Gollum Star Talks Heavenly Sword

[KnightRiderX]

Gollum Star Talks Heavenly Sword
Motion capture maestro Andy Serkis on being the man behind the magic in Ninja Theory's PS3 epic.
by Joe Utichi, IGN UK
THQ Sopranos

UK, November 9, 2006 - Heavenly Sword is so beautiful it'd make Bond ditch his girl. Click through to a gameplay video and you can be darn sure you'll be scratching your head for hours afterwards trying to work out if you just saw FMV or in-game footage. But Ninja Theory has been keeping the game so close to its chests for so long that we're fairly sketchy on just what's going on beneath the surface.

Enter Andy Serkis, who recently talked exclusively to IGN about the game on the set of his new film, Sugarhouse Lane. "I've been directing motion capture for the performances," he explained. "I got involved at the story design stage and helped them to create back histories for all of the characters and their relationships and then I cast it and directed the motion capture."

Best known as the man responsible for bringing Gollum to life in Peter Jackson's seminal Lord of the Rings trilogy - and, indeed, exploring his range by going from impish creature to giant ape as he followed Jackson to the set of King Kong - Serkis is passionate in his support of motion capture and digital character creation as an art-form. "I really think that in ten years time when actors come out of drama school they'll be doing theatre, film, TV and games," he told us, "Motion capture is becoming such a part of the acting toolkit."

Of his work on Heavenly Sword, Serkis told us he'd been enjoying the experience of bringing the game's characters to life. "Film and gaming are creeping closer and closer together," he said, "and this, because of the facial motion capture involved, is really highly performance motivated and narrative driven. The gamer is invited into the movie, really, as opposed to hack-and-slash. I think it'll be a pretty cool game actually.

"I'm working back in New Zealand with the motion capture team that worked on Lord of the Rings and King Kong."

But Serkis is well aware that he's on the cutting edge of acting, a territory that saw him starved of an Oscar nomination for his work on Rings in spite of huge support from industry colleagues. As he never actually appeared on screen the Academy ruled that it wasn't a complete performance even though he'd been responsible for the nuances of character that made Gollum so believable.

"People at the moment are so fazed by the concept of digitally advancing an actors' performance or the manifestation of the character being delivered after the fact," he admitted. "It's very hard to explain to them that it's essentially the same and people's eyes glaze over when I talk about it. I guess, one day, people will get a grip on it."

Serkis has never been interested in awards, though, preferring instead to tackle jobs that challenge him as an actor. Heavenly Sword, he says, has been a thrilling opportunity. Here's hoping that we're as thrilled when it arrives on PlayStation 3 in the New Year.

Source

Not much. just a little info not specifically related to the game.

[EvilTaru]

Thanks, but sometimes I wish these guys would talk about gameplay instead, which imo is far more important than either animations or overall production values, not that those aren't important, but gameplay is the biggest question mark at this point, I'm not really worried about the other two.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

I think it's very interesting, good read.