Film tech driven by games, says Lord of the Rings actor

Film technology is driven by advancements in the game industry, not the other way around, according to Andy Serkis, who portrayed Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and cofounded performance capture studio The Imaginarium.

"There was probably a time when people in the games industry wanted to emulate films, but now it's very much the other way around: the technology is driven by video games," Serkis told The Guardian. "So, for instance, virtual production, [previsualization], many of the tools we use in the film industry have come out of the games industry."

Serkis is something of a motion-capture legend, having brought characters like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings and Ceasar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes to life. He also played roles in Ninja Theory games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

Serkis and The Imaginarium worked with Crytek on the performance-capture for Ryse: Son of Rome, which will be released tomorrow as a launch title for Xbox One. Speaking about the Xbox One, Crytek cinematic director Peter Gornstein argued that the system's sheer power now allows studios to bridge the "uncanny valley."

"That has been a big problem with games in the past. But what we can do now, in real-time, is produce imagery and emotional experiences within a game, at a level where the uncanny valley is left far behind," he said.