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When the first motion picture camera was developed in the late 1800s, we finally had the ability to capture and replay moving action.

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Now, since then, our technology and our creativity has evolved to the point where anything imagined can be brought to the silver screen.

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And there's one company that has mastered transforming movements into fantasy.

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Known for perfecting the groundbreaking craft of motion capture, Weta Digital has been responsible for bringing some of the most magical cinematic worlds and characters to life.

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Do not come back.

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It's been a significant breakthrough, you know.

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I think that our ability to have actors now on stage, you know, playing other creatures, you know,

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or on location, on set, has been fantastic both for the performances of the creatures that they're portraying,

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as well as those, you know, perhaps, the human characters they're playing off in the scene.

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The process begins with the actors being dressed in plain bodysuits and black shoes.

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More than 50 tracking markers are strategically placed, allowing the computer to detect where their body parts are, how tall they are and their movements.

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Today, two actors are performing part of a scene from the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

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This set has 84 cameras to capture their performance.

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Motion-capture technology, unlike traditional animation, is not a frame-by-frame process.

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Instead, it provides a fluid model for animators to then tweak and perfect, bringing a new level of authenticity to the movement.

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The apes are similar, you know.

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They have a similar kind of physique to humans and similar weight, you know?

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It certainly makes that... it makes the motion a lot more believable.

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It's not that we couldn't do it ourselves as key frame animators; it's just that that kind of work takes a long time.

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And so, yeah, it gives us believable motion a lot quicker and gives us time to concentrate on what we consider to be perhaps the more important things,

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like maybe facial performances and things like that.

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The challenge comes with actors being physically able to actually perform each action.

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For this scene, they have to wear arm extenders, since apes have longer arms than humans.

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This helps shift their weight so they'll move more like an ape.

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Just be natural.

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If you're being... if you're trying to force a [performance], it's always gonna look forced, I think.

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So, you just gotta be natural and just trust all the practice and research that you've done into the motion.

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And just do whatever comes natural.

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As the technology has advanced, the performances have evolved with it.

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With facial cameras, the small nuances of emotion can be captured.

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It's incredibly detailed. You know, the slightest changes in muscles on the face can completely change the emotion that's being portrayed on that face.

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You'll never see a facial performance without the head being a part of that.

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And you'll never see a head moving without the body moving along with it.

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So, and again, I guess that's one of the strengths of motion capture.

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If you look at my head turning now and the way my body's moving, it's just these little movements that are kind of hard to animate.

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You know, it's hard to pick up that detail.

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Whereas, if I was being captured right now, all of that detail would be picked up.

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And now with the ability to film outdoors, the actors can interact with each other and their environment.

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One of the biggest developments, in terms of getting great performances out of our characters, is having the ability to shoot on location,

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having -- say, in the case of Caesar -- having Andy there playing off Jason Clark, you know.

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It just makes for great performances, and it's really freed up the actors.

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They're no longer standing on the stage trying to imagine, looking at a tennis ball, imagining the person they're talking to.

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They're actually looking at the person they're talking to.

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So yeah, it's been... there have been big changes.