Ever since Lord Of The Rings, Andy Serkis and Peter Jackson have had a pretty close working relationship that’s taken them through King Kong, the ucpoming Tintin and now The Hobbit. And with Serkis having jumped in a motion capture suit for all of them (and become the de facto go-to guy for mo-cap roles), he’s unsurprisingly learned a lot about how it all works behind the scenes.
As a result, THR reports that Andy’s been offered the role of second unit director on The Hobbit. It won’t be his first directing experience, as he’s helmed mo-cap sequences for a couple of video games, and hope the helm a feature film once The Hobbit is over. That’s probably involve motion capture too, as he’s launching his own mo-cap studio, The Imaginarium, alongside producer Joanthan Cavendish.
Although it’s not known exactly what he’ll be shooting on The Hobbit, Serkis says, I think I understand Peters sensibility and we have a common history of understanding Middle Earth. A lot of the crew from The Lord of the Rings was returning to work on The Hobbit. There is really a sense of Peter wanting people around him who totally understand the material and the work ethic.”
He adds, It is wide ranging and encompasses a lot of directing aspects of filmmaking and story. Yes, there is some performance capture, but I will be very much on the live action sets and locations helping Peter to tell the story.”
The learning curve is The Hobbit is being shot in 3D, noting that the 3D would be used dramatically, to give a point of view… In the same way Lord of the Rings was an interpretation of the book, The Hobbit is being treated the same way. It will be faithfully represented with a fresh interpretation.
The reason Serkis has time is that he’s already completed much of his acting work as Gollum, but will now stay in the New Zealand set, working on the second unit.