Why Motion Capture Didn’t Work For One Key Fight Scene in Warcraft

The makers of the upcoming Warcraft movie adaptation depended heavily on motion-capture for the creation of its orcs, but apparently, such approach isn't reliable all of the time.

In an interview with Cinema Blend earlier this month, director Duncan Jones revealed why one key fight scene in Warcraft had to be done in animation as opposed to the rest of the movie's motion-capture editing.

Jones said that the actors just couldn't pull off the moves he envisioned seeing in the film. The filmmaker had to work with top effects company Industrial Light and Magic to capture the actors' performances into CGI characters, but that major action sequence which had to be handed over to the animation team was a fight between the orcs Durotan and Gul'dan.

Jones explained:

Obviously, we use motion capture for an awful lot of the work we do. Occasionally, there are times where our actors just don't have the reflexes to pull off the fight moves that we want.

While actors Toby Kebbell and Daniel Wu, who respectively play Durotan and Gul'dan, successfully executed the fight scene, it was apparent to Jones that it needed an extra oomph, and that extra had to be left to the hands of animation supervisor Hal Hickel.

That scene was revealed at ILM for the Warcraft event and as Cinema Blend notes, it's apparent that no human would have pulled off the orcs' moves on screen.

It's clear that Jones has been dedicated in making Warcraft as faithful to the game and as realistic-looking as possible, which is why the rest of the film showcases ILM's expertise in turning humans into CGI orcs. That said, audiences can therefore expect to see those orcs on screen with emotions and moves as raw as humans.' This of course makes the film that much more interesting and exciting to see.

Warcraft hits theaters on June 10.

Read: New Warcraft Featurette Focuses on Paula Patton's Intense Training

Read: Duncan Jones on Where His Warcraft Trilogy is Going

Read: Warcraft Featurettes Put The Spotlight on Ogrim Doomhammer and The Film's VFX