in general, amongst animators, of the merits of mocap in animated films that are using digital actors.
My friend has also worked on many other big films, creature, cartoon-y and otherwise and I think he is amazing talent. I decided to protect his identity here because people can be so brutal in this industry over just having an opinion. However, I think his opinion is not only valid (much more than mine, since I only worked on one mocap show at Henson for ten days) but I also think he articulates something that really should be stated on this blog. I personally have tried to avoid mocap because it seems all of my animation colleague's long-term mocap experiences involve...
Simply cleaning up pops in the curves created by the technology and make it look as close to the original performance as possible, instead heightening a performance and adding entertainment value and personality.
This takes any and all of the fun in our job as animators and frankly dilutes the heightened experience animation usually strives for.
I wanted to share what he said with you, since so many folks seem to be arguing about this movie on topics like creativity, the loss of craft in light of technology...and so on.
My friend says...
"The fact of the matter is...these films, for an animator, are a double edged sword.
These films provide work and steady employment, but do nothing for animators creativity or career expansion. There is little to gain in terms of skill set growth, or animation knowledge by working on these films.There are some technical gains to be had, but there are usually pipe line specific and non-transferable to other studios unless you continue down the mo-cap career path. Some folks try to rationalize"animating" on these films by figuring that they learn a lot about natural motion. But animation is not about natural motion, it is about caricature. Digi-double work maybe an exception, but even that work is a caricature.
Even motion as natural and realistic as Spiderman 3 calls for pushing naturalistic poses, and accents into a hyper real caricature of reality that is dynamic, powerful and entertaining. Mocapped films are great for integrators. Some of these artists actually love the technology and love the progress performance capture is making. Some of the artist have even designed t-shirts with a "Satan's Rotoscopers" logo in a light hearted jab at the oft used description of the mocap technology. For lighters and the rest of the CG pipe line I can not speak, but I am certain it is a more creatively satisfying experience than it is for an animator.
Bottom line, stay away from this work if you can, and if you must, then make sure to spend your free time actually animating and keeping your skills fresh and sharp. Because, in this fast paced animated world, your skills can quickly sink below the bar within the time you spend working on a mocapped film."
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