Technology first used to animate Gollum in Lord of the Rings, played by Andy Serkis.
Technology first used to animate Gollum in Lord of the Rings, played by Andy Serkis.
As Gollum and King Kong, Andy Serkis showed what could be done with film’s cutting-edge technology. But, as he tells Robert McCrum, we haven’t seen anything yet.
In 2005, when the British film producer Jonathan Cavendish took his children to see Sir Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong, he was not fully aware of the hi-tech wizardry behind its astounding special effects.
Among the millions who saw The Lord of the Rings, there was a sub-section who were aware of the science that turned Andy Serkis into Gollum and was now being brought to his starring part in King Kong. Cavendish was not one of them. He was blissfully ignorant of "performance capture" and its artistic scope.
"I came across King Kong as a punter," he recalls. "But I was really moved by the relationship between the digital creature [King Kong] and the character played by Naomi Watts. I was so moved that, embarrassingly, I cried in front of my children. I just didn't understand what was happening, because a collection of pixels does not usually achieve that kind of emotion."
Then his producer's brain kicked in. "I went away and looked up how King Kong had been made. I was amazed to discover that inside King Kong was Gollum [Serkis]. I mean, I had no idea."
Memorabilia from Lord of the Rings films and King Kong will be part of a new movie museum to be built in Wellington, which will house items from the personal collections of Sir Peter and special effects whiz Sir Richard Taylor.
Cavendish, a laidback 50-something, has the kind of insouciant charm you often find in the movie business.
He's also a quintessentially English enthusiast for cinema, best known for the Bridget Jones films. He says he was looking for a movie-making collaborator when, by chance, mutual friends introduced him to Serkis.
"My father once told me: either be the best in the world at something or find somebody who is the best in the world at something - and work with them." He looks affectionately across the table at Andy Serkis. "I chose the latter route."
Gollum changed everything for Serkis, placing him at the leading edge of a revolution in cinematic production. The technology exploited by Sir Peter inspired a new way of representing fantasy figures from classic fiction: if the director could now record almost every aspect of an actor's performance and transform it into a screen character, the actor was also liberated to fully inhabit the role.
When The Lord of the Rings ended, Serkis imagined returning to the life of a jobbing actor. Up until then he had mainly worked as a character actor in British TV, with a string of good but not spectacular credits, including The Darling Buds of May, Finney and Oliver Twist.
"I thought Lord of the Rings was the end of the line," he recalls. "But then Peter asked if I wanted to play King Kong. It was only at that moment that I went: 'Wow! This new technology enables you to go from playing an ex-hobbit to a 25-foot gorilla'."
Cavendish vividly remembers the first time they got together to discuss film.
"In the smoky and mildly debauched atmosphere of Blacks [a members' club] in Soho, west London, we bonded over vodka martinis." He laughs: "We talked for hours about films and music and books we both loved and quickly realised we shared a passionate desire to tell stories, in new and different ways." The upshot was the Imaginarium, a creative laboratory based in Ealing, west London, founded in 2011. The name was derived by Serkis from the "vivarium" of Victorian times, in which animals were kept in a semi-natural state. In reality the office is a highly "virtual" landscape, a grotty-looking rehearsal space ringed with 50 cameras and a battery of computers.
They are already working on some impressive projects, including Animal Farm and The Jungle Book.
"We're very British," says Cavendish. "But also international, with outward-looking, global ambitions. And I think the Andy [Serkis] factor is vital to our success. Andy is internationally recognised and has given his name to a cutting-edge production company that's dedicated to developing new technology and new stories."
I'm here to talk to them about the project that will be on television screens soon: Raymond Briggs's 1970s cartoon classic
Fungus the Bogeyman
, starring Timothy Spall, Victoria Wood, Keeley Hawes and Marc Warren. The Imaginarium's version falls somewhere between a digital extravaganza, animated film and state-of-the-art prosthetic pyrotechnics, but with all the emotional and crowd-pleasing heft of traditional film - Ealing entertainment in its purest form.
For the Imaginarium, the role of Fungus, whose daily task is to terrify the terrestrial world of "dry cleaners" (Bogeyman slang for humans), is performed by Timothy Spall, who cheerfully embodies the dirt-dwelling, filth-eating monster who moves in next door to the "dry cleaners" of Daventry with bizarre, slimy and entertaining consequences. "A year ago," says Cavendish, "the wisdom in the industry was that the kind of detailed effects we've achieved with Fungus couldn't be done, but we've found a way to do it."
Since launching the Imaginarium, Serkis and Cavendish have made huge strides in educating their profession in the possibilities of performance capture, and in allaying actors' fears that CGI meant the death of their trade.
"There was a lot of resistance when we started," says Serkis. "But that's now completely gone. Actors are queueing up to explore this new world, and extend their range."
Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander and Naomie Harris turned up for an intense two-week session in the Imaginarium's virtual landscape for The Jungle Book. Christian Bale is also in it, but could not leave LA - though such is the adaptability of the Imaginarium that Serkis and Cavendish were able to "capture" Bale's contribution separately in Hollywood and seamlessly insert it into the film.
"[For the actors] it's like being on stage," says Serkis. "Or like being in rehearsal. They say the same thing: that there's no limit. Once they've got used to the technology, they feel they can do anything. The key to the new technology is its fidelity to the actor's performance, to the character. It's not a question of the actor being smothered by special effects. The exciting thing is that it liberates them, creatively."
