io9.com: Part of the mystique of the Oscars for best actor and actress is their singularity: Just one person gets each award every year. But, an interesting new development has the potential to turn that notion on its head, opening the door for a whole team, not just one person, to snag the nod.
8 comments:
This is interesting. As anyone who works in theatre knows, a performance is hardly a singular process. While some people might produce particularly standout work, is anyone's performance strictly their own? So much of what makes excellent work in theatre is reliant on communication and collaboration with the rest of the creative team. A mediocre actor could give an Oscar winning performance if their director knows how to work with them the right way, or if the costumer really gives them a feel for how the character moves. That being said, where is the line for motion capture? Are the CGI people taking a role similar to a director or acting coach, where they coax a performance out of someone that was already there, or do they take the role of photoshop artist, augmenting the human element into a more flaw-free version of reality? I understand the arguments both ways, but I wonder if there's much of a case to make against the use of motion capture performances in oscar nominations if we accept the fact that in theatre, no man is an island.
I have to be honest, when I first read the title of this article I expected Mr. T to be crashing through walls to receive an Oscar. However, after reading this article it opened my eyes up to a huge question. Just how much of the final product of a Mo-Cap animated character is actually credited to the actor and how much is the after effects. Honestly, I just think that this should be considered in a separate category since it's such a rising aspect in film. To have to give the Oscar to a single individual after an entire group effort is ridiculous, especially when I assume that more time is spent on the post process film than it takes to shoot the scene.
This is a funny dilemma that can only come with the 21st century! It would be interesting to see more footage of just Serkis acting out the role and see how much was added to the character with computers. At the same time no one thinks to share best actor Oscars with makeup artists. Whoever did the effects may just deserve their own award for their work. That is why I am thinking, how much of this character is the actor and how much are the artists behind it? If only there was some way of measuring this. I agree with Olivia, no performance is just the actor, so many people touch what they do. The director and the designers. There are performance that are improved in a HUGE by what is around the actor or what the actor is told to do, there must be fewer performers who can move the audience just as well with street clothes in a black box theater.
I agree with what everyone has been saying; the actor's performance is only theirs to a certain extent. There are so many other aspects of production that contribute to the acting.
I wonder if they're ever going to make an oscar for motion capture characters specifically. With how much the movie industry is moving toward CGI characters and mo-cap, it stands to reason that they should start thinking of a new oscar. Then again, I guess there would still be uncertainty as to who actually gets the oscar; the actor or the animator or some combination there upon. It probably should be the group as a whole to be fair to both the actor who had to do the voice and overall movements and the animator who spent countless hours making the actor look like the character.
I think this article brings up an important issue in movies heavily utilizing CGI; can we necessarily praise the actor or the post production crew for the finished product? Just like the article mentions the performance is still the actors, but the is the finished product simply a post-production "costume" or a true transformation of the performance into something else. It is definitely hard to draw the line, especially since this conversation hasn't seen any major attention before. Personally I don't know exactly know where to stand on this issue, I think the easy way out would be to create a separate Oscar category for Mo-Cap but at the same time that might not be giving the performer the worthwhile credit he deserves. I personally did not see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, so I cannot say whether or not Andy Serkis' performance constitutes for an Oscar nomination, but if it was strong, engaging and worthwhile enough that the nomination could be justified, and it could be proven that his performance had the vast majority of influence on the character's finished product, I'd love to see him nominated. Mo-Cap performers have a huge influence on large scale films, and up until now I think their work has gone largely unrecognized, I'm all in favor of giving them the credit they deserve, in this case an Oscar, but only as long as they truly deserve it.
This is an interesting dilemma. My basic standpoint here, I think, is that the actor should be the one getting the award. Yes, someone else saw his eyebrow movements and placed them on the ape, but someone else lit him and allowed him to be seen, and someone else filmed it, and someone else edited it, and someone else scheduled everyone to be in the right place for this to happen, and someone else costumed him...
What I'm getting at is that the creative team is, of course, a hugely fundamental part of the creation of this movie, but that doesn't make them actors. If we want to praise the individual artists and technicians, they should get their own awards. But the acting was done by the actor and no one else.
This is something that I never really thought about before, but reading about it now, I think it makes complete sense for the animators to receive recognition for their work. It is definitely difficult to draw the line between what the actor did and what the animators did, but it's undeniable that the work of the animators was crucial to the final aesthetic and meaning of the piece. A different category maybe could be warranted, but I guess that raises questions too -- would it be possible for both the animators and the actor of a single character to win oscars? If there was a "group Oscar", would each member get a statue and whatever other winnings are attached? It will be interesting to see if it ends up happening at all.
This is an interesting idea, and I think it could potentially be a very good idea. However, I believe that this all dependent on the work that is being judged. There have been plenty of times in the Tony Awards that a group has been nominated (ex. the Billy Elliot boys) or two nominees have tied for winning a single awards. In short, I think it it all contingent on the work, but this should definitely be a considerable option.
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