Just in case you were wondering, “Guardians of the Galaxy” teammate Rocket Raccoon won’t be played by a man in a suit in Marvel’s upcoming film. Neither will Groot be played by an actor in a tree costume.
In a recent interview with Cinema Blend, Marvel EVP of Visual Effects Victoria Alonso opened up about the studio’s interstellar superhero flick, telling the outlet that the team’s two least-conventional members will be created using a blend of CGI and “rotomation,” essentially a cross between “rotoscoping” (see: Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly”) and traditional animation.
“You can”t do any motion capture with a raccoon – they won”t let you put the suit on,” laughed Alonso. “But we will do rotomation, probably, for some of the behavior. Rocket will have his own personality, of course, and clearly we can”t do mocap [motion-capture] on a tree, per say, but we definitely will have performers to emulate what James Gunn will lead to be the behavior and the performance. He”s very clear on where he wants to take the characters.”
Also concerning “Guardians,” which recently snagged “Parks and Recreation” thesp Chris Pratt for the role of Star-Lord, Alonso confirmed that principal photography is slated to kick off in June, though work for director James Gunn begins much, much sooner.
“Our director travels next week and it”s going, baby!” she said. “It”s a fast train to a beautiful place.”
“Guardians of the Galaxy” is slated for release on August 1, 2014.