Andy Serkis Talks Imaginarium Project at Cannes

Andy Serkis is promoting a new film project at the Cannes Film Festival.

The British actor is taking to the festival to promote the Imaginarium—a new performance capture facility he hopes will teach filmmakers not to be worried about the growing use of graphics. “It’s a project called the Imaginarium and the idea is that it will be the Europe’s premiere UK based performance capture facility,” Serkis says. “Part of the idea of the Imaginarium is to allay fears—across lots of different communities, not just the acting community – who have in the past wondered if they are going to be replaced by CG characters or robots or whatever.”

The Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll star hopes the academy will “inspire” European filmmakers to use the technology, which has been popularly used in Hollywood blockbusters such as King Kong and Lord of the Rings. “It aims to be an academy for training and educating young and aspiring filmmakers and independent films that this is an art film that isn’t just niche and applicable to the larger budget movies, it’s about seeing the creative possibilities of visual effects for the lower budget films,” he tells BBC News. “It’s about creating links and a bigger vision. European’s tend to be brilliant at drama, drama which is driven by acting performances but we tend to shy away from the visual effects side of things. The Imaginarium wants to bridge that gap.”