TheMovieman

I had seen War for the Planet of the Apes the other day and thought Andy Serkis was brilliant and it got me wondering about that question, if a motion capture performance will get an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination.

My gut says since it's too fantasy (and VFX) oriented, no.



(and can a mod correct my spelling error, performance?)

Mr. Flix

I personally doubt it. A character like Caesar or Gollum is the result of a team's work, and while the motion-capture actor (who often also provides the voice performance) is doing a huge chunk of the work, the viewer can never know for sure which nuances of the performance are to the actor's credit, and which ones were added by the animators who are in charge of creating the final visual of the character.

That said, I think the Academy is overdue in creating a category to honor motion capture and voiceover performers in motion pictures. The Emmys do it for TV voice actors. I don't know what the category would be called ("Best Synthetic Character Performance"?), but I could see it being a shared award between the actor and the animators that together created a compelling performance.

PacMan2006

I think so. I think as the years roll on--with everything from movies to video games--people are becoming a lot more aware of the dedication to the craft of acting when it comes to performance capture.

With that said, I think it will take a certain kind of CGI character, movie, and performance. I don't think someone will win for playing an ape, but if technology gets to the point where they make, say, a great Martin Luther King biopic, and Dr. King is CGI, but you have an actor doing his voice, vocal inflections, mannerisms, making the "character" his own but it also being undeniably reminiscent of a real historical figure--I can see that being something where voters are impressed enough to give someone the Oscar.

Mabuse

The award will be called The Jar Jar. In honor of a cinema pioneer.