Vicon, a motion capture technology specialist for the entertainment, engineering and life science industries, announced that Framestore used its motion capture (mocap) cameras on Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Framestore’s Vicon system generated high-quality, accurate data, resulting in faster turnaround times and highly realistic characters.
The spy action comedy starring Colin Firth sees the return of secret agents Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), Roxy (Sophie Cookson) and Merlin (Mark Strong) as they encounter an allied US spy organization fronted by the formidable Ginger (Halle Berry). With the world held hostage and the Kingsman headquarters destroyed, both elite secret services band together to save the world and defeat their ruthless joint enemy.
Using a 16-camera Vicon system, Framestore was able to create digital doubles for scenes in the film that sees a large crowd trapped in a football stadium. The pipeline involved streaming the live mocap data straight into Unreal Engine, giving the team and mocap performers real-time feedback, which ensured a wide variety of movements could be captured. This also allowed the performers to see their movements in the context of how they would be seen in the film–ensuring a higher level of character realism.
“The data captured by the Vicon cameras provides us with great accuracy, and in turn, this gives us the opportunity to be adaptable and try different techniques,” said Richard Graham, capture lab studio manager at Framestore. “During this particular shoot, we mounted a virtual camera to allow our team and our clientsto quickly view the performance from any angle. With the cameras generating such high-quality data, we were able to turn around 90 minutes of finished data in 24 hours using our custom solving pipeline and really minimal manual processing work.”
“With the help of Vicon cameras, Framestore was able to create captivating visual effects for the highly anticipated Kingsman sequel,” said Imogen Moorhouse, CEO, Vicon. “The accuracy of Vicon systems gives customers the ability to turnaround content quickly and efficiently, experiment with different techniques, and achieve highly realistic results.”
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More