Inside Motion Capture: Becoming Mocap Ready

Where passion meets expertise in Mocap! Read about my journey within Motion Capture with led me to building a new niche service for industry leaders.

Where passion meets mocap!

The motion capture world is a beautiful digital playground filled with imagination, creativity and immersion. If you can dream it, you can recreate it in the volume.

Having spent 10 glorious years in centre of this virtually enabled world, my story is both colourful and crazy. I've worked with actors, singers, celebrities, athletes, dancers, models, cats, dogs, horses, children. I've spend many hours making suits, kitted out full football teams complete with Mocap friendly bibs, made props. It's very hard to summarise the full extent of projects I've been lucky enough to work on that have brought me to where I am today. I therefore thought I'd share a bit more about myself through anecdotes and case studies to give you a feel for my skills and experiences.

I still get asked 'What exactly do you do?'. In the workplace I would often reply jokingly, 'What don't I do?' This was never a dig or conceited response. It was more of a statement about me - I do lots of things, I like doing lots of things and I do them well. If I can't do something, I'll figure it out or I'll find someone who can, If I don't know, I'll find someone who does. I spend hours researching, brainstorming, experimenting and more importantly, I learn and grow. Obviously, there many skills I don't possess and I would never compromise quality for my own self gain but the point here is that 'I don't know' or I haven't done it before' to me, is not an acceptable reason for not doing something.

If you've ever had the pleasure of working on a motion capture or VFX stage, you know it's an all-hands-on-deck type experience. Nothing is off limits and everyone lends a hand, regardless of their job title. A lot of props, tools, accessories used on a shoot are custom made by the mocap crew, always built from a mocap point of view. Today it's a little different as it becomes more integrated with traditional film making, but for the most part, you do what you do to make it happen.

When you work within a small core team, as I did, your role becomes even more varied on a day to day basis. Working with some of the biggest clients in both the games and film industry, you have to quickly adapt to provide the level of production they are used to. You'd wear many hats throughout the production cycle and would be many things to many different clients.

When I first started on my career journey, I was heavily production based so all none-tech requirements would fall to me, although I soon learned that I needed the tech know-how if I was to do anything properly within the motion capture parameters. I was surprised how familiar and adaptable the none-tech elements behind motion capture were so my point of reference was heavily influenced by my outside interests of fashion and crafting. So I learned to combine and expand my practical and creative skills against a technical backdrop.

And that's me. I like to think I have a weird and wonderful set of skills. Skills that are so niche yet so creative and random and yet seem to apply and be relevant to every imaginable scenario you can think of.

I set up Mocap Ready as an expression of my skills and experiences and as an output for all the creative, practical and somewhat unconventional tips of the trade I've gained along the way but also new ways of thinking to push things from a new perspective. It's a unique business and point of view that empowers me as an enabler, maker and doer all mashed into one role.

So now ask yourself what can I do for you to help make your production Mocap Ready

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