Rorschach eat your heart out!
Sam Posten said:Is completely CGI
Yes and no.
The CGI version is "projected" on Andy Serkis playing the part (and delivering the voice - actually the voices) while wearing a sort of surface 2D wire suit.
He once described it as getting the make-up after, instead of before playing the part on location (or stage).
Cees
Some comments here are saying the effects were projected onto actors. Can you clear this up for me.
......But it isn't being projected back onto him in the real world.
In the case of Gollum (and Cesar in The Planet of the Apes) Andy Serkis played the part - and then after the takes, his motions, his voice, his facial expressions, were replicated on CGI versions of Gollum and Cesar (who don't exist, of course). In a way it's still totally him, but it just no longer looks like him. I don't know how to put the effect properly in words, that's why I used "projected" (inside quotes).
In this youTube-clip you can see some of it (beware: if you absolutely hate politics, there's some present-day fun you may not want to see, it's at the end; just cut it after you've seen Cesar).
Here's another and older explanation of the method(s):
Cees