In on the Action
One of the biggest challenges for the filmmakers was working Gollum in with human actors.

For many scenes, the director (Peter Jackson) filmed the action once with Andy in the shot along with the other actors. Then he filmed the scene with only the onscreen actors, while Andy read his lines off-camera. The actors kept in mind where Andy was during the first run-through. Later, in a motion-capture studio, Andy put on a motion-capture suit and played his part again. With this motion information, the animators added Gollum into the scene.

For this fight scene, they had to try something a little different.

Photo courtesy New Line

First, Andy Serkis dressed in a white jump suit and played the scene with the actors. Animators then used the sliders to position the computer model of Gollum so it followed Andy's movements exactly. Then they overlaid the CG Gollum on top of Andy, frame by frame. Since Gollum is much thinner than Andy, and since Gollum's legs are shorter, the artists painted out all the "extra" parts of Andy by hand.

CG Hall of Fame You can actually see CG characters like the ones we are talking about in this article if you have access to the Internet. Here are the trailers for several movies: "Final Fantasy": Every part of this movie is CG, including all the people. The motion of the characters comes from motion capture. "Monsters, Inc.": Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc., as well as all the people and other monsters in the movie, are CG characters. Check out that fur on Sully -- every hair is an independent object that the computer has to realistically simulate! "Spider-Man": Every action shot uses a CG character for "Spider-Man." "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King": Gollum, the dragons and much of the army is CG. "Shrek": All of the characters and the scenery are animated using the CG techniques described in this article.