In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the character Gollum is an entirely digital creation based on the performance of actor Andy Serkis.
Serkis was initially cast to give Gollum his voice alone, but as he worked, director Peter Jackson realized his movements would translate beautifully to the screen. This process, called motion capture (mocap) or performance capture, wasn’t invented by director Jackson—an early version of it, rotoscoping, was notably used back in 1937 for Disney’s Snow White.
In The Two Towers, as in Snow White, performance footage was referenced by animators for matching the timing and movement of Serkis in live-action footage. Jackson’s films achieved new levels of realism and detail two decades ago for the Rings trilogy and King Kong, winning visual effects (VFX) Oscars for The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
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