Steven Ho's Blog - Deconstructing Fighting and Stunts for your enjoyment

Motion Capture (MOCAP) work refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 3D animation…and yes, the process can be as complicated as it sounds (especially if you don’t go through your checklist in proper order). But luckily the end result is much more exciting than the definition I just gave.

Here’s a behind the scenes look at the WoW/Mtn. Dew commercial I coordinated & choreographed for Director Tarsem Singh and Radical Media to give you an idea of the process. I used Yoshio Iizuku as the stunt player for the Night Elf and Sam Looc for the Green Horde Orc.

Our first step was to choreograph the fight. We duplicated the actual location (a privately owned grocery store in Downey) by taping out an exact layout of the room and set pieces (cash register, etc…). Once our action was approved (by the director, producer, ad agency, Mountain Dew, Blizzard, and basically everyone else but my mother), the next step was to go the the actual location and shoot out all the plate shots.

In addition to the live actors featured in the commercial, these plate shots also include the reactions of any “real elements” that may be affected by our MOCAP characters. So if the commercial calls for a Monster knocking down a display case, we would shoot the falling of that display case. Our stuntmen are dressed in tight, green, uncomfortable suits so that they can later be digitally replaced.

After all the real elements and acting moments have been captured, the final steps for stunts is to shoot MOCAP. We went to Scott Gagian’s House of Moves for this show (whose team and facilities I was extremely impressed with). Yoshio and Sam are now covered in optical markers. Their movements are captured from multiple angles with tens of cameras tracking their moves….for the magicians to then create them into monsters.

And the final product…