Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael are all back in theaters right now in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows."
While you'll see the classic characters polished on the big screen ...
... that's not how they looked while filming.
Visual effects were used to bring the turtles to life. Paramount Pictures released a featurette Tuesday afternoon showing off exactly how the quad looks while filming. A lot of motion capture was used to bring the NYC-dwelling ninjas to theaters.
Motion capture helps capture the smallest movements and facial expressions on an actor to translate those onto CG characters. The four actors — Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, and Alan Ritchson — didn't only have to wear full motion capture suits. They also had to have motion capture turtle shell backpacks on them while filming.
Look at these things:
"All that mo-cap gear has really become a second skin at this point,” said Leonardo actor Pete Ploszek in the featurette.
Though the actors had to wear bulky motion capture suits while filming, they were able to ditch the shells while delivering lines for the movie.
All of the mo-cap footage is then used to help perfect the look of the turtles.
You can check out the full feature below:
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