So it's been a couple of days since I purchased The Art of The Adventures of Tintin...
As you can see, except for the film's awesome logo, the cover isn't very appealing. But the concepts, rendered designs, and especially the character close-ups inside make up for it.
It's slightly different than other 'Art of' volumes in that there's greater discussion of the film's main animation process—motion/performance capture or mocap. It should have been titled The Making of...
The 200-page book is authored by Chris Guise, who was the lead conceptual designer for the movie at Weta Workshop. But much of the written material comes from quotes by others who were as instrumental in making the film.
While presenting the details in a fairly uncomplicated manner, the text holds some great facts on the filmmaking techniques used. Case in point: Weta's method for creating realistic skin textures (p. 56).
The artists at Weta are clearly proud of what they do and thus defensive about mocap.
"Do people say Michelangelo was just a technician because he copied a life model?" Guise asks in his introduction. "No. He's considered a great artist. The same should be said for digital artists, whether they build digital models, performance-capture movement, or create artificial hair for a dog."
He makes a good point. Performance capture is just another way to animate characters.
In a recent post on Cartoon Brew, animation historian and current vice president of ASIFA-Hollywood, Jerry Beck writes that mocap "is not "the future of animation" ... It will not replace human beings in narrative stories for motion pictures."
Mocap will never completely supplant frame by frame ("keyframe") animation, but to shrug off the potential for future progress is incredibly shortsighted and smacks of insecurity.
Of course I'm still with the studios (notably Pixar) that have rejected the technology because of its present limitations and hope they continue doing so as long as they feel that is in the best interests of the films.
Tintin would have been better off without motion capture. Then again, its doubtful that Spielberg would have directed it otherwise.
The Art of The Adventures of Tintin is published by Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. An iPad app based on the book is available from the iTunes App Store.
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