Shawn Ashmore wants to emulate Andy Serkis’ career and become a performance capture expert.
The ‘X-Men’ star learned how to film scenes in a motion capture suit and act out facial capture scenes for his role as Jack Joyce in new Xbox One and Microsoft Windows video game ‘Quantum Break’.
Shawn learned a lot about the skill-set required for motion capture when making the game with Remedy Entertainment at their studios in Los Angeles and Helsinki, Finland, and he is ready to take those talents to the big screen just like Serkis has in a string of hit films.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz, Shawn said: "The guys at Remedy were so great and generous because they knew I hadn’t done it before so took a lot of time with me. Now I know how to do it if I was to do it for a film I feel like I’ve already had my training period. "With technology changing and actors like Andy Serkis, who to me has done some of the most interesting performances in the last couple years fully motion captured, I think we can all see that it’s there – the ability to give great performances in this medium. It’s exciting to be able to push the boundaries like that. I want to be a part of it."
Serkis, 51, first took on the challenge of playing a fully CGI-rendered character in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, in which he portrayed Gollum.
He followed this with performances as giant ape Kong in ‘King Kong’, chimpanzee Caesar in the new ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise and Supreme Leader Snoke in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’.
Due to his expertise in the genre, Serkis founded The Imaginarium Studios with film producer Jonathan Cavendish solely dedicated to the art of performance capture.
Recalling the biggest challenges of filming with motion capture technology, other than the embarrassment of wearing a skin-tight Lycra suit, Shawn says it’s hard at first to understand how you can convey emotion as an actor.
He said: "I think getting used to the motion capture suit is hard. The first day of filming I felt incredibly embarrassed to walk out in this skin-tight suit but then you see everybody else is in it and it’s totally fine. It’s a different way of performing and it’s very technical in a lot of ways. The facial capture is very challenging as you basically can’t move, there are nine cameras and you have to stay completely still and perform, to do things like show tears and anguish."
‘Quantum Break’ is out now.
Shawn Ashmore wants to emulate Andy Serkis’ success
