In the first Planet of the Apesfilms, the actors still wear monkey suits, those days are long gone. In the new movie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes the animals are fully animated. And that’s a lot of work, says lead animator Laura Korver.
“Het gebeurt niet elke dag dat ik om zeven uur in de ochtend interviews moet geven”, zegt Korver lachend vanuit haar woonplaats in Nieuw-Zeeland. De Nederlandse animator is net klaar met Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Haar team heeft ruim een jaar aan de film gewerkt. “Elke beweging van de apen wordt los geanimeerd. Het kan wel weken duren om één beweging van één seconde te perfectioneren.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, geregisseerd door Wes Ball, is de tiende in de reeks. De film speelt zich af na de laatste trilogie. In de Planet of the Apes-reeks worden apen (soms door een medicijn en soms door een virus) steeds intelligenter en besluiten ze in opstand te komen tegen de mens.
De eerste Planet of the Apes dateert uit 1968. In die film worden de apen gespeeld door acteurs in pakken. Naast de nieuwste versies voelen die beelden nogal verouderd aan.
De nieuwste film speelt zich zo’n driehonderd jaar na de dood van Caesar af. Hij was (in de vorige trilogie) de grote leider van de apen. Zijn grote doel was een vreedzame samenleving van mensen én apen. Met zijn dood is ook zijn leer verloren gegaan. De apen zijn aan de macht en de mensen raken verzwakt: ze leven inmiddels in de jungle en kunnen niet meer praten.
Ook in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes staan aap en mens weer lijnrecht tegenover elkaar, omdat iedereen nog steeds maar één ding wil: het beste voor de eigen soort.
‘Actors don’t have to swing from tree to tree’
From the leaves on the trees to a tear along the cheek of a chimpanzee: every detail is taken into account Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes attention has been paid. It was an honor for Korver to work on this major project. “I grew up with Disney films and they had a big impact on me. But I never felt like animation was a realistic career choice,” she says.
Yet Korver got into the profession after being encouraged by her family. After moving to New Zealand, she ended up at Weta Digital, one of the country’s largest animation companies. Korver already worked for that company on, among other things Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and TheBFG.
For the animations Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes performance capture was used. This means that actors are put on a special suit on set, after which their movements are loaded into a computer system. “The movements of the actors are especially useful for the scenes in which the monkeys have to move in a human manner,” says Korver. But not everything is recorded on set first: “The actors don’t have to swing from tree to tree, we make those images.”
“Hey, that’s my monkey!”
Korver has not yet been able to see the end result of her work. “We’re going to make a moment of it as a team,” she says. But it is not always easy for the animator to find her own work. “It remains a special profession. A shot can be touched by four people, so you don’t always see your own work.” Yet Korver can hardly wait to see parts of her own creations. “Then I can say: hey, that’s my monkey!”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes can be seen in cinemas from May 8.
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