It’s Time

Matt Gray: On Sunday, an article by James Franco appeared on Deadline Hollywood. In it, he makes a case for the need to acknowledge the performance capture work of Andy Serkis as ‘acting’. Moreover, Franco insists Serkis’ work is “innovative” and that “he has elevated this fresh mode of acting [performance capture] into an art form.” Franco’s article seems to be a branch of an ongoing campaign in the industry to ‘reward’ Serkis, in some way, during the upcoming awards season. The campaign has adopted the title “The Time is Now”, and recently placed an advertisement in TIME magazine.
The opposition to this kind of thinking is deafening:
“Actors will be rendered obsolete.”
“What about the animators? Surely they are the ones who actually make the performance on screen.”
“What does James Franco know about ‘art’, anyway? He doesn’t even know how to properly use a comma!”
“Performance Capture is simply a ‘technical’ process– and nothing more.”