Matthew Mercer Quotes

Motion capture is exactly what it says: it's physical moves, whereas performance capture is the entire performance - including your facial performance. If you're doing, say, martial arts for a video game, that is motion capture. This is basically another way of recording an actor's performance: audio, facial and physical.

'Resident Evil: Damnation' was physically mo-capped and recorded with the mo-cap actors first, so there wasn't a whole lot of flexibility with timing, so it was more stringent. We had to go in individually.

For film and games, there is now a fantastic method of actors portraying characters which don't necessarily look like themselves. And yet you've still got the heart and soul of the performance.

What we do sometimes when we're in the sessions recording the dialogue is we'll set up a video camera and we'll video the whole session. So then the animator, if he wants, can draw upon those tapes to pull expressions, mouth shapes, maybe some gesturing that happens.

I had a friend who had done the cinematics for 'Splinter Cell: Conviction,' so he kind of indoctrinated me into the series. I did a bunch of temp stuff for him - I roughed stuff in the game for him, playing about nine characters - just so he had some character templates to work from.

One of the things that motion capture and/or voice acting does is allow you to continue your career, change it, or bring a new aspect to it.

Because Naughty Dog relies on their facial team to hand animate the faces of each game character and they do such a remarkable job, I think you can be more realistic with your acting. It gives the story and what's happening to you the feeling that it's a game.

I know a lot of games have been going to the facial capture. And movies like 'TinTin' are using it, as well.

Games are another place to find work, not only the voice stuff but in the motion capture stuff. It's exciting work.

I grew up playing video games. And the cool thing about the EA Sports games is they took me through the whole motion-capture thing, where they put little sensors on my body so the video game really is me. It actually moves the way I move.

In 'Uncharted,' we do the scenes the same way you would do a film or television show. The motion capture - the performance-capture process - is what makes such a difference for this franchise. So I don't approach it any differently. The other actors and I go in and rehearse scenes together, and then we go in the next day and perform.

I have a company in the U.K., a performance-capture studio. We're looking to push the boundaries of performance-capture technology in film and video games, but also in live theater, using real-time performance capture with actors onstage, and combining that with holographic imagery.

And because performing for a game involves real acting. The way they create a game is very similar now to how they create a film. I've always wanted to stretch my acting skills, and the timing being what it is, I couldn't say no.

Motion capture is amazing. I prefer it. You wear a 'Power Ranger'-esque suit, you have tape balls on you, you have 60 cameras around you capturing your every movement and there's no hair, no makeup.

For this game, we shot it just like it as if it was a film so there wasn't that much different from doing a film other than some technical things for the costume that had to be done so they could transfer the footage later and make it look animated.

Originally when I went off to work on 'The Lord of The Rings' I got a call from my agent saying that I was just going to do a voice. But I couldn't really approach it like that. To get Gollum's voice I had to play the character.

When you are in a live-action movie, you have so many more options to express yourself. You can use your body and your gestures and facial expressions. When you are doing an animated movie, you really only have your voice.

When Tim and I first discussed the part in 2003, he told me, 'I'd love for you to play five Oompas.' But five Oompas quickly turned into 165 - and they're not computerized; I did each one individually myself.

I had no idea what 'Life is Strange' was going to be when I auditioned. I had no idea what 'Horizon' was going to be when I auditioned.

Making the visuals photo-realistic lets us do things we were never able to do before. The voice acting, the facial expressions, are all that much deeper.

The technical aspects of doing motion capture and actually, you know, capturing the motion, is very different. It's an interesting learning curve to be part of because you have so much gear on you.

What I've noticed in this game is how EA has even duplicated my moves and my style of play perfectly. It is really incredible and a lot of fun to play.

That's the thing with animated films - I often feel that puppets get the better parts compared to us normal actresses.

I did a voice for this video game called 'Fallout 3,' and that was really fun. I had a great time, especially since I could show up in PJs and not have to worry about how I looked.

Acting is a plum gig, and then animation is an even more plum gig.