cinemovie.tv

Robert Zemeckis's first foray into motion capture technology in 2004 with The Polar Express was received with mixed results.  Critics and audiences alike felt the animated humans were too stiff and their eyes a bit disturbing. 

With advances in motion capture, the Back To The Future director was able to improve on the animated human motion and emotion with Disney's A CHRISTMAS CAROL featuring Jim Carrey voicing Ebenezer Scrooge.  Audiences agreed and helped put the Jim Carrey holiday movie into the number one spot at the box office opening weekend.  

According to producer Steve Starkey (Forrest Gump) at a recent press conference in Beverly Hills, CA with the cast and director Robert Zemeckis, “This is a movie that couldn’t be made until now.” “This is like a perfect storm of a piece of material and the means to do it with.”Robert Zemeckis explains that during Polar Express he fell in love with digital cinema and has, “Been on a quest for a movie idea that could be presented in this new art form.” When he got the notion to recreate Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, he went back to the source material and “I realized it hadn’t been realized in the way that it was actually imagined by Dickens, as he wrote it.” So Zemeckis, Starkey and ImageMovers president Jack Rapke began a journey to collect the best in the business to turn Charles Dicken’s vision into a cinematic reality. 

Their first objective was to cast Jim Carrey. Jim’s strong physical abilities as an actor and the talent necessary to play multiple roles is what made Jim the perfect choice to play Ebenezer Scrooge.  After playing the Grinch in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Jim already had an insight into the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge. 

When Zemeckis was studying Dicken’s original story and the various versions that have been made of A Christmas Carol over the years, he noticed that the famous Dicken’s illustrator Jonathan Leech didn’t even attempt to draw the Ghost of Christmas Past. Dicken’s description was of, “A Morpheus light; he’s an old man, a young man, a child, he’s elderly.” Until now we have not had the technology to recreate that vision.

In regards to Motion Capture, or as actors refer to it, Performance Capture, producer Steve Starkey explains that the science of Motion Capture began in the medical profession as a means to study the range of human motion. The Golfing industry took this technology and perfected it for sports, and now the film industry is adapting the science for creative and entertainment purposes. The beauty of Performance Capture for film is that it takes away all the limitations for the actor.

Bob Hoskins, who was in the ground breaking film Who Framed Roger Rabbit raves that this new technology is fantastic. “Before, everything had to be dressed, everything was there, and we shot the film. Then they blew up the frames and painted on the characters. But this, they shot all the performances, and then they painted the background, put in all the costumes, and did everything else, so it was the complete reverse. What was extraordinary is the fact that once you are covered in all this stuff, (The Performance Capture Suit) you’ve got nothing else to do but concentrate on your performance. They’ve taken all responsibility away from you. It’s extraordinary.”

According to the stars of the movie, the only limitations of Performance Capture was the imagination and the talent to pull it off. Robin Wright Penn was able to play both Belle, Scrooge’s love interest, as well as Fan, Scrooge’s little sister. Gary Oldman was able to play Bob Cratchit, the ghost of Jacob Marley, and even Tiny Tim. But the biggest hat trick was Jim Carrey. Not only did he play Scrooge at various ages, but all three Christmas Ghosts. Robert Zemeckis approached the film as if all the spirits were an extension of Scrooge himself. This made it appropriate for Jim to play all three. 

Jim Carrey admits he didn't perform his multiple roles alone.  “I had the most incredible help anyone could ask for in Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride). Cary Elwes sacrificed for me. He really was there for me. He played opposite of me in all the scenes to give me a reference and to give me someone wonderful to play with. He was also very helpful with the accents. I called him accent man because you could literally name any country on the planet and he knows the accent.”Another bonus of Performance Capture is time management. Every day when Jim Carrey would come in Robert Zemeckis would ask him, “Who do you want to be today?” With no sets to dress, no lights to hang, and no make-up to prep, everyone had the luxury of time to try new things.  If something didn’t work, the actors tried something else until everyone was happy and satisfied.

Theatre trained actor Colin Firth (Bridget Jones Diary) states, “All that freedom takes adjusting to.” When we’re working through the scene, we’re recording everything because there’s no film, there’s nothing, just hard drives running. As actors we’d do scenes from beginning to end, like you would in the theatre.”

At one point during filming Jim Carrey asked for a camera to be there just as a point of reference, so Robert Zemeckis had a video camera installed.

“The image that the camera is recording is not usable because its got Jim with all his markers. But what I realized is that when I put a marker on the camera, that it became another character in the piece. So I immediately am creating shots in the virtual world. But what it does for the performer, we’ve been making movies for 100 years, and the camera is a dance partner. The camera is another performer. The camera creates rhythm, so an actor feels the camera moving from here to here and he knows when to deliver his line.”

Robin Wright and Jim Carrey did have one problem with the Performance Capture.  Their suits were annoying when they tried getting closer to each other and the markers would clack.  Gary Oldman (Batman Begins) had to spend a large portion of his time on a crane. But all the actors said that filming with this technology was a fascinating experience, and when they saw the final results, it was magic.

Like the actors, the camera had no limitations either, so things like perspective issues and boundaries did not exist. Therefore when Scrooge is flying through the air it’s like being on a theme park ride, with twists and turns and amazing plunges. Shots that would be difficult using conventional filming are no problem in digital cinema.

Zemeckis and the producers upped the cinematic experience by filming it in 3D.  Jack Rapke explains their decision:

“We believe, because we make the movie in three dimensions to begin with, that it’s an organic extension into 3D exhibition of movies. So, our technologies are allowing us to do that. And Bob’s cinema has always laid out, elegantly, because he makes the movies in three dimensions anyway.  And when you take Bob’s camera work and you take the cinema that’s created in three dimensions, even in our two dimensional film that will go out in the world, you’ll get the feeling of 3D as well.”  “Technology is just a tool that Bob has at his disposal, to tell the story the way he wants to tell it.”

Setting aside all the technological advances, this film still comes down to being a good story. Jim Carrey, “I think these stories get told at times when they’re supposed to be told. I don’t think that we are so in control. It was Bob’s choice to choose this story, but someone was choosing Bob, and this story needs to be told right now.”  To paraphrase what Steve Starkey said earlier, this film is the perfect storm of a good story and the creative means to tell it in a new, exciting way.  It is A Christmas Carol for our times and a beautiful cinematic achievement.

A Christmas Carol is currently playing in movie theaters.