Anyone who saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, would probably agree that the most memorable part of the movie was the beginning scene where Mad-Eye Moody creates a group of seven Potters – six of them clones of the original, and two of them still in women’s clothing.
Anyone who knows the moviemaking process would look at this and assume it was done with several cameras and a green screen. This is the typical method for compositing characters into a scene when it can’t be done in a single shot. A group of film students who attend the Art Institute of California went to see the movie opening week were very impressed with this scene. One girl stated that she was “very impressed with Daniel Radcliffe’s ability to play so many different personalities.”
However, according to the Animation World Network website (AWN), Daniel Radcliffe was not solely responsible for the acting in this scene. While he did a lot of the on-camera work, it was heavily enhanced with motion control and a CG Harry. There was also a lot of face-replacement technology involved. The director also had Daniel Radcliffe collaborate with the original actors to pin their personality for each shot. They didn’t want to risk each character developing Harry’s personality just because they put on his face.
MovieReshape is a program that can alter the physique of a character on a live-action movie that’s already been finished.
It uses technology similar to sensor-free motion capture, where a computer is able to recognize body-shape masses and automatically construct a 3d model of the actor. The original video is mapped onto that model. Then, by changing the proportions of the computer model, you change the shape of the actor on screen. You can make them thinner, taller, more muscular, or any number of body changes.
It doesn’t work perfectly, though. Because the original video is only morphed, some alterations wouldn’t look quite right. If you take a thin person and increase their girth, they still won’t bounce like a fat person, because they didn’t in the original video. Basically, you can change the shape of a person, but not the movement of their bodies.
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