Target3d - Intro to Motion Capture

Target 3D’s Ryan Mercier leading us in a little physical warm-up.

Back in August, I took the opportunity to go and train with the good people over at Target3D on their Intro to Motion Capture workshop. It’s taken some time but I’ve managed to do a thing or two with the footage I’ve received.

Basically, having had some chats with people over the past year, I’ve set some training goals within my acting journey. Chief among these is to get out the gym and get totally ripped.

That hasn’t happened.

The second thing was to go out and get some experience in Motion Capture.

This has.

Seeing as I’d had a taste of Head Motion Capture previously, I thought it would be a good thing to go and learn a little more, hence my turning to the team at Target3D at the recommendation of my friends at Damn Good Voices. Teaching the course was Target3D’s Ryan Mercier, who led us through some improvisational exercises that would help us get into core of the MoCap experience. We were walked through the technology, the similarities and difference between MoCap and normal performance and finally the process of preparing to perform in a MoCap project. Long story short, it’s a lot about physical acting! Utilising your body to take on the characteristics of the characters you’re portraying. And of course, depending on the type of Motion Capture work you’re doing, it can get pretty weird; I spent a good bit of time portraying a bear! This was all explored on day 1.

The MoCap gang! From left to right, Rhiannon, me and Xavio.

Before continuing, it might be worth saying that I was one of a few people on this instance of the course. Alongside me were fellow actors Xavio and Rhiannon with Lucy joining us on day 2. Big shout out to them as they’re awesome and made the experience super fun. hope to see them down the line in the future!

Some kind of Infected Monster Avatar used in our final MoCap Scene.

So, on Day 2, we worked on a pre-prepared scene. My scene partner on this was Rhiannon, playing the role of Roman opposite my character, Blake. Our setting is post-apocalyptic, and me and Roman are out to kill each other over something or other. Watch the scene and add your own context. It’s all linked below.

Once we started acting, it all started to feel very familiar and we nailed it all in a couple of takes. Where it got interesting was in the turn-around, where I had to go from being Blake to some kind of infected creature. Creature physicality was challenging as you really had to ensure that you were moving with a great awareness of what your body was doing. There was a couple of times I got called out for allowing myself to look too human in my movement, leading to a fairly unthreatening looking monster. Only when you really leaned into the physicality, and pushed the body to move in an alien way, did the creatures really start to shine, as their monstrousness became more apparent in their moves.

Having completed the course, there was a few weeks before we got the footage back. And then as usual, I sat on it for ages before actually doing anything with it. However, finally there is a reel edited together.

I’d like to say a big thanks to the folks at Target3D, who were awesome teachers, my fellow performers, who brought their A game, and also to Damn Good Voices, for pointing me down this path. Not everyday you get to play a bear, alien, commando and bounty hunter in short order! Thanks Target3D!