In the past decade, technology has evolved fast and this has created many opportunities for small studios, such as the British Studio, Ninja Theory, to create 3D characters using motion capture and live action recordings.
They have used this technique to create a psychological experience by telling the story of Senjua, a troubled young girl who embarks on a quest to go to the Viking Hell to save her dead lover. Her story is told through a cinematic video game, which helps the player understand how it is to live with severe mental illness. The main character is struggling with psychosis, hears voices and sees things that are not really there.
To create this impressive story, the crew used new technologies. The main actor, Senjua, was one of their colleagues that was working as a video editor at that time. She did not have previous experience in acting and she was very shy. It is incredible how she managed to create complex emotions and give life to this character. Her name is Melina Juergens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFhzVtHwJjA
To capture the acting and facial expressions done by Melina, the crew used a motion capture suit and markers. A camera was placed in front of her face to capture all of her facial expressions that were later animated. The final game was created by a small team of under 20 people and it generated $13 million in revenue.
The example of Hellblade: Senjua’s Sacrifice is a proof that you do not need a big team, a big budget or experienced actors to tell a great story. All you need is a handful of people who are passionate about a project and that work together to make it happen.
The performance of Melina Juergens ( https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8750141/awards ) has won her 3 awards for "Best Performance" and one nominee for her vocal performance.
I have played the video game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice a while ago and I was impressed with the story. The crew explained at the end of the game how they created the game and I had no idea it was created using a real actor and all the facial expressions were real. It is truly amazing how much has the technology evolved. The performance of Melina Juergens was incredible, I had no idea it was a first time experience for her.
There will be a sequel to this story, called "Senua's Saga: Hellblade II", but the launch date has been postponed because of the pandemic. Hopefully, it will be launched sometime this year. Until then, the actor Melina is back on the set and has made a video about her journey as the actor in the upcomming game:
https://youtu.be/LrNpgATiU4Q
When I was just a kid, video games were just moving pixels. Now, they use real actors and voice overs. This video game has proved that there is a market out there for actors that they did not see before. There were more actors in the first game, according to IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4674622/
The list of actors for the sequel is not currently available on IMDB but I expect to be a wider cast:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16386018/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Especially after seeing this video:
This is truly incredible! To think that now anyone of us can be transformed into a real video game character and tell a story is something I had no idea could happen! This is also a great news for actors because there will be a higher demand in acting, not just for Hollywood movies! New jobs will be created for them!
After seeing this post for the first time, I looked into this topic because, honestly, it's fascinating. I saw that they are working on another game with that character. The game is called "Hellblade 2" and its launch date was postponed a few times. I am waiting for more "making of" videos. As a child, I would have never even imagined that you can be an actual actor in a video game.
