The Andy Serkis Animation Circus

You may have heard Andy Serkis pounding his chest over his self-elected Oscar worthy animation performance and if you didn't know much about the process of motion capture you'd be forgiven for thinking from his trumpeting that he alone is the sole reason Ceasar was so magnificent to behold up there on the cinema screen.

To be fair, I like what Andy Serkis has brought to motion capture but for him to think that he actually has sole claim over the entire performance and that he deserves an Oscar for it is ridiculous.  He makes a very valuable contribution to the process but is only one part of the process, he certainly wouldn't be considered for an Oscar if he'd dressed up in a chimp or gorilla costume and prosthetics but if he had then he would indeed have more claim to being the sole reason Ceasar was received so well by audiences.

Here's an excert from a blog post by an animator who worked on Andy Serkis' motion capture data over the years, I think he, rather than Andy would have a far better idea of just how much work went into making the character of Ceasar come to life on screen.

For him to break it down to a two part process, then, is a gross over-simplification. Aside from the artistic contribution made from either the performance capture artist or animator, or whatever mix of the two exists, there are the several other creative and technical processes needed in order for that character to be believed as any other performer. Modeling, rigging, texturing, lighting, rendering and compositing are several other crucial steps that, if not executed to the highest degree, would then render anyone’s performance or animation irrelevant because the character wouldn’t be believable.

You can read the rest of the post here