alt title(s): CGI Actor
Characters created entirely with computer graphics. Can be part of a live-action show, or in an entirely CGI world.
Serkis Folk have a distinct advantage over
puppets, in that their dimensions, appearance, composition, etc. is not limited by the constraints of real materials. It could be translucent, free-floating, shape-shifting, liquid, or anything else the director/producer wants. They can also have a degree and range/speed of motion that puppets cannot approach. Additionally, you don't have to shoot around the limitations of a puppet; you can use any camera angle you want on-set and the Serkis Folk will accommodate it. As Aki Ross showed early in the
Final Fantasy movie, performing a scene in realistic zero-g is easy when your actress doesn't have any mass!
There are drawbacks, however. Since the character is not present on the set, getting the actor's sightlines, reactions, and blocking to match the CGI is time-consuming. Ad-libbing is unlikely, except when the CG is based on motion capture performance where the actor can physically ad-lib on set. The cost-per-second of screen time for
Serkis Folk can run far past the hourly wage for a typical TV actor.
Compare/contrast to a puppet, which is present on the set, appears to the actors on the set exactly how it does to the audience, can ad-lib, re-do lines in situ, and in general looks more "real" than a CGI creature. Its main drawback is a lack of mobility, but puppetry has at least a
thousand years worth of development on tricks to circumvent this. Unfortunately, people have been looking at puppetry for at least a
thousand years, and thus can readily spot when they're looking at a puppet.
Due to cost, time, and other factors, convincing CGI characters that can actually
act well are still the domain of feature film. (This is not to say that all CGI characters in feature films can act well!) But TV shows often have one-off characters, monsters and
aliens that are not really there. CGI has already overtaken puppetry and modelling as the primary
Special Effects medium, with some of the last holdouts at The Jim Henson Company.
Often, a
Revival will take characters who were
Muppets in the original and "update" them as
Serkis Folk.
Named after the actor Andy Serkis, who was transformed by CGI wizardry into the characters of Gollum (from
The Lord Of The Rings) and
King Kong for Peter Jackson's recent films. Technically, in the former case, Serkis was on the set acting directly alongside his costars.
The trope name is
a spin on the phrase "circus folk".
Can land in the
Uncanny Valley and if the designers are lazy with non human creatures can result in
You ALL Look Familiar. And in the third direction, there's
Ink Suit Actor. See also
Conspicuous CG.
Examples
Film
-
One of the earliest example: the MCP from Tron.
- Toy Story was the first feature film to be done completely in CGI.
- The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and the T-1000 in Terminator 2 are among the first examples of photorealistic Serkis folk.
- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the earliest attempt at a photorealistic film done entirely in CGI.
- Star Wars features a number of examples:
- Jar-Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace was the first entirely CGI major character to be blended with live-action actors. Actor Ahmed Best acted on set wearing a Jar-Jar hat for the benefit of the other actors, and was superimposed over by the CGI. The technological feat was overshadowed by the character's cruddiness.
- The former Muppet Yoda was converted to CGI in the second and third prequels. Fan reaction was mixed.
- Most of the non-Human Aliens in the prequels, as well as most of the droids and the clone warriors while in uniform.
- Davy Jones (played by a CG Bill Nighy) and the crew of the Flying Dutchman in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, in their "monster" forms, with the exception of Bill Turner (Stellan Skaarsgard, who was the only one who actually had to wear makeup and prosthetics instead of motion-capture gear).
- Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo from the 2002 live-action movie.
- Titular character of Kangaroo Jack.
- Several characters in the Harry Potter films, most notably Dobby, whom the promotion of the second film centered around for no apparent reason. (He's barely a supporting character, but you would never have known that from the ads.)
- MirrorMask featured a number of completely CGI characters.
- Doctor Manhattan in the film adaptation of Watchmen. A combination of the actor's face, and a bodybuilder's physique.
- Although, according to production notes, they had him on-set in a suit covered in blue lights, which helped provide that otherworldly glow without as much post-production.
- For probably the first time in his career, Doug Jones did this in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
- The Silver Surfer was actually only partially CGI - Doug Jones wore prosthetics which were then computer-enhanced, rather than totally replaced. Obviously all-CGI bits were used as well for things like the flying scenes.
- Robert Zemeckis has made three films with all-Serkis Folk casts: The Polar Express, Beowulf (especially Grendel), and A Christmas Carol.
- The Transformers of the 2007 movie and its sequal are giant Serkis Folk.
- The Big Creepy Crawlies of the the film Starship Troopers. Later, the Animated Adaptation was all-CGI.
- Sonny/Sunny and the rest of the I Robot robots, with movements provided by the guy from Strictly Ballroom.
- The upcoming TinTin movie will be full of this and directed by Peter Jackson to boot... I think.
- Casper from the Live Action Adaptation was the first CGI protagonist.
- The Mummy Trilogy has many CG characters - mummies, dog soldiers, yetis, the Scorpion King...
- The title Avatars (not that Avatar) from James Cameron's Avatar.
- At least a few of the Conspicuous CGI characters in Immortal.
- A couple of monsters in Star Trek 2009.
- The hamsters in G-Force.
- Some of the ghosts in the Ghost Busters series are animated this way.
- All of the alien "prawns" in District9.
Live Action TV
- Star Trek: Voyager: Species 8472
- Ally McBeal: The dancing baby.
- The Na'ka'leen Feeder from Babylon 5.
- Also the Shadows, any Vorlon out of it's suit, and the aliens of Sigma 957 when Ivanova confronts them.
- The first episode of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.
- Battlestar Galactica (2005): centurion-style Cylons.
- Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future: Soaron, probably the first television example.
- Control, the warder of Martin Kove's alien prisoner character in Hard Time On Planet Earth.
- Waldo in the Muppetelevision segments of The Jim Henson Hour. (An interesting exception to many of the drawbacks mentioned above, Waldo was generated in real time and moved in synch with the sensor-rigged Waldo puppet in the real world. Puppeteers on Henson shows are trained to follow their puppet's movement by watching it on a TV screen, so both the Waldo puppeteer and the other characters' puppeteers were able to act as if Waldo really were on set with the other characters.)
- Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is an example of puppetry getting successfully updated into Serkis Folk. As an added homage to the original animation, dubbed Supermarionation in the original, the CGI used in the new series was called Hypermarionation.
- In Stargate SG-1 the Asgard are at various times played by either puppets or Serkis Folk. On DVD, the difference between the two is quite noticeable, especially episodes where a puppet and a CGI character are in the same scene and on camera at once.
- The Goa'uld started off as puppets when the show began in 1997. After two seasons, they became CGI.
- A transition which is equally noticeable, given that the Goa'uld symbiotes go from lethargically twitching worms to lightning-fast lashing snakes as the makers exploited the advantages of CGI.
- Sensei Kanoi Watanabe in Power Rangers Ninja Storm, while he's a guinea pig.
- The Dragon on Merlin. Which looks rather... awful, actually.
- The "videogame characters" of Ace Lightning in a way which was sometimes so limtied, that real characters and CG Is were rarely seen in physical contact (This Troper counts only three times.)
Western Animation
- All cartoons done by Mainframe Productions are entirely CGI:
- Reboot The first show to be done entirely in CGI. Fittingly, it takes place inside a computer.
- Actually Insektors predates it by less than a year. Apparently.
- Transformers: Beast Wars (given that the show premièred in 1996, the characters' "acting" still holds up surprisingly well)
- Shadow Raiders
- All of the Barbie movies, much to this troper's horror. Uncanny Valley, anyone?
- Zixx on the other hand was half cgi and half live action
- The third part of Treehouse of Horror VI of The Simpsons, animated Homer and Bart this way.
