We began an interview with God of War star Danielle Bisutti yesterday, talking about how she brought her Game of Thrones fandom to the table when it came to auditioning for the role of Friya. Today our conversation continues as Bisutti discusses the motion capture process used by director Cory Barlog and company.
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In case you’re unfamiliar with mo-cap, it involves actors wearing suits with little sensors all around them to capture their motions, mouth movements and more. And Bisutti remembers the first time she was told about it and how “uncomfortable the Mo-Cap suits and helmets looked.”
She went into further detail, explaining, “The only real adjustment was wearing the Mo-Cap helmet with a camera fastened on the end of it. And of course, the actual outfits themselves are not the most comfortable — a tight-fitting black onesie pajama ninja suit with velcro markers stuck all over your body and fluorescent green dots on your face. We are talking super sexy stuff here boys.”
But she said the process came together beautifully once the gear was in place. “Once I got over the fact that this miniature camera was staring at me directly in my face, I was able to truly lose myself in the intimacy and embodiment of these well-crafted scenes. With our creative director Cory Barlog’s ingenious vision of capturing all of the scenes in ONE-SHOT with a no-cut camera operated by our amazing D.P. Dori Arazi, it felt like performing theatre-in-the-round.”
There was, however, one noticeable difference when it came to the screen Bisutti was working with. “It’s my understanding that presently several video game scenes are being shot like a feature film using green screen – except the sound stages at Santa Monica Studios are completely white. Like Mike Teevee’s room in Willy Wonka. I kept waiting for the Oompa Loompas to come out. Those little f*****s always terrified me.”
We’ll continue our session with Bisutti over the coming week, talking about working with Cory Barlog and the cast, and whether she would work with video games again soon.
God of War is available now for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro. We highly recommend it!