Watch How Weta FX Created Robbie Williams’ Inner Monkey for ‘Better Man’

6 hours ago 3

Weta FX are some of the best at what they do for feature films, but, by their own admission, a lot of what they do are stunts and fight sequences. Even with Weta’s motion-capture transformations from actor to dragon or actor to ape, the usual way of shooting is to make the environment for motion capture as controlled as possible. Doing on-set MoCap to turn Robbie Williams into the dancing and singing monkey-version of himself in “Better Man” was the exact opposite of how Weta FX usually works. Big crowds, intricate dance choreography, and the very act of singing itself all set new obstacles for the visual effects studio to overcome.

Weta FX has gotten plenty of practice animating creatures, but the breathing and particular muscle efforts involved in singing required even more innovation from the visual effects studio. “We had to do a lot of motion studies [with regard to singing] to make all that sound and all of that energy and all of that breath come out of a CG character,” animation supervisor Dave Clayton said. “It’s not just moving the lips. It’s so much more than that.”

In the video below, you can watch members of the “Better Man” VFX team as well as Williams and director Michael Gracey break down their process for giving Williams (as well as actor Jonno Davies, who doubles for Williams) his simian shape in “Better Man.”