By Ryan Parsons | Image property of Universal Pictures
Andy Serkis helps bring Kong to life
KongisKing and Universal Pictures have released
the first clip in a series titled 'Bringing Kong to Life' for the upcoming
film King Kong.
What this means is a lot of computers, a lot of graphic designers and balls
on Andy Serkis' face. I kid you not.
King Kong Motion Capture
This first clip on making Kong discusses motion
capture and how Andy Serkis' has to glue a ton of balls to his face in order
to help create the emotions and facial movements of the one and only King
Kong.
Though I would have thought that this clip would end on a finale that shows
tons of finished Kong facial movements, instead we get to see some powerful
computers do some of the earlier stages to creating the look of Kong. In
order to originally track the movements, the team uses low-resolution textures
to just get the gist of how Kong is going to look. Unfortunately, video
taping Andy Serkis acting like a monkey alone does not get the job of creating
a convincing Kong done. Once the motion capture is taken, a bunch of lab
monkeys go to work and edit in some of the finer details to Kong's facial
structure and facial movements. Some of the details are trivial, such as
a single movement of the eyebrow. However, some frames require the movement
of tons of tiny points on Kong's gigantic face. Talk about a headache!
As the clip comes to a close you begin to hope that there is some big surprise
at the end. Unfortunately, the clip switches to a black screen with no final
Kong clips released. Sure, it is a bit disappointing, but if the
clips for King Kong continue to improve at the rate they are expect
only monkey greatness from this point on.
To check out the new clip for King Kong, go to KongisKing.
I am going to have to say it again-- we still have yet to receive an official
movie poster for King Kong. What the hell is Universal doing?
King Kong climbs into theatres on December 14th, 2005.
For more production diaries, artwork, movie stills, and synopsis, go to
the King Kong Movie
Page.
Add to Heffee!
