The rise of 'synthespians'

"It's very difficult to pull off," Shays says. "I'm sure it'll happen someday. It's just a matter of now it's extremely time-consuming and expensive."

While it is unclear if that will ever happen, observers point out that the use of CG images are already proliferating on movie screens in more subtle ways. One growing use of CG characters is in crowd scenes.

For the battle scenes in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, a digital effects program called "Massive" allows thousands of characters in the background to move about randomly based on a set of rules programmed into them (much like the characters in many video games), saving the need to hire and outfit thousands of extras.

"This is a medium still in its infancy," says Daniel Robichaud, the animation supervisor who designed the ill-fated digital extras in "Titanic," and "The Scorpion King." "You're going to see more and more ... digital animation in moviemaking."

While some animators will remain fascinated by the challenge of creating humanlike CG characters, Heather Kenyon, editor in chief of Animation World Network (www.awn.com), says the real potential of CG animation is to create new creatures, not imitate humans. "All these new digital films allow the artists, the directors, the writers, to tell the stories that they really want to tell."

The character of Gollum is a far cry from the insipid CG character of Jar Jar Binks in the recent "Star Wars" films. Gollum's role has an almost Shakespearean complexity. The inner conflict between the innocent Hobbit named Sméagol that he once was, and the skeletal, unscrupulous fiend he has become through possession of a mystical and evil ring, infuses the performance with dramatic tension.

To create Gollum, each scene had to be shot three different ways. First Serkis played the role himself with the other live actors. Then the scene was shot again without him. Finally, he played the role alone, wearing a bodysuit covered with sensors. Twenty-five cameras recorded his movements from various angles, including his facial expressions, and fed them into a computer. His movements and expressions then became the basis for the digital Gollum, who was inserted into each scene.

Serkis says he'd be "extremely flattered" if he were nominated for an Oscar. The Academy Awards press office has confirmed that Serkis will be eligible for nomination, despite his physical absence from the screen.

"We kind of talk about it in terms of the performance John Hurt gave in 'Elephant Man,' " says Serkis. In the 1981 film, Hurt was nominated for Best Actor despite being unrecognizable beneath his makeup. "He gave [the character] a voice and a physicality but was completely disguised by the prosthetics. And this in many ways is similar."

Serkis, a respected British actor, will be seen in the third film of the series as Sméagol, the young Hobbit. "Sméagol looks like my 2-1/2-year-old son," Serkis says, "and Gollum looks like my dad, bless him."

Page: 1 | 2