Jinhee Lee; Looking Outwards 05

Gollum (pictured right), played by Andy Serkis (pictured left) in Lord of the Rings (2001-2003), and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), both directed by Peter Jackson.

Being that this blog post is about images rather than animation, I will talk about how Gollum’s appearance was rendered, though I will reference the latter in regards to The Hobbit.

Gollum’s appearance I believe is a rare achievement amongst CGI characters (even in modern films), as it incorporates several elements to create the character other than CGI, combining, to name a few, the 3D model with sculpted models as reference, motion capture with Serkis’ facial expressions, and Serkis’ physical presence on the set to help his fellow actors react believably.

According to this article, Bay Raitt and his team at Weta Digital created a system “which implemented 964 control points on Gollum’s face,” allowing detailed control of his facial expressions. To summarize, this system was used to animate Gollum’s face and a 3D model was drawn over the rest of Serkis’ body during recording.

The additional technique used in The Hobbit is particularly interesting in that it essentially gives Gollum a “living” skeleton, muscles, fascia, etc. to further enhance his lifelike appearance. As for the algorithms, I believe that the individual body elements are calculated to react to Serkis’ nuances in facial expression, in order to save the trouble of having to animate every single frame by hand.

Here is a link to a video describing the added techniques for animating the 3D image of Gollum for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.