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Salon on Gollum's Failed Oscar Nomination
Masem writes "Salon has an interesting commentary on the failure for Andy Serkis, the actor that used as the model and voice for Gollum in The Two Tower, to garnish an Oscar nomination despite the pressure that Peter Jackson and others placed on the Academy to get the nomination. They had previously pointed to John Hurt's Best Actor nomination in "The Elephant Man", in which the only visible feature of Hurt was his eyes after the elaborate makeup and costuming, but even then, Hurt did not win, he himself believing that it would be hard to connect the real actor to the role that he played. Salon suggests that the Academy needs to seriously consider how digital technology is affecting the way movies are being made and to be more open to non-traditional roles and films as potental Oscar material."
"Sssssallllonnnnn yessssss... can't pay rent, no!!! Kicked out of officessss ssssoooon! Homelessssss... poor poor homelesssss... Sssssaallllon."
...and now we'll never get to hear Serkis thank "his precious" for helping him win in the acceptance speech.
Dude, where's my packet?
Do they have a separate category for animation? Perhaps that's what he should have been in, after all the SFX.
P.S. FP.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
This is a real toss-up because it's the seamless integration of his voice acting WITH the rendering of the character. .. He didn't do all that himself. . One is useless without the other.
Maybe they should nominate "teams" in the case of dig-characters. .or have a seperate award.
The academy also has a built-in bias against the films that prove popular. After all, if "the mob" likes it, it can't *really* be quality. The oscars have become a way for Hollywood to spruce up films that you couldn't drag your dog to and pretend they are worthy of notice so they'll pick up a few of the bucks left over after the rest of us have gone to see the GOOD stuff.
His acting provided the model for the animation. He's a much bigger part of Gollum than the voice.
Its a shame that he lost his preciousssssssssssssss nomination. He still was part of the character, Gollom's movements & voice were from the actor.
Sig- http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?ayefly
Salon is dying anyway.
The Academy Awards long ago ceased to be about who was most deserving to win or be nominated. If indeed they ever were about that at all. They are not much more than a cliquish popularity contest and a way to make political statements.
In a way this mirrors the failure of the recording industry to 'get it' in our rapidly changing times. The entrenched establishment of the music and movie industry is so hidebound that nothing short of dramatic reform (i.e. tear it all down and start over) will probably fix it.
As CGI and other digital effects become more and more commonplace, there will have to be a change in perception by the Academy (aside: Do they teach something? I thought Academies were teaching institutions???) or they will become increasingly irrelelvant. Already, to many movie lovers, the Oscars are more of a joke than anything else.
Just my not so humble opinion. Your milage may vary.
but seriously best actor ...?
come on guys, be serious here, acting has a lot to do with facial expressions, and body language and these are not effective when done by animated characters no matter how reallistic they look
may be oscar should start a seperate catagory for animated characters, or may be best vocal performance for ppl who do the talking but best actor ?
what next nominate peter jackson for noble prize ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
"despite the pressure that Peter Jackson and others placed on the Academy to get the nomination"
I do think he should get a nomination, but aren't these things supposed to be related to actual performance by the actor compared to his contemporaries, and not crooked lobbying?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Salon suggests that the Academy needs to seriously consider how digital technology is affecting the way movies are being made and to be more open to non-traditional roles and films as potental Oscar material.
Non-traditional films makers need to seriously consider how pointless these Oscar Academy awards are and not pay any attention to them.
It's so backwards... it might just work!
Tron wasn't nominated for an Oscar in visual effects because it used computers and wasn't animated. Andy Serkis wasn't nominated this time, but people will be nominated one day.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
For me, the very things which made gollum have such a big impact on the movie were provided by the actor. The emotion, the delivery, the facial expressions and the movement were all provided solely by the actor - I think this makes Andy valid for an oscar nomination. It's altogether different to the usual voice-over stuff that Eddie Murphy and Tom Hanks have pulled off so well in the past for truly computer generated characters.
They ought to have a best voice actor category. Acting involves actual expression with the body and face, while voice acting is giving life to a fake character, much like muppeteering. (not in a negative context. Jim Henson and Frank Oz rock)
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"on the failure for Andy Serkis, the actor that used as the model and voice for Gollum in The Two Tower"
He was used as the model? My god...
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Ugh. Do you think that would be better? Talk about a popularity contest.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
Does anyone care? I know I don't. The "Academy" is just a bunch of agenda biased rich people, much like the Nobel prize committee. I have rarely felt that anyone winning an Oscar had actually earned it because they were particularly talented, versus luck of being on the receiving end of a publicity campaign...
As it stated, the way CG characters were handled in the past was that they were thrown in during post-production so that the person responsible for the movement and whatnot wasn't really involved in the scene at the time it was being shot. Jackson took a different approach during the filming and actually had Serkis involved in the process while it was being shot.
The Academy is a little too uppity to throw in new categories until they've already become such an obvious addition that their lack of addition becomes a controversy. The Oscars are really more of a salute to Hollywood's aging stars than rewarding innovative work. [I know that's a generalization and it's not always true - but for the most part it is.]
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Gollum/Serkis will have a second chance at an Oscar nod... Perhaps building momentum in the press and creating a cause is the best the WETA-gang could hope for in this round...?
Next it'll be "Meet The Feebles 2: Feebles Invade America" rallying for Academy recognition... 8^)
ch(j)eers,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
To be fair to the academy this is new territory, and it would be difficult to distinguish between what Serkis accomplished, and what voice actors do for animated movies. Having said that, James Baskett won a special oscar for his performance in "Song of the South" wherein he interacted with animated characters. Why can't Serkis get the same treatment?
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
This has been coming on for a couple of years, and I suspect that it's only going to get murkier in the near future.
It's time to ask the question: What IS an actor? Strictly speaking, I'd say that the voice and visual inspiration for a digital character is, in fact, an actor. However, the final onscreen character is the result of many people toiling away in many different jobs. The animator, the designer, the painter, the guy who runs the mocap studio... they all have a hand in it. Perhaps the academy simply needs a new category. Best digital actor, or something similar. Certainly all the work put into something like Gollum deserves more than an fx nomination!
i mean awards are nice and all, but to me I'd care more about what my fans thought about my performance. These award shows are all politics anyways. I wouldn't waste my time lobbying the oscar voters, screw it.
It's remarkable that Serkis did both the (incredible) voice work and (astounding) physical performance. There will be more characters like Gollum over the years, but they're unlikely to match Serkis' incredible range. You'll have a dancer for the body, a rubber-face for the face, a voice actor for the voice, and so on. It's rare to encounter so much talent in one person.
This is a golden moment for the Academy to honor an astounding performance the likes of which we may never see again.
I can't hold it against them too much: for the most part the Academy wouldn't recognize good acting if it walked up and bit them. They too often honor "showy" acting, largely one-dimensional with huge emotional swings and featured parts, that are actually built on a combination of music, camera work, editing, and a host of other factors outside the performance itself.
I'm an actor myself, and IMHO on film you can see only a performance, not an actor. That's good: you're not supposed to be watching the acting. The hard work of acting is accomplished where you can't see it, in rehearsal rooms and in the actor's bathroom, in front of the mirror, and in long talks with fellow actors at the bar worrying about each syllable, on set finding the right tone not just for you but for everybody in a scene. All of which can be lost by different editing, direction, a music choice going the other way, or another actor taking a different choice.
I applaud Serkis' work, and I want to see if he has range as well as talent. I'm sorry the Academy chose not to honor him, and that's always going to hurt no matter how meaningless the award and no matter how thunderous the accolades from the people whose opinions really do matter.
Putting aside for a moment that the Oscars are absolute garbage awards that have no bearing on the artistic worth of the films they award, this topic isn't so tough a question to answer to me. Personally, I think that maybe they need a Best Voice Actor award, and that perhaps that would be the best category for Serkis in this case. Acting is more than speaking, it includes movement and posture as well. The fact that an entire team of people intepreted Serkis' performance and then modified it completely to suit their needs leads me to believe that it would be quite unfair to his competition to nominate him individually as an actor. They, the competition, had to rely on themselves to come up with convincing (or unconvincing as the case may be) physical performances. Maybe they need to have a Best Team Effort at Creating a Digital Actor award.
The genereral consensus in movie-land is that the "Return Of the King" film will be the one that really wins all the awards. Awarding Part 3 will be seen as rewarding the whole series. So, I think Gollum has a good chance of getting nominated next year.
This does not bode well for the new character being introduced in The Return of the King who is also digitally generated.
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You're wrong. Read up on how they did Gollum.
The actor was in about all his scenes, and it's essentially his face you see in the movie. Mostly live sound, too. The actor wore a body suit with indexing marks which were later used as guides for the body animation.
So yes, the actor did perform on-camera, including face, and body movements, and deserves most of the credit for the Gollum performance. CGI just changed the body and reanimated some movements.
Definately the Academy has to accomodate this type of performance. Regardless, in this case the actor was superb, CGI or not.
*Begin Rant*
The last time an actual deserving movie that the movie going public actually enjoyed, got nominated for anything was the orignal "Star Wars"...I'm sorry, but best picture, and best actor, etc should have at least something to do with the films appeal to the masses. If the general public from 9 to 90, Male, Female, White, Black, Yellow, Red, Green whatever isn't interested its not a good film, and doesn't deserve awards. The truth of the matter is all these awards are about self-indulence and self congratulations for the Holloywood in crowd. Its the equivilent of masterbation...if you don't play with the in crowd and join the jerk circle you don't get the big nominations. The "Lord of the Rings" Movies for the most part look and feel exactly like the books always appeared in my head...that should count for something, however it doesn't because of the Masterbation appeal of the other movies that did get nominations(which btw I personally feel most of them cheated with limited releases just before the deadline so slip under the nomination wire)...
*End Rant*
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
i would support fully an initiative like this .. .. that schizo .. i prefer ..
but you have to admit the actual acting job for
the gollum wasn't all that great
scene particularly was stomach turning
a little more subtlety. i realize that hollywood
believes audiences are mostly stupid and need to
be hit with a brick to get them to understand
things, but i'm not sure if this is entirely true
rage against the dumbing down of america
I completely agree with what you said but I'd go a step further and state that I think the whole idea of awards for movies and other art seems bizarre and way too subjective. Supposedly, top talent have chosen to make movies because they love the artform. So why would an award be meaningful to them? Awards are useful in athletic competitions but are they truly appropriate for art? I would argue that they are not. The creative talent in Hollywood (please don't snicker) should find that the chance to make art they think is meaningful and appreciated by others is reward enough. A golden statue and lavous ceremony should not be necessary.
We are then stuck with the question: why do we have award ceremonies (and so damn many of them as well)? I submit to you that the reason is purely popularity, politics and marketing as dreamchaser said. I don't give a damn about the Oscars and, quite frankly, I don't understand why anyone else does either.
GMD
watch this
Maybe some actors like the idea of "modeling" for a digital character; probably a lot of directors are intrigued by the possibilities. But I bet the majority of the Academy members hate the whole idea.
Shigeru Miyamoto's masterwork Super Mario Brothers is truly a classic work of modern literature; borrowing heavily from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and an obvious inspiration for Trainspotting, SMB shows the initial joy but the eventual mental and moral decline due to drugs.
Like in classic Greek drama, much of the story is implied. Because the setting is not a part of our common mythos, however, it comes with a small supplemental text which fills in the history for the reader: the evil dragon Bowser Koopa (a metaphor for a kingpin) has invaded a once-propserous kingdom, and those residents who did not join him and become goombas (the local slang for dealers) were turned into blocks - that is, they were embedded in concrete, to sleep with the fishes, as it were.
Enter Mario, the fallen hero. At the very outset of his adventure, he is doomed, as almost right away he steals a dealer's mushroom (obviously mixed with peyote) and begins to hallucinate, that he is big, that he is powerful. As though on PCP, he finds it easy to break solid bricks by punching it and does not perceive the pain; however, when dealers, pushers (personified by turtles much like Thompson's literal lounge lizards), and other minions of the kingpin cause him pain (in retaliation for his original drug theft), he immediately loses the empowering effects of the peyote, and in fact, seems very small and vulnerable, and must desparately seek out another hit. When he is not seeking out a hit of peyote, he is seeking out much more powerful stuff indeed - a flower (the opium-giving poppy) or a star (a hit of LSD), both of which further his delusions of being strong and powerful.
Right after he has apparently slid down a flagpole (a strong reference to receiving anal sex), he finds himself in the proverbial sewers, already feeling a deep low from his initial hits wearing off. But after more anal sex, he is high in the mountains, which psychadelically appear as gigantic mushrooms, an obvious result of his hallucinatory state. And then, after even more anal sex, he finds himself in a castle, but it is of his own imagination, built up of his drug-induced isolation, for at the end he thinks he has confronted the kingpin Koopa, but he quickly finds that it is but another hallucination, merely a pusher goomba, though he only discovers this after, in a drug-crazed rage, he kills this apparition of his nemesis.
His trials and travails continue along his slide into dementia, with such powerful imagery as being underwater (drowning in desparation) and along a long suspension bridge with flying fish (skirting death at every corner). After chapter 3, which describes a night of terrors, and chapter 4, another full day, he finds himself in another castle delusion, but this time he is so hopelessly lost in his mind that it appears to him as a maze, where if he does not climb the correct stairs in the right order, he is trapped and seems to endlessly repeat the pathway.
Much more of the same continues, showing the repetition and mental deadness of a drug-induced haze, with some intermediate powerful imagery as a landscape so bleak and gray that it appears to be frozen, causing our fallen hero to psychosomatically slip on what seems to be ice. At many points, he is also unwittingly caught up in drug-related urban warfare, bullets careening across the landscape, although in Mario's stupor, the inanimate metal slugs appear to be living, almost sentient things.
Finally, he enters a final castle which appears to be real, but it is quickly apparent that it is not, for it is filled with all of his prior hallucinations, but twisted into much more nightmarish images, again arranged in a maze as some of the castle-hallucination-nightmares before (although this time with the strong symbolism of the magic number 3), and at the end, when he finally destroys what he believes to be the kingpin Koopa and rescues who he believes to be the princess, it becomes obvious to the reader (though not to Mario, still in a state of dementia) that he was only a hapless pimp and the "princses" his whore, who (at our hero's expense) direct him to start his hapless Quixotic quest from the beginning, only this time, all the drug dealers are wearing bullet-proof jackets (who have appeared as gigantic beetles to our hallucinogenic hero all along).
And so, the cycle of depravity begins anew, but much more difficultly for our pathetically-pathos-pumped plumber.
Of course, this plot summary only begins to scratch the surface of this epic novel. One really must complete it on their own in order to truly appreciate its depth and challenge, trying to sort out what is real and what isn't.
There is, of course, a like-minded series following this book (although the immediate sequel is a blatant last-minute search and replace job on the cancelled Doki Doki Panic); there are also several TV adaptations, a movie (which completely missed the point and took major liberties with the plot), several spin-off series, and, at one time, there was even a breakfast cereal, in a monstrous twist of consumer-driven poetic irony. Regardless of this sensational consumerism, however, the original story has withstood the test of time, and will forever be a literary classic.
Why bother.
The Oscars have very little to do with good movies, and more to do with hollywood stars patting themselves on the back.
Guipo
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
* Best Visual Effects
But I think you're missing the point - giving an award to the producers of the Two Towers for best visual effects or some new category involving animation is not the same as giving Serkis an Oscar for his performance. You're suggesting a general Oscar for the entire crew whereas New Line wants Serkis to get an individual performance actor. The question is whether Serkis deserves an Oscar for his performance alone. Now perhaps the addition of best Digital Performance/Inspiration could give Serkis a category that would fit what he did. Since he did have help from the CG team.
But, on the other hand, actors have their costumes selected for them so, in a way, they have a team behind their performances as well. And wasn't Serkis really just placed in a cool costume?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Posts like yours are the only reason Slashdot is still worth skimming through.
why bother with the oscars when they're awarded on such BS/political reasons and not on merit!
Has anyone considered that maybe the Academy just didn't think it was one of the top 5 supporting actor performances of the year? Not everybody gets a nomination, you know.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
An actor that is upset because he/she isn't recognized has a self esteem problem not a recognition/nomination problem.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
True however what are its actual chances of winning (Hint: if you use that number in divison you computer will throw and error)
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Regardless of how practical it is in the past few years I've seen a few pieces on completely virtual actors. I'm not sure how much say the actors have in the awards but I can see a lot of big actors being VERY displeased if he got a nomination fearing (whether or not it's realistic) that they may lose their jobs in the future to a completely virtual character. Plus I think it's a little too out there still. I think we need a couple more strong virtual performances for hollywood to take a chance on acknowledging one of them.
I stole this Sig
Just a bunch of Hollywood wierdo's sitting around patting themselves and each other on the back. Noit even worth watching anymore.
BC
Online Magazine Salon may be in its final days
"'Salon will very likely cease operations in its current form if it is unable to raise additional working capital during February,' Salon Media Group Inc. says in its 10Q filing."
Keep an eye on this one...this may really be the end this time.
You have violated the Slashdot ToS. The body is a very important part of the comment system. Without it, you end up with chaos-- like kuro5hin.org.
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Titantic - took the Oscar and was a huge commercial success - maybe you didn't like it but you talked about what the public enjoyed. This was in 1997.
Braveheart - took the Oscar and was also a huge commercial success for the year 1995.
Forrest Gump - another huge commercial success that also won an Oscar - 1994.
I could continue but I think I've made my point. You're claiming that movies which are nominated for best picture haven't been commercial successes. This is incredibly false as I've shown by just showing which huge commercial movies have WON the Best Picture Oscar.
Next time you rant, make a little sense.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Titanic, Braveheart, Gladiator... Gladiator?? The oscars are all about popular crap. Usually they'll toss a bone and give a nomination to an exceptional "darkhorse" for best picture. They'll never win but are usually far more worthy of 2 and half hours of your life than the ones that do.
You have to be kidding me. Did I watch the same movie? Gollumn was pathetic. It could only impress a child, I mean come on. You are nuts if you were blown away by him or his performance. Maybe the performance was terific and the rendering was to blame? I can't belive anyone would even consider that. Why not give an Oscar to Goku. What a joke. Please explain this to me? This is really a joke right?
I can't find the article right now, but if I remember correctly the academy refused to give TRON a special effects nomination because they "cheated" by using computers :)
Sounds like they're often a bit behind the times to me.
Cheers.
just the opposite. The Acadamy largely refuses to recognize good films that aren't popular. Mr. Redford founded the Sundance Film Festival for just this reason.
I think you're confusing a bias against popular films (like, say, Gone With the Wind, Oscar winner, most popular of all time, and really bit of a piece of crap) with a bias against Burt Reynolds.
KFG
Some of us DO have very good jobs, thank you very much. Do you? Oh, they probably don't let you work from the institution because of all the meds...
Maybe the solution would be to change the "best actor" category to a "best character portrayal" category to solve this kind of issue. That way the award could be given to whatever group of people were involved in the creation of the character much the same way an award is given to a band or cast.
I didn't find his performace as Gollum all that compelling either way. Certainly not enough to merit a nomination.
When an Oscar-deserving performance comes along, computer-augmented or not, it should be recognized. I just didn't think this was one of them.
That being said, the performance wasn't just the actor's alone. There were other artists in front of the keyboard who tweaked and augmented the facial expressions among other things -- the performance was really a collaborative effort to get the final peice on all levels. So would the animators get to share in the Oscar too?
Salon suggests that the Academy needs to seriously consider how digital technology is affecting the way movies are being made and to be more open to non-traditional roles and films as potental Oscar material.
I may be mistaken, but wasn't there some contraversy regarding "Star Wars: Episode 2" in that since it was not shot on film it wasn't elidgibe for Acadmey Awards nominations? (I assume that this oversite has been corrected since SW:AOTC was nominated for 'best visual effects' or something.)
He didn't get nominated because The Two Towers was shitty, and his performance wasn't anything special. I mean, really. Gollum is an EASY character. He's a cliche. Serkis did well, but he didn't do anything special. For that matter, most actors don't do anything special as far as characterization. In summary, screw Academy Awards. They're worthless.
...to see Serkis rush the stage and yank the Oscar out of whoever's hands wins it this year while screaming "my precious!". Would be a great way to generate hype for the next movie, as well as make a mockery of the snide-old-men's club that rejected him.
... and the only reason you think it's so awful is because of how popular it was.
Anyway, by your theory, LOTR would have won every award last year, no?
My penence was that damned song being foisted upon us all for months. Mea Culpa.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
In this column, you'll find interesting facts about Gollum. It was based on a Los Angeles Times article, Putting a Human Face on 'It' (please note that you need to register -- it's free -- for accessing it.) Here are short quotes. Technically, Gollum is not a "he," but an "it" -- an agglomeration of 1s and 0s that required six years of research, scores of computer programmers and countless cycles of processing power to make the animated amphibious creature as believable as human actors. The key, though, was a human actor -- a classically trained Shakespearean stage player named Andy Serkis whose face never appears on-screen, but nonetheless infuses Gollum with enough sadness and pain to make him perhaps the most believable computer-generated character in a movie.
As a counterpoint, Gary Sinise was nominated for best supporting actor in Forrest Gump and was CGI'ed..
True, we could still recognize him and see his face. The CGI effect did affect the overall credibility of his "performance", but I guess that's where the academy drew the line.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
i think the uproar in the industry if he had been nomiated and in fact won "best supporting actor" would be huge. and, in fact, i tend to think would be unfair.
surely a new oscar category - "best digital actor" or something along those lines would be a good move forward and should appease all.
Gollum won't get nominated for the same reasons that Peter Lorre never got any significant award. No matter how good the actor is at playing the part, and no matter how important the role is to the movie, it's just not the type of role that gets nominations. It's not anti-CGI bigotry, it's anti-creepy-guy bigotry.
Wow, watching the movie I could have sworn the face of Gollum was modelled on William DeVane. Those guys must look a lot alike. See if you can see it.
Anyone remember Looker (1981)? I do, it was one of my favorites that year.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Before it was an ass kissing event it was a way to show the rest of the country/world what was going oon in the Movie Industry.
We all know everything before it even happens (Ashley Judd _is_ Catwoman -- wouldn't Kristen Davis be a better Catwoman?). We (USA) go to movies despite horrendous reviews (DareDevil). Do we really give a crap what Susan Saradon has to say? Or any actor for that matter?
So in short, what difference does it make if the Oscars _don't_ recognize your favortite? I would assume that validates your choice.
This
Who really cares about these awards besides Hollywood? Awards are a dime a dozen... if you don't like how they award these things just make another award.
As a paying customer I don't care who is the best actor, really it is the best performance or, more so, the best character that would be more relevant to me. What do I care if the person was really acting well or not or if it was even really a person? I just want to be entertained with a good performance, like when Anthony Hopkins portrays Nixon and I forget that it is Anthony Hopkins...that is great acting, but what do I care if it is really Anthony Hopkins or some computer generation?
Leave Hollywood alone to decide who gets their awards.
Naturally, he'll jump onstage and bite the hand off the Academy's choice, dancing around with the Oscar before falling off the stage...
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Why oh Why Dear Slashdot Editors dose Lord of the Rings not have a Logo? Starwars has a Logo.. the Ipod has a Logo.. why dosent LOTR?
Think about it.. all the Posts that are going to be made over the next +2 Years for LOTR.. Movie Reiviews, Spoilers, Trailers, DVD's, DVD Reviews, Special Ed. DVD's, Cast Interviews, Award Shows, ect.. ect... ect..
LOTR DESERVES its own Logo/Icon
i don't know what it should have to say in this
context, but it is often said acting is 50% voice,
and I agree. Being an anime fan, very often I am
more emotionally touched by anime characters than
I by characters played by 100% by real humans.. I
have wondered why this is.. and well, even though
animated characters are 50% human, in that voiceacting
is 50%, the other 50% is pure character and not 50%
acting body language.
Anyway, hollywood and the oscars are very clearly
geared heavily towards live action, and perhaps
fundamental change there is what's required to
give digital and semi-digital characters any
real chance to win something. Because as the
system is, both such characters and animated
features don't get to play.. digital characters
don't get to play at all, and animated features
are all put up together in a ghetto usually.
I as a fan of all sorts of animation find that
unfair.. but then again, hollywood is a liveaction
industry, and perhaps it is just as unfair to demand
of them to treat animation equally to liveaction.. but
sometimes, I wish they would just leave out
animation as that would be more respectful. And
hollywood, the oscars, the hollywood audience.. they
love actors and all the glamour that implies.. you
don't get as much of that with animated characters..
so.. maybe it is just too much to ask, if it is
clearly not what neither the industry nor the general
audience wants. yeah sure many digged gollum.. but..
if thete becomes too many of his kind people will
just get bored and scream for more real actors.
I wasn't going after best picture specifically....I was going more gnerally on the movies that usually clean up at the awards shows...especially a it relates to our community..."News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters"
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Animation has traditionally been overacted. Originally, that was a consequence of the medium - it's possible to convey subtle emotion with hand animation, but it's a lot of work per frame. CG hasn't helped all that much - expressing subtle emotion by moving sliders around sort of works, but it's not great art. There's a well-known CG hack by which you draw 16 standard facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, etc.) and select linear combinations of their morphs. Much commercial animation is done that way. That's not acting.
Then there's facial motion capture, which is closer to acting. Now the dynamics get better. But getting this to work when people are interacting is tough. Gollum had to be motion-captured separately from the performance, so the poor guy playing him had to replicate the same expressions in a capture session. Dialog is separately re-recorded all the time, even for TV, so this is a standard acting skill. This is acting, even if the characters are CG.
Both methods may be used in the same production, confusing the issue. But that's no worse than stunt players wearing the same outfits as the principals; the industry sorts that out when evaluating performances. (Incidentally, just because you see the face of the principal actor doing a stunt doesn't mean it's really them; that's routinely faked today.)
In time, we may see fully automatic facial animation that doesn't suck, along with automatic voice generation that doesn't suck. But not yet.
-- Find the Truth...
Look at how many Google stories they do.
This is a little off-topic, but I recently devised a method of signing donuts such that your mouth can verify with cryptographic certainty that the donut it is biting down on is the one you selected from the box. If such precautions are not taken, an attacker might modify the donut in transit to be a cherry filled pastry when in fact you had selected one filled with blueberry. The whitepaper is available here. Thanks.
I certainly don't think the academy is anything but a manifestation of the peculiar and bizarre politics of Hollywood, but frankly I don't see any reason to assume the nomination was deserved, from the voice acting or the CGI character point of view. Of the supporting actor nominees I've only seen Chris Cooper (Adaptation) and John C. Reilly (Chicago), but there's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that these performances were far and above superior to the hammy charicature of Gollum. And I found the CGI character to be distractingly unreal as usual. As far as I'm concerned these CGI characters still aren't there. Yes, they are agonizingly detailed, writhingly articulated, mapped and textured and fractalled up one side and down the other, you can see every strand of "hair" and the reflections in the tiny beads of sweat on their noses... and they DON'T LOOK REAL. I look and what my brain says is, wow, that is an amazingly detailed cartoon. Every time Gollum came on screen it knocked me out of the illusion.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Honestly, I don't think Gollum had the best acting in the movie, much less in all of the movies for last year.
Sakis should, be eligible considering the historical characters that won. I mean, he plays a crippled, mentally deficient, flawed character. That's like Oscar gold right there.
Maybe when someone delivers a good performance with a digital character, they can get nominated. Granted, the movie was good. But I don't honestly think Legolas or Aragorn or anyone else's portrayal stands out in any respect. LOTR is more of a triumph of a complete movie, not 2 or 3 exceptional performances.
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Balls. Titanic was dreadful, plain and simple, regardless of whether people went to see it or not. You've got your historical revisionism (third class passengers mixing with first class? I think not). You've got your trite story. You've got your fake Oirishness. Altogether: poo-poo.
Tricksy, they are. Tricksy and FALSE!
All unfair meta-mods are now being meta-meta-modded as retarded.
For any of you who still doubt just how much of Andy Serkis is in the Golum performance, particularly in his face, download this little MPEG file I just whipped up. It's a 15 second clip showing the some refernce work Serkis did compaired to the actual Golumn CGI character. They're practically identical. (Note: there's no sound)
k is _reference.mpg
http://members.evansville.net/ckohler/video/ser
I got the video snippits for this clip from the official Lord of the Rings website.
http://www.lordoftherings.net/
To those who say that LOTR doesn't have a chance of winning the Best Picture award, don't forget that one reason the Academy Awards are derided for poor selections is that they often give the award to somebody who should have won before -- or to somebody who has had an impressive cumulative career but has never edged out the pack in a single year. This is why Scorsese is nominated for Best Director and his Gangs of New York is up for Best Picture. Gangs was far from Scorsese's best, and the critical reception was mixed. But because he has done so many great things in Hollywood, he got those nods, which were undeserved solely on the merits of Gangs.
With LOTR, it's very likely that the third film will again be nominated for Best Picture next year. The Academy voters will see a series that has been nominated for the top award three years in a row, and they could very well decide to reward the cumulative effort. So don't count LOTR out yet.
Of course, the follow-up question is, does it matter? Well, it wouldn't hurt, and it would be fun to see at the very least.
First off, I am not an actor or drama student, nor have I ever been.
When Gollum stared, and spoke into the camera, while experiencing the inner conflict, he interrupted my experience of watching the movie. He was looking at me sitting in a theatre watching a movie, this realization ruined the movie for me.
Art-house plays use this all the time, because to drama students it's daring and dangerous. They forget that there's a good reason it isn't done more. It's annoying to someone who really likes to suspend disbelief and get into their entertainment.
This is why he didn't deserve an oscar nomination.
2001 A Beautiful Mind - Best Picture
2001 Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind - Best Director
1998 Shakespeare in Love - Best Picture
1997 Titanic - Best Picture
1997 James Cameron, Titanic - Best Director
1994 Forrest Gump - Best Picture
1994 Forrest Gump - Robert Zemeckis - Best Director
1990 Dances With Wolves - Best Picture
1990 Kevin Costner, Dances With Wolves - Best Director
Everything mentioned above objectively sucks.
but anyone who saw the movie knows that Gollum was probably the most likeable film character of 2002, and proof that all-digital characters can be taken seriously (unlike the infamous Jar-Jar)
The dirty judges steals it from us they do. No awardses for Smeagol. Crooked judges, we throttle them in their sleep we will. No, wait, we will lead them to her, and then she will eats them and their bones and their clothes and then maybe she will give the award to us. Yes! Smeagol will lead them to her law firm...
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
There were some scenes in attack of the clones that were almost unwatchable because of the digital tricks that were being played. And we won't even talk about Jar-jar in the first one, since that was so long ago. I know that most people disagree with me, but I would much rather see a good puppeteer than the digital animations. And to get back on point, since I don't particularly care to watch digitally enhanced movies, I think it is a good idea to not allow special consideration for this type of situation. I guess my real opinion lies more with the question: "What do they do with normal animations?" Would the the guy that did the voice of Roger Rabbit been able to be nominated. Digital Animation is still just animation.
Titanic was a good movie.
Get over yourself.
I agree that the academy makes some (ok, pretty much all) crappy choices, but I don't believe the moviegoing public is any better. I think the average person is a moron who is incapable of comprehending the subtlety that make great movies great. The moviegoing public made "10 ways to lose a guy" #1 last week. That speaks volumes.
That said, I agree with your general conclusion - I am so sick of overly-dramatic drivel like Monster's Ball or Bedroom Window, where people have these ridiculously contrived existences, and everything has this Russian-style fatalism. I don t want to spend $10 and 3 hours watching 3 over-the-top drama queens scream about how shitty their lives are.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I can't believe that nobody else has wondered why anyone would want to garnish an Oscar. Would it look particularly good with a sprig of parsley? I presume the poster meant garner.
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
-Represeting the internet Corps De Correction...
Here are some solutions, both short and long term. First, award him a special Oscar for a groundbreaking performance. Second, establish a new category to encompass what will surely be a area of growing interest.
Lasers Controlled Games!
It's just the opposite. No movie will win any Academy awards of significance unless they're distributed by a major studio and have earned a large amount of money. The really artistic films are rarely distributed by major studios and have very limited runs because most people don't understand them. There are some occasional big-budget movies that have real quality and end up with awards, but for the most part the Academy awards mediocrity.
I understand about part of it... yes, I haven't seen someone moving 3x too fast. However, one thing they failed to address was stuff like inertia and kinetic mass. Think how Spidey stuck to something. He'd almost make a tip-toe landing, he'd stick it perfectly. Now think about how much kinetic energy he'd built up. I could understand it if he slowed himself down at the last minute or something, but he'd just stick to the wall like nothing had happened.
Now think back to The Matrix, where they dissipate their landing energy one of two ways - converting it to forward momentum (Trinity's over-the-street leap, where she rolled on the landing and kept moving) or "sunk" it into the landing (Morpheus's landing during the jump program, where the concrete cracked and broke around him). Both were more realistic-seeming than the 10-point olympic landing from 300 feet.
Of course, the alternative is not to make it look how it really would, but for it to look "right" to the audience. Yes, it's not perfectly realistic, but this is a movie about a guy who got bit by a gengineered spider - that's not realistic either.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
The appropriate antecedent for this seminal work is not "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," but "Naked Lunch." The entire plotline you have outlined is stolen almost verbatim from the classic William S. Burroughs (grandson of the founder of Burroughs computers) novel.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I submitted question about the creation of a new Oscar category (as is being discussed in this thread) to Roger Eberts Movie Answer Man column and hope to have a response in one of his upcoming columns. If you want to follow up on it, check here peroidically.
Unfortunately, my dumb ass forgot to copy the body of the letter and, as such, have lost my wonderfully worded question.
I completely agree with your proposed solution (both parts) and I think the articles conclusion does also. The article deals with the question of whether he should get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. I believe the answer still holds at no because his performance fits into a different type of category.
Your solution solves the problem perfectly. It is too late to create a new category at this point, so instead recognize his amazing work with a groundbreaking performance award. And at that time announce the creation of a new category for the "synthespian" performances.
-- Find the Truth...
Sure it was dreadful, but it wasn't any worse than Gladiator.
The Academy is consistent at least.
Defecation occurs.
Would you want to nominate a chair for best actor? How about a pile of hot grits?
Lets remember who Hollywood is. (and I use the general phrase to refer to the entire industry higher ups not JUST the actors, directors and producers) They are the social butterfly, prom queen, self labled "sophisticated" mentally limited folk that exist simply on the welfare of others. They produce no real product of any value, our society does not depend on anything they do and if they dissapeared there would only be a backlash with those who directly depend on that welfare system. In other words, they fail to provide products or services that are necessary to life. They are beyond luxury... This is all to say, "Who gives a flying monkey's blue ass about what they say or do?" They are elistists more interested in clique and other groupthink behavior than in actually rewarding competent work that is in their industry. It is this that defines how stupid and foolish they are. When people IN an industry can't seem to grasp what is important and separate the wheat from the chafe then it is time to stop worshiping them. When these "veteran" actors, directors, et al can't distinguish between a lack of acting skill and display with that of merely a bad script, directing or producing then it becomes obvious that they are not at all the professionals they claim to be (when not playing Tennis or Golf all day, getting makeovers or "Speaking Out" on things they damn well know nothing about). A veteran professional can easily distinguish between the script, directing, production and acting.
I don't think that it has more to do with timing than CGI. But lets be honest here:
1: Serkis was good, but I'm not convinced that he was THAT good in a competitive field. There are a heck of a lot of performances that were left out including Robin Williams for Insomnia, and Molina for Frida.
2: The Best Supporting Actor nominations seems to extend the self-fulfilling prophecy that movies released just before the end of the year get nominations. After all, I don't see Robin Williams for either One Hour Photo or Insomnia, both of which were films that should have been recognized. It is difficult to judge performances because I have not yet had an opportunity to see The Hours or Chicago. In fact, the only pre-December release on the best supporting actor roster is Paul Newman for Road to Pedition.
3: Just about every movie has a campaign for best supporting actor. There was even a campaign get a nod for Lillard for his performance in Scooby Doo.
But time for the general Academy grousing here. The French Connection won best Picture the year I was born with a script that left entire reels without English dialoge and won best score for a Mingus student that gave us a minimalist, discordant, syncopated mood. Granted, I've not seen most of the films up for nominations but the only name that even pushes the art of music scores is Philip Glass (for The Hours). Of course, there is the perpetual nod to John Williams.
If Spirited Away takes best animated film out from under the Americans, is there possibly a chance that I'll get to actually see it this decade?
Especially considering Gollum was flawless enough to make fans of Tolkien's work ignore Jackson's bastardization of Faramir.
Ah well, I do hope no actor gets discouraged by this sort of thing. After all, the Oscars are simply one big crapshoot, with a small helping of popularity contest.
i mean come on people... how ignorant can you get. just because you are a geek doesn't mean you have to act like a total moron.
cmdrtaco, please stop posting this kind of worthless drivel.
- Norm Ferguson nominated for his performance as the Queen (as a hag) in "Snow White"?
- Marc Davis as Maleficent in "Sleeping Beauty" or Tinkerbell in "Peter Pan"?
- Ollie Johnson's magnificent performance as Baloo in "The Jungle Book"?
- Glen Keane as The Beast in "Beauty and the Beast"?
How many great performances have you seen in classic animated films, perhaps without really realizing that there was actually a talented actor behind that pencil? Strange that only now, when the gloss of a digital render gives a "realism" to the performance, does this become an issue.Welcome to the club, Andy Serkis. The Best Actor nomination should be about performance, but Hollywood still runs on celebrity face power.
The parent story is reprinted from this Everything 2 article.
Will I retire or break 10K?
>the box office receipts from my movies would be all the applause I would need. To me that's a much more accurate measure of whether or not people like my work --- or at least, ordinary people, who are the ones whose opinions I'd care about most
Two words: Devlin and Emmerich. I'd have asked for my eight dollars back after "Independence Day," except the two hours out of my life were far more valuable.
It did appear that the "ordinary people" wised up in time for "Godzilla," at least in the U.S. market. No, I didn't see it, so I could be being an asshole here.
On-topic: If Serkis deserves a nomination for Gollum, then the dog from "As Good as it Gets" deserves veal kibble for life.
>Forrest Gump - another huge commercial success that also won an Oscar - 1994.
Funny you should mention Gump, since it beat out Pulp Fiction in something like six categories. All my friends liked Pulp Fiction better than Gump, but then again I hang out with the artsies (especially the darky-artsies).
Whether FG or PF is better on merit depends on you, but a film student friend of mine opined that FG was "the right movie" for 1994. The national consciousness was wrapped around recession, crime, and the "decline of America" in abstract. Whether or not it was better, PF was simply too bitter a pill at the time.
On-topic: if Serkis deserves recognition for Gollum, then Ezekiel deserved a screenplay co-credit.
It's GARNER you illiterate moron! If he "garnished" his Oscar, that's mean he'd placed a little parsley on the side or something. Don't use a word if you don't know what it means.
I'll have my Oscar with a nice sprig of oregano, please. If you could garner some for me.
"Garner" still isn't quite right in this context, but at least it looks like an editor has glanced at the text before posting it.
The Oscars are a highly politicised event in the motion picture industry and not a late-night bull-session about the Silmarillion. Key to understanding this is that the /. post mentions failed lobbying for the nomination and not surprise at the performance's having failed to garner the nomination on its merits.
When all is said and done, the nomination depends on the performance--what the audience and the judges see and that is the whole movie: the script, the direction the cinematography, etc.
Therein lies the problem: you can imagine that the judges weren't ready. What the judges must have seen watching LOTR/TTT was a talented actor providing voice for an eccentric performance by an advanced muppet.
Is anyone really surprised that something tearing rabbits with its teeth didn't grab the judges interest?
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Shouldn't Butters deserve one with his acting of Gollum in this episode of South Park. He must get "his precious" back, err, porno tape, "Backdoor Sluts 9".
NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of
directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip
Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the
offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the
true value of the company.
Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story.
Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover
agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of
their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to
reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to
reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth.
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