'An Open Letter to Andy Serkis'

As someone who studied animation for a short time, I agree and disagree with the open letter. I don't mean to undervalue the work put into the actual animation, but I have to say that by acting as the inspiration for these 3-d characters, I think Serkis deserves just as much credit as the animators. He might not be actually working on the computer or rendering any individual frames of animation, but he is acting as a quasi-head animator. The footage of Serkis' performances establishes keyframes for animators to work from and gives them direction to take their work in.

Aside from the fact I don't like the condescending tone the open letter takes. It acts as of it is trying to disown the teamwork between not jut Serkis, but any mo-cap animator, and the animation team behind them. This is why I don't think there should be any awards just for Serkis when it comes to these digital characters, because it really is a team effort.

The footage of Serkis' performances establishes keyframes for animators to work from and gives them direction to take their work in.

True. He's sort of providing their "blocking", to put it in CG animation terms. It's sort of like what Chuck Jones did for his Looney Tunes cartoons, only in CG instead of on paper. Chuck would draw 400 key poses to establish the timing and the acting and then the animators would flesh it out which is what the animators on Apes would've done to the acting Serkis provided.

In the end, I think BOTH the animators and Andy Serkis deserve equal amounts of credit for the performance. No side should be taking more credit or leaving the other side out... which is what I see Serkis doing, unintentionally or not, to the animation team on Apes (as well as LOTR and Kong where less of his motion capture was used and he still took all the credit).

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"An animator is an actor with a pencil (or a mouse!)."

Animators have been using live-action reference for more than seventy years...The live action filming helps the animator doing certain movements such as when a character turns their head, how far can you someone turn their head before they have to move their shoulders? Any good animator is going to utilize what they are given from the voice actor or the motion-capture actor or whoever. What Serkis is doing is providing the basis for the animators. The letter seems to forget what he contributes to it or just not care. It makes perfect sense for him to want some recognition because, as an actor he's going to try to give the best performance he can. Regardless of what the animators do with it. Like you said it's a complete team working to create it from the basis that Serkis gives them.

God you can have Megan Fox...Give us back Vivien Leigh

What Serkis is doing is providing the basis for the animators.

Exactly. And that's what Serkis does not get about the process. SO MUCH WORK goes in after the fact making the mocap footage looking as good as it does that the animators deserve just as much credit as Serkis for the performance.

When the animators get their scene, they get a very watered down weightless version of Andy's performance. What they've got to do is take that very rudimentary data and amp it up giving it the weight and power that we see in the film. Plus animate the hands, feet, tails etc. from scratch. Those aren't captured at all.

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"An animator is an actor with a pencil (or a mouse!)." Digital animator and PROUD of it.

the animators deserve just as much credit as Serkis for the performance

That's where we agree.

God you can have Megan Fox...Give us back Vivien Leigh

I didn't read the article, for various reasons, but I probably will in the next couple of days.

However...

In general I find it very annoying when people publish "open letters" to individuals and then go on to vent their spleens about perceived personal slights. I wish they'd just shut up and have a little dignity! The whole thing just smacks of sour grapes, bitterness, and jealousy.

In terms of this animator thinking Serkis "takes" all the credit, I think that's a very unfair assessment. Publicity departments (and the media) latch onto what they choose to latch onto. Should Serkis refuse to accept people's acknowledgment of his hard work?

Also, Weta Digital won Academy Awards for their work on all three LOTR films, as well as King Kong. Serkis wasn't even nominated! Come on, guys. Be happy! You got 4 Oscars for 4 films in succession. You are hardly being ignored here!

Also...

Of all the thousands of sfx movies that have ever been made, few of their animators have been given as much exposure than the ones at Weta. Each film in the LOTR trilogy provided two full DVDs of documentaries that pretty much gave ULTIMATE credit-where-credit-is-due, with countless hours of documentary material about the folks at Weta. This was then repeated with King Kong, which provided equal (if not more) opportunity for the Weta guys to take their due credit, and show everyone what they do.

No one from Weta has any right to complain about lack of exposure! It really disappoints me to see that one of them has.

The only difference between Serkis's exposure and theirs is that he is an ACTOR, and therefore is REQUIRED for publicity and promotion of the films he does.

Of all the visual effects houses in the world, Weta Digital is one of the most well-known, respected, and celebrated. Weta personnel have FANS for pete's sake!

In my opinion, Serkis has been very balanced in his discussion of working on Rings and Kong. He always praises the guys at Weta (as do ALL the other actors), and he has never (to my knowledge) complained about a job. No one likes a moaner.

P.S.

I just read the open letter. Haven't read the other links yet.

It occurs to me that the whole issue of who takes credit for what (in the case of a collaborative effort) could be solved quite simply:

In the early days of QUEEN, they all fought over credit for who wrote which song. Eventually they simply credited each song as having been written by QUEEN. Problem solved!

So, let's have a category at the Oscars for "Best Digital Character", and then when the winner is announced, the entire animation team AND the actor go to the stage and collect a statuette.

What could be simpler and more elegant than that?

*Pats self on back for resolving another international crisis/hissy fit*

Andy gets all the credit in the world from me. You can get some dumb ass and we get jar jar binks or someone who made me believe in the character like Ceaser. They have awards for the animation already.