Death Stranding mocap actor talks about working with Mads Mikkelsen
Website VG247 conducted an interview with actor Noshir Dala, who worked together with Mads Mikkelsen on Death Stranding. As an experienced voice and motion capture actor for games, Dalal was to make Mads familiar with the motion capture tech, which was unfamiliar ground for the famous film actor.
“Mads, I mean, he was there, and we would ask him, you know, if I had a question about what he wanted to see. He had a ton on his plate.”
Dalal praised Mads’ commitment to his performance on the project, saying that the actor was ‘working his butt off’.
“Motion capture for me is, the storytelling medium it’s most like is theatre. It’s basically really high-tech, expensive theatre. And so, no matter who’s in the volume with me, it’s an ensemble process.”
“And it was really fun to watch Mads’ process, because he really gave it 110%. He wanted to know, you know, every moment, like, what exactly was going on and tell the best story possible. I learned a lot just watching him, it was really cool.”
Dalal explained how he approached capturing the ghostly squad that assists Mads’ character Cliff during the game.
“Kojima-san clearly has a really good understanding of tactical stuff, if only because of all the Metal Gear work. He’s clearly done a lot of research into the topic. But it was cool, because we would discuss, for those four soldiers, those kind of dogs of war, we wanted a certain feel, and it has to be a synchronised ghostly movement, but still look tactically very capable.”
A lot of thought went into how these soldiers should move around and behave depending on the environment.
“If I know, for example, I’m coming from a place that’s clear, then we could become like a front guard, and move as a set of four in an advance formation and lead the way. But if we’re in foreign territory, then maybe we’re in a box formation, and we’ll take on the corners, and he’s literally surrounded as we move. Little things like that, and how would we round corners? What is the process for passing one another and things?”
Dalal can briefly be seen in the short performance capture video released by Kojima Productions.
To read the entire interview with Noshir Dalal head on over to VG247.
Source: VG247
