The four-minute long "Huzzah" introduces us to Darren, the mishappen carnival barker, and his muse, the sideshow freak, Bobaloo, the Beast Boy. Created at Lamb & Company from an original story by playwright/actor Kevin Kling, "Huzzah" demonstrates the dawn of "expression mapping" with full body performance motion capture.
We are constantly challenged to create highly distinctive CG characters. With so much creative talent available to us in the artistic community we wanted to reveal performance beyond voice over. By making full use of the actor's creative expression and continuity of motion, we enable Kevin to become Darren. "Huzzah" is very much an exercise in giving our character a life "out of the computer". As the industry makes greater use of CG characters, and calls on fine actors like Sean Connery to portray Draco in "Dragonheart", or Tom Hanks to give life to Woody in "Toy Story", I think we all realize these talents have more to offer characters than their voice.
Darren was designed in paper mache and wood by artist Michael Sommers and digitized into the computer. Kevin Kling's performance of Darren was captured on the Lamb & Company motion capture stage with a combination of simultaneous motion tracking devices, including an electronic glove, a magnetic full body motion capture suit, and an optical facial motion capture system. The complete system gave animators a huge palette of Kling's motions and emotions to work from, including subtle shifts in body weight and slight facial gestures.
Key to the production of "Huzzah" is LambSoft's (Lamb & Company's sister company) comprehensive software system called ProMotion which enables animatorsto view, filter, edit and interpret the multiple streams of captured motion data.

Larry Lamb (USA) is director and head of the Minneapolis based Lamb & Company Inc. The Company is specalized in animation, special effects and post production needs for TV, film, video, games and forensic presentations.