Variety: One of the advantages for director Matt Reeves in the extensive motion-capture work that defined the production and eventual look of “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” — a technology with which he admits he had no experience prior to filming — was that he could, three weeks before the film was due to be finished, rewrite the ending from his L.A. office and send the lines to Andy Serkis, who plays the ape Caesar in the film. Serkis then recorded the dialogue from his home in England with Reeves providing direction from 5,000 miles away via video conferencing.
3 comments:
I loved reading about the behind scenes on dawn of the planet of the apes. I think the realistic quality technology is able to accomplish now is amazing. I was watching. A clip of Jumanji the other day and looked at cutting edge technology and special effects in 1995. The more I look at that and how far we have come in visual technology makes me both excited and intrigued to see how far we can actually go. Can we make something so realistic on film that we can't distinguish what is real and what is digital.
The story about filming a new ending with Caesar with the actor in London was mind-boggling. When I think of capturing movement/and animation on film I think of all the film shoots I've been on. Every take requires complete silence, lots of crew and more often than not a long set time. If he was able to record a scene without all of this, I think production companies could potentially save a lot of money in situations like this. It could also provide the option for the story to be told in a better way without having to think about rescheduling time as well as funding additional costs.
The article mentioned that the digital effects team’s proudest, and most challenging moments were the ones in which a human actor had to interact realistically with a computer generated representation of the actor. I remember reading articles about how The Life of Pi was so groundbreaking in this respect, having an actor interact with a virtual tiger in that way, to that level of realism, had never been done before. Just like with Star Wars, Tron and the Matrix, these recent strings of movies I believe have advanced the art of computer graphics programming. Whenever a new technology or a new application of a technology is discovered, there is often a period where movies or art is made that is less about the art or the story of the movie, than it is about the technology that has been developed. Sometimes this is overdone and the movie is just kind of bad, other times, the technology is developed to serve a function in the movie and then is used for its purpose, but not overused. It seems like the current movies utilizing motion capture tech have not been overwhelmed by the technology, but utilize it is an effective tool.
Makes me want to watch The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which of course is something I haven’t done yet. Nowadays you can tell that there is quite a bit of CGI in most films you watch, but it’s good to know that some people are willing to take risks and push the boundaries that were set saying that it couldn’t be done. Of course in that regard, it’s just more of a hazard for the equipment that they are using. I’ve often wondered how things are done when you don’t really have much of anything to work off of. I guess that’s the part where you see how well your actors can help make the space come alive by their believing that there is something solid and an environment to make that a reality. To also be able to work overseas with the actor and tell him some new lines on the script to record and be sent to the studios, that’s something I don’t think is a common occurrence.
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