Spider-man 3 | Facial Capture Animation Process

Remington, Thomas Haden Church, Sandman, Eddie Brock, Venom, James Franco, Harry Osborne , Goblin, Spider-man 3, Facial Capture Animation , making, vfx, behind the scenes , wallpaper, video , poster

Remington supervised and directed performance capture sessions featuring Thomas Haden Church (Flint Marko / Sandman), Topher Grace (Eddie Brock / Venom) and James Franco (Harry Osborne / Goblin) for "Spider-man 3".

In the 'Birth of Sandman' sequence, Remington worked closely with Animation Supervisor Spencer Cook and Character Setup TD Brian Burks to ensure that the erosion of facial features did not remove Thomas Haden Church's expressiveness that was key to conveying the characters emotional state.

Spider-man 3 | Facial Capture Animation Process

Spider-man 3 Facial Capture Animation Process from Remington Scott on Vimeo.

Utilizing clips of performance capture from actor Thomas Haden Church that were recorded before principle photography began, Remington sampled elements of a calibrated library of muscle and facial motion in order to modify the performance for director Sam Raimi's approval. Although timing and actions were recombined and sampled into a new performance, the facial motion retained it's essential uniqueness of Thomas Haden Church's muscle actions, which allowed his personality to 'read' through the digital sand simulated character.

The facial pipeline for "Spider-man 3", including rigging and animation was overseen by Remington.
The Sony Imageworks FACS pipeline was integrated as a secondary system to punch up facial detail such as furrows, wrinkles and deformations where markers didn't exist.