by: Dominic von Riedemann
After years of uncertainty, AMPAS has decided that motion capture films are ineligible for the Best Animated Feature Film Award.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences laid a 4-year old controversy to rest when they announced that motion-capture films are no longer considered eligible for the Best Animated Feature Film category.
In a statement on its official website, AMPAS – which presents the Oscars every year – laid out a new set of voting rules for the 83rd Academy Awards, which included the sentence, “Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.” AMPAS’ governors had finalized the rules changes back in June 22nd, but only made the announcement late on Thursday.
This decision not only renders fully motion-captured movies like Disney’s A Christmas Carol and the upcoming Tintin trilogy ineligible for the top award but also shuts out effects-heavy extravaganzas like James Cameron’s Avatar or or Michael Bay’s Transformers 3 from elbowing their way into the category.
There is no word as to whether the motion-captured film Happy Feet will have its Oscar win revoked.
The Academy’s Motion-Capture Controversy: Happy Feet, Ratatouille and Beowulf
Animators have always had an uncomfortable relationship with motion capture. A Computer Age update of the classic rotoscoping technique, it involves dressing an actor in a sensor-equipped suit and filming his movements into a computer. When the film is played back, only the sensors on the suit show up, allowing effects technicians to superimpose other creatures on top of the original performance. Classic examples of characters created in motion capture include Gollum from Lord of the Rings and the blue Na’vi in Avatar.
As for rotoscoping, it’s been an essential – but often derided – element in animation from the very beginning. Classic examples include the Nine Old Men using rotoscoping to get the humans’ movements more lifelike in classic Disney animated films, or as an essential element in Ralph Bakshi’s 1970′s version of Lord of the Rings.
The first fully motion-captured film was 2004′s The Polar Express. While it was a modest success, reviewers found Robert Zemeckis’s process converted some of Hollywood’s top talent into cold, dead-eyed mannequins. However, the mo-capped fit truly hit the shan when Warner Bros.’ Happy Feet won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film in 2007. Many observers were incensed, claiming that Disney/Pixar’s Cars – the only non-motion-capture film nominated that year – should have taken the award by acclamation.
Director Brad Bird and the Pixar gang made their feelings clear in the end credits for the 2007 film Ratatouille in a statement reading, “Our Quality Assurance Guarantee: 100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film.”
In subsequent years, the Academy never ruled on whether motion-capture was animation, but films like 2007′s Beowulf (which Hollywood Elsewhere‘s Jeffrey Wells claimed, “deserves the Best Feature Animation Oscar, bar none.”) were quietly dropped from the final round of nominations. There were also questions on whether Avatar would be eligible for Best Animated Feature Film at next year’s award ceremony, since most of the film was made using motion-capture.
AMPAS Rules Animated Feature Films Can Be Longer Than 40 Minutes
The Academy also ruled that the running time for an eligible animated film was reduced from 70 minutes to 40 minutes. This makes the category “consistent with the running time requirements for feature films in all other categories.” The previous threshold had left a gaping hole for films that ran between 40 and 70 minutes, such as Disney’s classic Dumbo, preventing them from qualifying as either animated features or shorts.
“An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique,” AMPAS press release notes. “In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”
The 83rd Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live on ABC.
