Last night,
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes won the
Hollywood Post Alliance Award for Outstanding Visual Effects - Feature Film. A wonderful achievement indeed. It beat out Alfonso Cuaron’s
Gravity, which was considered the favorite in the category. You would think 20th Century Fox would be content with winning visual effects awards for
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; however,
The Hollywood Reporter claims Fox will make a serious push to get motion-capture actor
Andy Serkis ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") an
Oscar nomination in the
Best Supporting Actor category.
There had been some speculation that Fox would campaign for Serkis in the lead actor category, despite it being as jam-packed as any this year, if only because Serkis' part in Rise is top-billed and as prominent as any actor's in the film. But instead the studio has formally resolved to promote its entire cast — including Toby Kebbell (Koba), Jason Clarke (Malcolm), Keri Russell (Ellie) and Gary Oldman (Dreyfus) — in the supporting categories, an approach that was previously employed on other ensemble-driven films such as Crash (2005), Syriana (2005) and Babel (2006), all of which landed acting noms. - THR
The studio previously attempted the same approach for Andy Serkis in 2011 with
Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The effort wasn't completely futile as Andy Serkis did receive a Critics' Choice nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category for his portrayal of 'Caesar.'
Does Andy Serkis really deserve an Oscar nomination? Many of you will quickly say "Yes!;" however, you may be shocked to learn many VFX artists are not in his corner. Over the years, Andy Serkis has angered them by minimizing their role in Andy's motion-captured performances. They were especially upset when Andy told
Io9, "
It’s a given that they (VFX artist) absolutely copy [the performance] to the letter, to the point in effect what they are doing is painting digital makeup onto actors’ performances.”
In May,
The Lord of the Rings animation supervisor,
Randall William Cook (three-time Oscar winner), decided he could no longer put up with Serkis downplaying the role of animators in the motion-capture process. "
But let me swear to you here that Gollum was not solely an Andy Serkis performance, with Andy’s every move, gesture and tic scrupulously reproduced in a new, digital character," Cook explained to
Cartoon Brew. "
Rather, Gollum was a synthesis, a collaborative performance delivered by both Andy and a team of highly-skilled animation artists."
Cook provided a laundry list of examples from
The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Below, are the examples regarding Andy's performance in 2012's
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
TWO TOWERS saw much more involvement from Andy. Several examples from that film. Gollum, after he has been tamed and led along on a rope, is released and scampers up onto a rock, showing the hobbits where they must go. This was filmed with Andy squatting on a rock. Sam and Frodo come up to him, Sam and Gollum have a staring contest, and Sam backs down. It bothered me that Sam was turning his back on Gollum, which seemed out of character, so back in Wellington I directed animator Atsushi Sato to have Gollum break his look, and precede Sam out of the shot. This isn’t Digital Makeup, this isn’t a “technical” chore, this is an acting choice. And it wasn’t Andy’s idea, but mine. And it was Atsushi Sato who “played” that moment, not Andy. It was a decision within my purview as Animation Director and Peter signed off on it.
Gollum hears the name Smeagol for the first time in 500 years. We used Andy’s body mocap, but I didn’t care for what I thought was Andy’s too-busy facial performance, so I told Adam Valdez to ignore it and animate something subtler. He animated two shots and Linda Johnson animated the third, and they created a memorable acting moment which did not “honor” Andy’s performance in the slightest. There were many times where we honored Andy’s performance to the letter, but this wasn’t one of ’em.
That film ends with a long mo-cap take of Gollum soliloquizing. Jason Schleifer, Adam Valdez and Mike Stevens had much to do with the acting of this scene, as the animation task was split among them. We also changed the choreography on that one, having Gollum advance emphatically toward the camera, having him wrap his hands around a branch and twist, as he throttles a hobbit in his imagination. Again, acting choices courtesy of the Weta Animation Department. - Randall Cook
Click here for more examples.
A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is being directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In), from a screenplay written by Mark Bomback, Scott Z. Burns, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The cast includes: Andy Serkis (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Public Enemies, The Great Gatsby), Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight Rises, The Harry Potter film series), Keri Russell (The Americans, Mission Impossible III), Toby Kebbell (The Prince of Persia, Wrath of the Titans, Rock N Rolla), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, ParaNorman), Enrique Murciano (Traffic, Black Hawk Down), Kirk Acevedo (The Thin Red Line) and Judy Greer (The Descendants, Three Kings, 13 Going on 30). The film climbs into theaters July 11, 2014