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.
Agreed, it does take more than speaking, but then, Serkis' role extended well beyond just providing Gollum's voice. The movement, the posture -- it all belonged to hm.
It's hard to believe unless you check this behind-the-scenes featurette on the Lord of the Ring website, which gives you a pretty damn good look at how involved Serkis was in the process of creating Gollum...
Serkis involvement went WELL beyond the process of contributing a voice. It was closer to the level of puppeteering.
I don't know if it's poor form to jump into a discussion about an article that I wrote, but until someone tells me not to, I will. (And hello, right back at you.)
I'm not sure who gets to decide what an actor is in the future -- what the Academy decides is more or less irrelevant to me, but mass audiences might feel otherwise -- but it is a very different experience of filmmaking on set when someone is actually acting alongside you. And before discounting Serkis's role in the final Gollum characterization, everyone ought to make sure they've looked at the behind-the-scenes featurette at "LordoftheRings.net". It shows side-by-side sequences of Serkis doing the facial work, and the similarities exceeded anything I would have expected.
I wouldn't have been that averse to Serkis being nominated under the circumstances, but, like I said, I think it would miss the point -- the accomplishment is NOT just his, any more than it is the accomplishment of the effects team alone, and even giving both parties recognition would be misguided, because the success of Gollum, while impressive, is NOT comparable to the work that each field honors. It is a unique synthesis -- or so I will argue -- of two fields, and it is impossible to isolate which of its components (computer effects or human guidance) are "more" integral or essential to the final result.
But really, everyone: go watch the behind-the-scenes clips before you reach any decisions.
Also agreed -- the awards ceremonies themselves aren't the point, or at least, they're not so central to the point that it makes sense to focus on them, rather than the harder question of who own's the Gollum performance.
A discussion of awards ceremonies seems relevant only insofar as it indicates what mass audiences are told (and often absorb) about the films themselves.
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Agreed, it does take more than speaking, but then, Serkis' role extended well beyond just providing Gollum's voice. The movement, the posture -- it all belonged to hm.
It's hard to believe unless you check this behind-the-scenes featurette on the Lord of the Ring website, which gives you a pretty damn good look at how involved Serkis was in the process of creating Gollum...
Serkis involvement went WELL beyond the process of contributing a voice. It was closer to the level of puppeteering.
Wasn't the first glimpse of what? Did they explore synthespians replacing humans in Looker?
I don't know if it's poor form to jump into a discussion about an article that I wrote, but until someone tells me not to, I will. (And hello, right back at you.) I'm not sure who gets to decide what an actor is in the future -- what the Academy decides is more or less irrelevant to me, but mass audiences might feel otherwise -- but it is a very different experience of filmmaking on set when someone is actually acting alongside you. And before discounting Serkis's role in the final Gollum characterization, everyone ought to make sure they've looked at the behind-the-scenes featurette at "LordoftheRings.net". It shows side-by-side sequences of Serkis doing the facial work, and the similarities exceeded anything I would have expected. I wouldn't have been that averse to Serkis being nominated under the circumstances, but, like I said, I think it would miss the point -- the accomplishment is NOT just his, any more than it is the accomplishment of the effects team alone, and even giving both parties recognition would be misguided, because the success of Gollum, while impressive, is NOT comparable to the work that each field honors. It is a unique synthesis -- or so I will argue -- of two fields, and it is impossible to isolate which of its components (computer effects or human guidance) are "more" integral or essential to the final result. But really, everyone: go watch the behind-the-scenes clips before you reach any decisions.
Also agreed -- the awards ceremonies themselves aren't the point, or at least, they're not so central to the point that it makes sense to focus on them, rather than the harder question of who own's the Gollum performance. A discussion of awards ceremonies seems relevant only insofar as it indicates what mass audiences are told (and often absorb) about the films themselves.