Andy Serkis is no stranger to motion capture, having brought many iconic CG character to life. Now he has revealed how his experience playing characters such as The Lord of the Rings' Gollum helped him direct Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
In an Instagram interview with IGN, Serkis shared how his "last two decades" with motion capture prepared him for directing the film. He said, "There's no question that all of the experience with the way that the technology has evolved, the understanding of how to integrate CG characters into real live-action environments, how to, hopefully, as a director, inspire other actors, to provide an atmosphere for them to really get into character using all the technology... That's, I think, partially why I was the candidate for the job."
Serkis explained how motion capture technology was essential to differentiating the two symbiotes on screen, ensuring that both characters moved with their own distinct characteristics. "So in terms of Carnage himself, we trawled through every single comic than involved Carnage and looked at all the different ways he moved physically. The way that he was able to shapeshift to manifest himself in different ways. That was where we used performance capture to kind of bring Carnage to life actually in the testing phase."
In the recent trailers, Carnage can be seen using his tendrils to pull himself along at great speed, while Venom can be observed moving his hulking physique in a more beast-like manner. Serkis commented on the distinction between the two, saying, "So we brought on board parkour artists and dancers, and then really experimented with the fluid way… we wanted a very different way for [Carnage] to move than Venom. And so, we sought of used their movements as a way of generating a very kind of twisted, malevolent, very different energy to the way that Venom moves and fights."
Serkis' roots in motion capture include his groundbreaking performance as the entirely CG character Gollum in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Serkis credited Jackson with an early understanding of the potential and benefits to the technology, saying Jackson understood that to bring CG characters to life there needed to be "a real understanding that there was a sentient being, a real being, there on set. And the way of finally manifesting that would obviously be with lots of visual effects. But actually to create the initial performance, and to create the initial energy for other actors to act against, that was a big scene changer."
Serkis has continued to work with motion capture technology as it has evolved; he played Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise, providing the physical, facial and vocal performances for the character. He addressed how the technology had evolved significantly since his time as Gollum, going from filming the motion and facial capture separately, to capturing the entire performance in a single shoot on location. "More and more actors have been involved in using performance capture and understand it as a way of really playing any character. You can actually play anything now. It's a wonderful 21st Century actor's tool."
Venom: Let There Be Carnage arrives Oct. 1 in theaters.
Source: Instagram