Andy Serkis on Turning <cite>Heavenly Sword</cite> Into Theater

Wired's front page has a fantastic Q&A with 'King of Mo-Cap' Andy Serkis, who has taken his acting skills from the movie screen as Gollum in Lord of the Rings, to the TV screen for Heavenly Sword. More than just a body-for-hire, Serkis has a co-producer credit for Sword, after getting deeply involved with the game's character development and writing:

When I took the actors down to New Zealand to rehearse, we sat in a circle and performed the whole game, from beginning to end, as a play for each other. By treating it as theater, we could see how all the characters were inter related, figure out where scenes weren't working, and feel the whole arc.

Be sure to check out the videos to see how Andy and the other digital performers bring the Heavenly Sword characters to life. It's a fascinating and painstaking process--I certainly don't envy them their hours spent with tiny balls stuck to their faces. But the final results are quite remarkable.

Q&A: King of Mo-Cap Andy Serkis on Digital Acting and Gollum's Oscar Diss[Wired]