Imaginarium

Founded in 2011 by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, the Imaginarium is Europe's leading motion capture studio, Using the latest technology and highest standard of execution they create the ultimate next generation of storytelling  within film, TV, video games and digital applications. Based in London, the Imaginarium has brought together some of the best visual effects and performance captures technicians to provide the highest level of character creation and storytelling.



The Imaginarium is developing and producing its own films and TV projects with interactive materials using their unique motion capture. They are aiming their films and TV projects at large international audiences and they are also preparing a slate of TV projects that will bring to life its own creatures and characters, as well as adapting pre-existing stories and character brands.

They have worked on such films as the 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' franchise and the Godzilla films, as well as Andy's performance in Lord of the Rings as the character Gollum.

I'm really interested in this studio because of my recent project that I produced for my final year at University. I created an animation using motion capture however I used two xbox kinects to capture the performance where as this studio used a whole room filed with camera to capture the performance. However, back in the beginning of April I did experiment with a system called OptiTrack whiuch is a motion capture software like the one at Imaginarium. This meant that I got to put on one of them suits with the dots on and do a bit of performing myself. This is when I realised that I want to also make a career out of working with motion capture because of the amazing abilities that can be achieved with the system. Also it's really fun to see real time animation when using motion capture where you can see what your character looks like moving whiles you're still in the suit.