The Kidd here...
Having mastered the art of motion-capture performance with his performances in THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and KING KONG, and served as second-unit director on THE HOBBIT, Andy Serkis is combining his knowledge in both areas to climb behind the camera for his directorial debut, taking on a performance-capture adaptation of George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM for The Imaginarium, the performance-capture studio Serkis and producer Jonathan Cavendish formed.
Serkis tells The Hollywood Reporter, "We are in proof-of-concept stage at the moment, designing characters and experimenting on our stage with the designs,” he continues. “It is quite a wide canvas as to how much and how far we can take performance capture with quadrupeds and how much we will be using facial [capture]. We are not discounting the use of keyframe animation or puppeteering parts of animals. We are in an experimental phase; it’s terribly exciting.”
As for whether or not Serkis will stay true to Orwell's allegory about Stalin-era Russia, it appears this ANIMAL FARM is going to take a softer approach to the source material. "We’re keeping it fable-istic and [aimed at] a family audience. We are not going to handle the politics in a heavy-handed fashion," says Serkis. "It is going to be emotionally centered in a way that I don’t think has been seen before. The point of view that we take will be slightly different to how it is normally portrayed and the characters We are examining this in a new light.”
If you're going to cut out what ANIMAL FARM is really about though, is it really ANIMAL FARM?
Don't get me wrong... I'm quite intrigued to see the extent to which these animals can be portrayed with performance-capture, going above and beyond what may have been done with ROTPOTA, but story-wise, the politics are what make ANIMAL FARM the literary classic it is. Without that, it's just a bunch of talking animals.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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