Resub// The Hobbit & 48fps

The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson, was the first film to use pioneering filming techniques, with the evolution to shooting in 48fps. This new way of filming doubles the number of frames seen every second by the view to give a much smoother, clearer picture. The reason I mention this is particularly to do with Gollum and how he has evolved, digitally, to be a much more detailed version than shown in Lord of the Rings. This is a huge leap forward for the filmmakers out there but perhaps more important for the people designing and creating the visual effects.

Gollums got better looking since LOTR

and weirder..

The blue suit is keyed out in after effects and the small
black squares are tracking points so Gollum moves
with Andy Serkis.

The people on the visual effects teams and visual effects companies will now, more than ever, be able to create characters from modelling softwares and insert them seamlessly into the footage. However, if possible, a real actor should be used and CGI applied to the actor and his/her costume to enhance it in terms of colour and complexity. But in this case with Gollum, he is too deformed and weird to be acted with a costume, so the brilliant Andy Serkis, acts it out in a special suit with tracking markers on it so Gollum's skin colour/texture, eyes and facial animations can be added in after effects afterwards.

As you can see from the pictures of Gollum above the detail has dramatically improved since LOTR. The skin looks identical to that of a human, just really dirty, bruised and scarred. Every cut and bruise has been added to make him that bit more real and the colour of his skin matches the way a persons skin is in terms of how there are many different colours that comprise the pigment of our skin. In Gollum's case though its more grey and pale than a normal skin colour of a caucasian.

In the above image it is clear too see by the bottom panel how much better the CGI is in Hobbit Gollum than in LOTR Gollum. The skin is much darker and his facial animations are much smoother and more precise. This is due too the 48fps providing more frames to convey the images, and due too the tracking spots on Serkis' face. In the above image he has no tracking marks on his face which is why Gollum's facial animations aren't as good quality in LOTR because they didn't have as many tracking points to record Gollum's emotions and expressions.

In my sequence I can take some of these techniques and apply the rules they use to create a much more convincing piece. They do this by making sure that the keying of the character is done well so that the character and the blank shot merge seamlessly. When the character is in the spaceship make sure that the character isnt too bright or the background too dark so, again, they merge seamlessly.