Observations regarding the Use of 3D: Tintin

Recently over the break I went to see the new (reboot) Tintin movie. Before I had judged it just in terms of what I know of the comic series and just in cinematic merits. Thinking over what I had learned in class and taking another look it I found visible pros, cons, and techniques that were shown throughout the film.

Pros:

1. Though in 3D the movie took an innovated approach by creating and animators the characters through motion capture (mocap) of their actors/actresses.

2. Using the mocap it is much easier to create smooth and natural movement for characters as well as make nice references for objects and lighting in relation to the characters/actors/actresses.

3. Expressions except in a notable exception were awesome especially in the character of Captain Haddock blending the traditional style of the original source of the comic and 3D which was made believable by the motion capture.

4. Also animals in the film that were not animated by mocap looked fantastic as I felt the same amount of times spent on characters were lent to them in making simple shapes and skeletons stand out to the rest of the "cast".

I have no real experience in such but I think that the mocap would used as a skeleton (abielt an insanely detailed moving skeleton) that would have a layer of shapes in a sense a skin or mask of sorts. Probably because of the mocap that it became a smoother process in terms of production as well make convincing movements.

Technique/Tricks of the Trade:

5. What I had also noticed in the movie despite many action scenes they had used very simple shapes whenever a scene occurred in contrast to less intense scenes where it switched to much more complex objects. This was probably due to reducing stress on the movie and workload as it is borrowed when there is complex objects in high octane scenes they were often kept obscured or in the dark.

6. Another technique I found is that the movie itself utilized alot of shadows and obscuring devices (fog, intense light) that created the illusion of space without animating it all.

7. Whenever there was a large expansive scene only partially was it active keeping most of it fairly static with small variations which kept it from breaking the illusion of immersion.

8. Whenever there were evidence of movement from objects again they were limited to simplicity, afterimage, or use of obscuring.

Cons:

9.Again I mention characters though most were exceptional, some okay, inexcusable was the titular character of Tintin himself falling into the trap that is the Uncanny Valley. His movements were on par with other characters but the work on his expressions were dull and were quickly forgotten. With more like they had on Haddock who retained a cartoonish but realistic look to him they had gone too far with Tintin.

10.In all it was fantastic and tight but the mocap which looked great in most instances but failed in others looking unwieldy as objects and sometimes background characters did little then look like they didn't belong.

I can't really much else on the subject. In reality it may be more a gripe then mistakes in terms of cons as I feel I do not have much grasp on the subject to say much else. It was a good film and an interesting experiment look and experiment.