The Opacity of Representations of 3D Scanning and Motion Capture in the Cinema - Text 11
Leos Carax’s Holy Motors (2012), featuring this new system, once again sidelined the documentary approach to adopt instead a more aesthetic treatment by capitalising on the fascination we may have for the on-set configuration of motion capture film shoots: a completely blank studio in which actors move about dressed in a skin-tight lycra suit – loaded with small reflective balls which serve as markers – and surrounded by infrared receivers covering the walls of what is called the “volume,” which in this case, however, is plunged into darkness in order to make the undulating silhouettes enigmatic. In addition Carax, following on from the work of Marey, plays on the theoretical disappearance of the body to which such a set-up gives rise in order to stage, with the revelation of the final result, an erotic relationship between two fantastic creatures who appear to desire each other carnally, although nothing carnal appears on screen. Carax thus confronts us with a kind of dehumanisation, one to which the motion capture apparatus gives rise in the way it deforms the acting body.
