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Watch: Incredible Weta Featurette for 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'

by Alex Billington
August 3, 2011
Source: YouTube

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Weta Featurette

If you've been waiting to be truly impressed by the work Weta Digital did for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then look no further, as this is the behind-the-scenes featurette to watch. Thanks to an email tip from Dominic, we've found an incredible 4-minute long featurette from YouTube that includes lots of footage (beware), interviews and more. They speak with director Rupert Wyatt, Weta's Joe Letteri and other FX wizards, and even the legend himself, Andy Serkis, who plays Caesar. I finally saw the film and will say it is outstanding, thanks in part to the amazing work of Weta. It's really an impressive feat they've pulled off.

Watch the fantastic Weta featurette for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, straight from YouTube:

Fox's Rise of the Planet of the Apes is set in contemporary San Francisco and follows a young scientist who becomes a crucial figure in the war between humans and apes. Franco has been testing his Alzheimer cure on apes, but one of them, named Caesar, starts to evolve rapidly, so he takes him home to live with him and protect him from the cruel doctors, thus starting the inevitable ape revolution. James Franco stars, along with Andy Serkis providing motion capture as Caesar and Weta doing CGI; plus Freida Pinto, Brian Cox, John Lithgow and Tom Felton. Rise of the Planet of the Apes hits theaters on August 5th later this week.

Filed under Feat, Featurette, Hype, To Watch

From around the web:

Dvorak

Truly amazing!
Anonymous

When is Andy going to be properly recognized for the amazing work he does?
- http://profiles.google.com/snears Nick Sears
  
  I was thinking the exact same thing about 5 seconds into this video. He's done so much, has practically carried the plots of the movies he's been in. He's deserves an oscar after this performance.
  - Anonymous
    
    Perhaps this is where they need to make a special category for this kind of performance now. Film and media is changing and there needs to be proper recognition for the new change. Andy is first and foremost still a great and amazing actor and that should be recognized no matter what the medium it is within.
- Dom
  
  Andy is directing his own film right now! Thanks for the heads up Alex
John

Andy is not the best for this work, he's just damn lucky. A lot of really talented actors just haven't made it in Hollywood. Luckily he made it by doing Gollum and continuing doing motion capture based performances to keep his footing in the industry. Here Weta says they are the first to do on location motion capture, wrong! ILM was the first to do it with their IMoCap technology for Davey Jones for Pirates of the Caribbean Dead man Chest. Well I guess they wouldn't be the first to lie to promote a movie or also visual effect studio. ;p
- EasyRider
  
  Dude, hope you don't take everything as personally in your life as you have just displayed here. Take it easy, no need to get all hot under the collar. And what's with the Andy Serkis hate/bashing. It's not his fault he has the right connections
- http://www.facebook.com/ayotunde.afolabi Ayotunde Afolabi
  
  The Davey Jones scenes were shot in a warehouse the ship mounted on mechanical rigs. On the bonus features of the DVD...Weta's claims to shoot on location EXTERNALLY are true...sunlight dude, no artificial lighting/soundstage. Btw, your right in that alot of other actors have done mo-cap...still haven't scene any of his calibre though :/
- Anonymous
  
  Debbie Downer ladies and gentlemen, lets give her a round of applause.
- Konti
  
  I'm not 100% sure, but I read that ILM used rotomation instead of mocap when they did scenes outside... Mocap-like suits means nothing. Actors had them in District 9 but there was no mocap at all.
John

"The Davey Jones scenes were shot in a warehouse the ship mounted on mechanical rigs."Not in the second film, the fight on the island with the crew was al shot on location with motion capture.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690774590 Gianni Persello

3 days to go...can't wait...
Jalts4

really cool
Anonymous

Me and Andy at SDCC 2011 Weta Booth. This man was amazingly cool.
Skywalker

The CG apes don't hold up. They look fake. Weta is the new McDonald's of CGI VFX.
- Anonymous
  
  Spoken like someone with no experience on the subject. You know, special effects aren't actually about looking 'realistic'. I mean, I disagree with you. I think these apes look pretty god damn good. But the goal isn't making everything look 100% real. It would be great if that were possible, but there are always going to be imperfections on even the best effects shots. This has always been true. The goal is to sell the character / the place / the idea. If you get hung up on the fact that you can see some imperfection in the CGI apes, that's your issue. Not theirs.