While Temuera Morrison portrayed Boba Fett in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, it was Mark Dubeau, senior art director at Tippett Studio, who played the stoic, acid-scarred bounty hunter in the hugely impressive billboard that sat above Times Square. Our great pals at Boba Fett Fan Club caught up with Mark and discussed the work that went into bringing this amazing footage to life.
BFFC: What was the process of doing the mocap for the Times Square billboard like?
MD: The process starts with squeezing into a very tight vest and having markers placed in select spots on the body. There was a set built with apple boxes that approximated his throne, the steps, everything he’s meant to interact with. Once the markers were on me and they were calibrated and dialled in, I went over the ‘theater’ of the shot with the VFX supervisor, in this case, Chris Morley (affectionately named CMO), and I ran various takes, doing different movements. The idea was he was surveying his domain, so I needed to look out in a sort of regal manner, unrushed. It’s a bit tricky as you have a finite amount of time but have to perform in an un-rushed way. Later we chose the best variant and proposed it. I was more than happy to be involved.
BFFC: What was it like seeing Boba Fett matching your movements in the finished piece?
MD: It was a bit surreal seeing myself as Boba Fett, once the mocap was applied. One thing I’d like to point out is mocap is great for performances, BUT it’s always combined with the hard work of an animation team. There’s a lot of work that needs to happen. A lot of the extremities, fingers, etc., needs to be hit by animators… but often they tweak the performance as well, just massaging it into the best possible fusion of the two worlds. They are just as integral to the process. After the fact, sometimes we get performance notes and they have to go in and tweak. They’ll speed things up, turn the head a tad more, etc. But I still ‘see’ myself in there. I’ll never be one to say, “That’s all me.” I’d love to perform Boba again. Maybe Lucasfilm will call! Ha!
Products @ ForbiddenPlanet.com – UK and Worldwide Cult Entertainment Megastore
