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Directors Tom Hingston and Markus Lehtonen of London-based Hingston Studio envisaged a music video for the artist Jehnny Beth that blended high poly photogrammetry scans of the performer alongside a computer-generated avatar that, with the help of mocap, comes to life to interact with herself.
From Jehnny Beth’s solo debut, the track ‘We Will Sin Together’ features surrealistic visuals representing a marble statue that, once unveiled, comes to life and engages in a litany of sensuous and visceral vignettes. These reference mythology from Catholic, Roman and Greek literature — the Virgin Mary, Cupid and Psyche, Pluto and Proserpina, Michael and Lucifer, and Satyr and Hermaphroditus — as the track’s sparse, dramatic electronic backdrop supports Beth’s lyrics about kisses, murder and damnation.
The issues
T3D faced potential difficulties of figuring out the performers’ movements and blocking issues during the mocap shoot in order that they interact correctly in the virtual space, and a tight time frame required capture of the best possible data (minimising the post-production time) in the tightest of windows.
The solutions T3D captured the full body mocap of two dancers using a full OptiTrack rig; comprising of 40 x Prime 41, 13 and Prime17W cameras set at 3 heights alongside two colour-reference cameras to help with post-animation.
Maximising coverage of the hand markers, deemed a higher risk of dropping out due to the close choreography and tending to be the most complex to clean in post-production, were six additional Prime13’s added at low and mid-level in the centre of the volume. A 54-marker set was used for both performers to create the detailed finger animation the visual required.
Target3D’s technical team worked closely with the Hingston creatives to ensure the post-animated hand and finger data and post-animated facial motion (breathing, blinking and nuanced face moments) was cleaned and prepped, allowing the religious and mythical themes of the film to be curated.
The result We Will Sin Together, this intimate encounter of two alter egos exploring pleasure, power and transformation created entirely using 3D data capture...
Let Target3D bring the motion capture to you. Contact us to discuss mocap products, training and installs for your next project.
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