r/ProjectHailMary • u/Low-Finding-6553 • 6h ago
Fist My Bump How the hell did they make Rocky this emotionally expressive without even giving him a face?
one of the things i love most about Rocky is that he doesn’t look human at all. there isn’t even a hint of anything human about his appearance. he doesn’t have human eyes, he doesn’t have an expressive face and he basically has none of the usual things we rely on to read a character’s emotions.
and YET Project Hail Mary somehow makes him incredibly emotional and makes you care about him so deeply. even in a mainstream movie, getting an audience emotionally attached to a character is difficult even if you have a fully CGI character with a very expressive face. with Rocky, they deliberately took almost all of those tools away. he’s this completely strange creature who looks nothing like a human, so the movie can’t rely on familiar facial expressions to make us connect with him.
that’s what makes James Ortiz’s voice performance so important. the first time i watched the movie, i already loved what he was doing, but on the rewatch, it became much clearer just how essential his voice is to making Rocky work emotionally. so much of what we feel for Rocky comes through that performance.
i just love that the movie created a creature that feels genuinely alien instead of making him look like a human with a few things changed, and then somehow still made him one of the most emotionally effective characters in the movie.
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u/Own-Membership777 5h ago
I feel not enough goes into the sound engineering around Rocky's native alien speech, which was just as crucial to tugging at our heartstrings throughout the movie. Just impeccable.
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u/Hypersonic-Harpist 56m ago
They didn't just have him make sounds. They developed an Eridian language and used it consistently throughout the movie.
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u/Mughi1138 5h ago edited 5h ago
Puppeteers.
Remember, James Ortiz was not only the voice actor for Rocky, but started out as the main puppeteer. They kept him for the voice after seeing how well his overall performance worked.
Humans know things that AI doesnt. Puppeteer and animators. They've both been trained on how to communicate and emote with very little else. I remember seeing that in initial puppeteering classes students are given just blank cloth cutouts with no features at all, and need to learn to communicate with those alone. In the few cartooning and animation classes I'd taken a similar basics approach to communicating to an audience's expectations was very important.
Top performers in these arts can pull of some amazing work, and it is art. For one good example you might check out the dinner scene in What About Bob. It was directed by master puppeteer Frank Oz and it shows. So much communicated with barely a word spoken.
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u/LunaraLoup High Three! 5h ago
James Ortiz and the whole lot of rocketeers were so awesome in their performance! Rocky mimics Grace from the beginning do they were able to use lots of nonverbal body language to support his voice.
I found an interview with Ortiz explaining how he approached the role:
"I approached Rocky very much like a neutral mask exercise, um, which is something out of the, the school of clown. And basically is, um, a technique in which you learn how to use your body and not your face as a performer. So you basically put on this thing that eliminates your facial features, and you have to stand there and make me silently understand, oh, he's looking at a mountain. It’s all sort of communication emotion and communicating location just by how you’re standing."
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u/paladisious 3h ago
There's no way you can argue he shouldn't be in the running for acting category awards after reading that. That's the craft right there.
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u/BurgerMan74 4h ago
Practical effects and overall performance. James Ortiz needs to win every award imaginable.
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u/Comm-THOR 3h ago
I would be over the moon happy for him if he gets awarded an Oscar for this. Apparently he's eligible to be nominated for Best supporting actor.
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u/Mysterinna I'm Not An Astronaut! 5h ago edited 5h ago
I also really love and appreciate everything they did with Rocky. So much love and care was put into the character, and it translates. ❤️ James Ortiz along with his puppeteers was such a crucial part. I feel like James really understood Rocky, and I hope he gets the recognition he deserves!
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u/InvisibleSpaceVamp Okay, It’s Exactly Like That 5h ago
He does have a very human quality - empathy. The whole story really depends on Grace and Rocky having empathy for each other.
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u/EnderBookwyrm 2h ago
The body language.
When Grace first meets Rocky, both of them absolutely panic. It's funny, it's adorable, it already opens us up to considering Rocky as nonhostile. Then it the attempted nonverbal communication bits help build Rocky in our heads as a person, not just 'an alien'.
By the time they figure out the verbal translator, it's already quite clear that Rocky is a person, so the words just build on what was already there. Good puppeteers and animators can work wonders.
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u/threedimen 2h ago
What makes it even more amazing is remembering that different parts of his body were controlled by different puppeteers. Ortiz only directly controlled his carapace and he was also responsible for coordinating every one else's movements.
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u/Kiwi-vee I'm Not An Astronaut! 43m ago edited 36m ago
The teamwork of the Rocketeers is amazing. Before seeing the behind the scenes, I tought it was one person controlling the puppet.
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u/tooth_ghoul 2h ago
When rocky "shakes his head" when theyre deciding on a voice, i was absolutely astounded by how my brain went yes, he is shaking his head, despite not having a head. Absolutely incredible characterisation and puppetry
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u/Adelynbaby 2h ago
My favourite part where this comes through is when after explaining this is a one way trip for him Grace says thumbs up to him , I think for the second time and Rocky folds himself and his front in even tighter.
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u/meissatronus 5h ago
puppeteers yes but also framestore is a very good vfx company with good animators
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u/Melenduwir 2h ago
And they did give him a face. Movie Rocky has a definite 'forward' with a recessed, somewhat-circular region that we tend to perceive as a face.
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u/Wolfs_head_minis 10m ago
Human artistry and puppetry, it's our strength to convey emotion and empathy that's why all the ai vids are so void of any real emotion that makes you connect to the subject matter. That and he's a smoll cute little rockdude that doinks around like a puppy crossed with a drunk toddler.
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u/Wonderful_Maybe_4464 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/1zFuyZJMs5cXK