No high-tech tyranny for 'Carol'
MOVIES | Director Zemeckis says motion capture gives him freedom to use creativity
Academy Award-winning South Side native Robert Zemeckis laughed out loud when called ''Mr. Motion Capture'' by a Chicago reporter.
''I guess there's some truth to that. I've been called worse,'' said the director, who has been in the forefront of the technology known as motion capture, or performance capture -- previously showcased in Zemeckis' ''Polar Express'' and ''Beowulf.''
The filmmaker, who won the directing Oscar for ''Forrest Gump'' and has made a huge impact on American cinema with his ''Back to the Future'' pictures, plus ''Romancing the Stone,'' ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit,'' ''Death Becomes Her'' and ''Cast Away,'' was back in his hometown to talk about his latest use of motion capture in ''Disney's A Christmas Carol.''
The new movie, opening Friday with some midnight screenings tonight, also incorporates 3-D technology in retelling the Charles Dickens' classic.
In motion capture, actors work against a green-screen background, with tracking dots on their faces and other exposed body parts. Computers track individual movements, not his or her visual appearance. This data can then be later mapped to a 3-D model, with backgrounds, physical appearances and the remaining details added later, worked in concert with the director's plans for each scene.
Zemeckis' love of these seemingly complicated moviemaking techniques is based on a pretty simple premise.
''For the first time in the history of the medium we are able to separate the creative from the tyranny of the technological. ... As a director, what I can do is simply work with the actors only about their performance. In a way, it's like we're just doing 'black box' theater, because I don't have to worry about cameras. I don't have to worry about microphones. I don't have to worry about shadows and lighting or even the weather!''
In short, Zemeckis explained, he can spend his long work days merely following the actors ''doing what they do best, which is to create and inhabit various characters. ... Then, they go away and in the comfort of my office, in front of a computer, I can put the camera wherever I want. I can do a scene in one giant camera setup, or I can do it in 99 camera shots.
''It's fantastic.''
As much as he loves motion capture as a filming technique, Zemeckis says the actors love it even more.
''For them it's like an extended rehearsal. They get to do scenes from beginning to end without having to break them up for camera angles, setups and all the sorts of things that happen when you're making a traditional movie.
''Actors love that they get to set the pacing of the thing as if they were onstage,'' Zemeckis said.
Given the way digital technology works, Zemeckis stressed that eventually the cost of making a motion-capture film like ''Disney's A Christmas Carol'' will ''come down quite a bit. Now it costs the same as a big Pixar animated film, but it will get cheaper and cheaper. Look at what a laptop costs today compared to just a few years ago.''
The Chicago native is convinced that had this technology existed even a few decades ago, some of his most famous predecessors would have eagerly tried it.
''All the great filmmakers who have tried to create beautiful images in their films -- like Hitchcock or Kubrick -- would have loved to have worked in this form, for the same reasons I do,'' Zemeckis said. ''Going forward, you will see a lot more of it, too. There's Jim Cameron's 'Avatar' [opening Dec. 18] and Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's 'Tintin' [coming in 2011]. It's going to be a big part of our business for the future."
Though motion capture results in a film image that has a somewhat ''animated'' quality to it, Zemeckis feels it important to stress the differences.
''First of all, today [with traditional animated films], they bring the voice actor in and put a video camera on him or her -- and then try to redraw what the actor was doing with his or her face.
''What I love with this: We just capture it as it is happening.''
The big difference is that unlike the hand-drawn or computer-generated images created for an animated film, with motion capture, ''the things an actor would do instinctively -- mannerisms, the way he would move his body or touch the frame of his glasses -- are simply captured instantly.''
Zemeckis says certain actors take to it with great relish -- including his ''Polar Express'' star Tom Hanks, and now Jim Carrey, who plays Scrooge and six other characters (including all of the Christmas spirits) in ''Disney's A Christmas Carol.''
Carrey loved working in the medium so much, ''he never would leave the set, even when he wasn't working,'' Zemeckis said. According to the director, Carrey also loved the freedom motion capture gave him to effortlessly move from playing one character to the next.
''For example, when he would come on set in the morning, I'd say, 'Jim, who do you feel like starting with? Scrooge or the Ghost of Christmas Present?'
''He could start as one, but then if he had an idea for a certain scene -- he could turn on a dime and switch roles, and we'd capture that moment.
''If you had to put on five hours of makeup, you couldn't do that.''
Yet, even with all the positives, Zemeckis did detect there was one thing his actors missed in playing their roles in this historical tale.
''They miss playing dressup. As actors, they love getting into costumes and often that does help them to get into character.
''So they have to just imagine that, but all of them told me the freedom to act all day easily overcame that part.''