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The most intriguing scene in Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007) occurs after the movie is over. At the very bottom of the end credits, following the usual Pixar-perfect lists of loop groups and Production Babies, comes an unexpected disclaimer. "Our Quality Assurance Guarantee," it reads, "100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film." Next to the statement stands a winking caricature of a 1950s businessman giving the audience a thumbs-up for supporting such an apparently worthy endeavor.
It is, without a doubt, an odd way to postscript a film, but Ratatouille's swipe at motion capture is also indicative of a larger dispute over the use of modern technology within the pantheon of animation techniques. The debate has been quietly raging for over a decade, even as the technology itself becomes more powerful, more convincing, and more widespread. The past two years, however, have seen several moves to end the debate, with various disciplines attempting to categorize motion capture-often to contradictory extremes. Rules have been written and opinions have been proffered from film practitioners, corporations, unions, and even award shows reflecting numerous agendas and points of view. Clearly, the question of how to view motion capture is an important one, as it illustrates the difficulties of defining different forms of film in the digital age.
Motion capture occupies a unique and disputed place among film technologies. By capturing live movement as raw computer data, it exists as an unprecedented amalgam of both recorded and synthetic cinema. As such, motion capture is at the center of an ongoing debate about what constitutes animation in the digital age. Whereas it was once compared almost exclusively to animation and to techniques such as rotoscoping in particular, the medium has evolved into its own particular mode of expression. This has spurred an industry-wide race to redefine motion capture in which different factions of filmmakers-everyone from actors to visual effects artists, studios to labor unions-have attempted to claim the technology as their own. This essay examines how various groups within Hollywood have sought to control the conversation about motion capture as well as efforts by a prominent umbrella organization-the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-to end the debate by...