(gentle chiming music)

[Caesar] Caesar love humans,

more than apes. (snarls)

[Soldier] Don't you move!

[Man With Jacket] Should we shoot him?

[Soldier] Maybe.

Woah, woah.

Hey, hey.

Hi, I'm Mike Seymour from FXGuide.com for Wired,

looking at the tech of making apes act

in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

In this new Apes film, Weta Digital has provided

director Matt Reeves with a action blockbuster

with real heart, incredibly coming from the

fully digital lead ape actors.

Andy Serkis delivers a near-Shakespearean performance

as Caesar, as does fellow motion capture artist

Toby Kebbell as Koba.

On screen, precisely-rendered ape characters show

stunning acting performances, nuanced and layered

in ways not seen before.

There's no better example of this than the Koba scene

where he discovers the survivors' armory.

In a comically tragic moment, Koba plays the fool

to disarm the humans and make his escape.

So, what does it take to have an acting performance

like this make its way to the screen?

As with everything, of course, it starts with a script

which created this subtle onscreen moment.

The script was then thoughtfully interpreted

by Toby's acting choices on set, while being filmed

by both the main unit in stereo and motion capture

with simultaneous various reference cameras around the set.

These cameras included a single high-speed camera on a

helmet mount, for the exact facial timing and tracking

of the lead actors.

The Weta team pioneered this use of on-locations

motion capture volumes, rather than just

filming motion capture as second unit

on a sound stage.

The difficulty of a next step is translating

Toby's acting choices to the exact anatomy of an ape.

For some shots, this is most evident in the differences

of, say, arm or limb length, compensated for

in this pickup shot with Toby wearing an arm extension.

But when it comes to the facial performances,

the job becomes painstakingly complex.

Humans and apes just have different muscles.

On the neck for example, do the animators match

Toby's tightening of his neck muscles with

incorrectly-placed muscles on Koba, or do they

remain faithful to the primate's actual muscle anatomy

and then tense different muscles that maybe don't read

with exactly the same expression as Toby's

original performance?

Nowhere is this more evident than in the mouths

of the humans and apes, which is particularly complicated

if the key to the entire scene is Koba

blowing a raspberry.

The team studied Toby's performance and then did

special high-speed tests to understand the exact anatomy

of someone blowing a raspberry.

They then did flesh simulations to explore this

on a digital Koba, but with the lip and snout changes

between apes and humans, mapping the performance exactly

was nearly impossible.

At this point in the story, the raspberry

needs to be funny, but not silly.

More importantly, the audience needs to know that

the digital Koba is acting as a fool,

not being a fool.

The audience can't be confused, or this poignant

character moment will be completely lost.

This layered performance of having Koba be foolish

is all the more tragic given the horrendous cruelty

that Koba had to suffer at the hands of humans

when he was growing up.

But Koba needs to denigrate himself to survive

and that the audience can see that in a single closeup shot

makes this powerful writing, interpreted by a great actor,

and then realized by a brilliant team of digital artists,

and all the more remarkable.

Well, don't forget to subscribe for more behind-the-scenes

action, I'm Mike Seymour for Wired.

[Man With Jacket] It's good, huh?

(both laughing)

[Both Men] Oh, hey, hey!

Hey, okay, all right, easy.

(gunfire)

(chime, whoosh)