Making Movies: How'd They do That?

Reported April 2007

ATHENS, Ohio (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- "Polar Express" and "The Lord of the Rings" -- two films that used a new type of animation to bring characters to life, and a fiber optic suit is what's making animation more life-like than ever before!

"When you're looking at a body and it's doing something so fluidly human, that that is going to be a motion capture element," Katherine Milton, Ph.D., Director of the Aesthetic Technologies Lab of Ohio University's College of Fine Arts in Athens, tells Ivanhoe.

Students at the Aesthetic Technologies Lab are using motion capture technology to record their every move. Long strips of fiber optic tubes snake around the body and are fastened at several key points. Computer software tracks the fiber optics. Every movement is digitized in real time and is brought to life with 3-D animation.

Animators used motion capture technology to create the dancing penguins in "Happy Feet," and special effects producer Robert Zemeckis is using the technology in his film adaptation of "Beowulf," which is scheduled to open this year. The suit can also be used to improve athletes' games and aid in physical therapy for people and animals.

Nathaniel Berger, @Lab project manager, says, "It all boils down to a simple principle of, can you record how light bends?"

Animation used in older films used dozens of cameras, filming from all angles around the actor. But now, the cameras can be replaced with a ShapeWrap II ™ suit.

"We can go to the motion rather the motion having to come to us," Dr. Milton says -- new technology, moving animation into the future!

Animators used motion capture technology to create the dancing penguins in "Happy Feet," and special effects producer Robert Zemeckis is using the technology in his film adaptation of "Beowulf," which is scheduled to open this year. The suit can also be used to improve athletes' games and aid in physical therapy for people and animals.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. IEEE-USA
Washington, DC 20036-5104
(202) 785-0017
http://www.ieee.org
ieeeusa@ieee.org

Katherine Milton
Director
Aesthetic Technology Lab
Ohio University
(740) 593-0631
http://www.ohiou.edu/atlab/
milton@ohio.edu

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