   Andy Serkis Discusses The Art of Motion-Capture Acting
Be it the raspy voiced bag of skin and bones that is Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the eponymous building-sized “monster” from King Kong, the genetically-altered chimp Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes – or, most recently, the burly alcoholic Captain Haddock from The Adventures of Tintin, Serkis has served as the heart and soul of many a memorable digitally-rendered character. Hence, the previous studio-backed pushes for him to receive an Oscar nod for his work in both the Rings trilogy and the Apes franchise reboot/prequel. Despite the especially-massive push for Serkis to receive recognition for his performance as Caesar, the actor’s name was absent from the list of official 84th Academy Award nominations announced earlier this morning (at the time of writing this). Arguably, part of the reason behind both the Serkis snub and Tintin‘s being denied a Best Animated Feature nod is because many an Academy member is said to be wary of the mo-cap approach to character creation. More.. First H5 of the new year! Andy Serkis, Bob Anderson, LEGO Legolas, Sir Richard TaylorH5 is back with your weekly Hobbit installment. Our host Simone Boyce comes to you from an unfamiliar, and intimate, setting with TORn’s top stories and the latest Hobbit production news. View all H5 episodes on our YouTube Channel here. Serkis implies Smaug design still in-progressSpeaking with MTV at the Golden Globes the other night, Andy Serkis played typically coy about the appearance of Smaug in the forthcoming films. “I can’t give any secrets away, none of those trade secrets,” Serkis said. “I can’t say that because actually it’s still under wraps.” However, he did seem to imply that they’re still refining how it will look in the films. Ta to Irfon for the heads-up. Serkis talks performance capture, including The HobbitAnimation/special effects expert Bill Desowitz has posted an interview with Andy Serkis on Indiewire. In it Serkis talks about new performance-capture techniques that have been developed by Weta since he played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. One paragraph describes his scene with Bilbo in The Hobbit: Indeed, that’s what happened when Serkis revisited Gollum after a 12-year absence for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (December 14). Shooting live on set provided a more dynamic sense of play in his scene with the young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). “The way we approached the scene was very much to treat it like a chamber-theater piece, where we could experiment and try different things out,” Serkis explained. “Of course, the other significant change now is that we’re using facial capture, so my facial muscles are driving the facial muscles of the digital puppet.” Franco: ‘Oscars should recognize Serkis’
First Hobbit trailer: TORn’s frame-by-frame analysis
Find the trailer online at Apple.com and TheHobbit.com. The following screen caps and commentary are not confirmed and only speculation by the staff at TheOneRing.net. And a special note: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! And Click the images to see larger versions  Discuss »More about Adam Brown, Aidan Turner, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Creations, Fans, Headlines, Hobbit Movie, Ian McKellen, James Nesbitt, John Callen, Ken Stott, Luke Evans, Make the Hobbit Happen, Mark Hadlow, Martin Freeman, Peter Hambleton, Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage, Rumors Spy News, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hunter, The Hobbit Hobbit SFX Supervisor Joe Letteri Talks Gollum to MovieWeb
Discuss »More about Andy Serkis, Hobbit Cast News, Hobbit Movie, Make the Hobbit Happen, Production, Studios, The Hobbit, WETA Digital Wellington is a whirlwind, smells like HobbitOur story so far: Peter Jackson made three Middle-earth movies and people loved them. Now he is making two more and people already love them too. MrCere, Senior Staff, writer and photographer at TheOneRing.net (around since 1999) went to NZ to see what he could see. Landed in Queenstown, found lots of LOTR stuff, drove north to see the people of the ring, visited Hobbiton set and now is in Wellington, center of NZ’s cinematic empire. WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — I thought, and it makes me chuckle now, that when I landed in Wellington I would finally be based in one place long enough to really crank out some copy. Ha! Instead, Wellington has been a whirlwind but that is a great thing, not a bad thing. I often contemplate cancelling one of the events here so I can spend hours writing and posting photos but I haven’t cancelled anything yet and each time I go to do something, I find that I am very glad to have been along. Some of those events have tourism ties and then end up having direct ties to things here at TheOneRing, even when I think they will not. Other things, like spending the day with the kids at Weta, are directly tied in. None of them so far have been worth sacrificing and time is running out fast. But stories I have in some stage of ready: Fox to mount Oscar campaign for Andy Serkis. Are you ready for a motion-capture Oscar nominee?
“Hobbiting” Around the Christmas TreePut some cheer into your “Black Friday!” To kick off the holiday season, we’ve cast some of the Hobbit gang in a musical revue guaranteed to put a smile even on the grumpy ole’ Necromancer’s face. From TheOneRing.net to you, go forth and make merry! Enjoy! Andy Serkis of ‘Apes’ being promoted for Oscar
Andy Serkis Says Hobbit Trailer To Hit “Around Christmas”
Besides reprising his role as Gollum, Serkis has also taken up duties as Second Unit Director on the films, concerning which he says:
Andy also spoke a bit about shooting in 5K at 48 fps. To read the entire interview, head over to IGN. So which December film will have The Hobbit trailer playing in front of it? Join the speculation on our boards. Discuss »More about Andy Serkis, Characters, Crew News, Headlines, Hobbit Movie, Production, The Hobbit  |
 
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On December 20th 2011 at approximately 10pm ET/7pm PT, Warner Brothers released the first official trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. What followed was a world of fans exploding in joy. We here at TheOneRing.net were equally giddy and now, after some time digesting, we offer our complete and detailed frame-by-frame look at the trailer.
Rebecca Keegan writes: Oscar’s supporting actor race will be a hairy one this year — and something of a digital proving ground. Andy Serkis, who played Caesar, the hyper-intelligent chimp in this summer’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is getting an awards push courtesy of 20th Century Fox. Serkis’ performance — which tracks Caesar from his childhood raised by a human scientist (James Franco) through his political awakening as an adult chimp in a cruelly run primate sanctuary — was delivered via the same computer-graphics techniques used in “Avatar.” 