‘Acting is acting,’ EMA students learn from Richard ‘Mocapman’ Dorton
- izzylewismedia8
- Apr 29, 2025
- 3 min read
If you play video games, you’ve probably killed Richard Dorton. Dorton is a motion capture actor with over 150 video game credits to his name. He has earned the name of “Mocapman” due to his 25 years of motion capture experience with a diverse set of skills.
Dorton spoke at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts as part of the IGNITE Colloquium on April 25. The event was also open to the public.
“Motion capture is pure imagination,” Dorton said. “You have to be willing. You look ridiculous. You're in a Velcro suit with these little balls on you. I'm like, ‘Okay, I look this ridiculous, I might as well go for it. I have nothing else to hide here.’”
Motion capture is the process of recording an actor’s movements to animate a digital character in movies and video games.
Dorton got his start in theatre acting. He worked as stunt coordinator for “America’s Most Wanted” in Washington D.C. before moving to Hollywood to chase his dreams of being a stuntman, Dorton said.
When Dorton landed his first audition, it wasn’t exactly the stuntman job he was expecting. He landed a job motion capturing as a Shaggy and multiple villains in the videogame “Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights.”
“I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills,” Dorton said. “I was so lucky.”
Since then, Dorton has played heroes, villains and creatures in many other video games. He was the first actor to be motion captured as Darth Vader. He’s also acted in “God of War 4,” “Borderlands” and “Left 4 Dead,” among many others.
“I think the first time I played Wolverine I just went, ‘Oh my, I'm Wolverine. This is the greatest thing in the world,’” Dorton said. “To be able to grow up and play all these characters and bring them to life is an incredible feeling, and to know that it's a job that I can get paid for.”
Dorton has also worked his way onto the silver screen. Most notably he was Kevin, the left head of King Ghidorah from “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” His movements were captured for the character and his facial expressions were used as reference for the animation. All of these credits should be considered acting just as much as anything else, Doton said.
“There is no such thing as mocap acting. Acting is acting,” Dorton said.
Dorton contributes more to the art of motion capture outside of performing. He’s also worked as a stunt coordinator, producer, movement consultant and casting director.
Dorton also runs the U.S. division of The Mocap Vaults, a school that teaches new actors who want to pursue a career in performance and motion capture.
“I felt it was time for me to give back to the community that was so good to me. Plus, I always meant to say it's time for your generation to get punched in the face because I'm tired of getting punched in the face,” Dorton said.
After his lecture at the Johnny Carson Center, Dorton led a workshop for emerging media arts and acting students.
“I really wanted to go to this mocap session, because I want to learn more about the new age of acting and the new age of production,” Justine Huse, a freshman emerging media arts major, said.
At first, Dorton led the students through a series of exercises to get their bodies moving. He started encouraging them to use their bodies to fully embody the characters they were acting as. The workshop was interactive, actively bringing students into the work that Dorton does.
“It just looks really fun to learn how to contort your body to be like a zombie and get in the headspace of like a warrior and then act with other people,” Huse said.
Dorton’s lecture and workshop was the last event of the IGNITE Colloquium for the semester. The colloquium will return in the fall semester as a weekly event for all Johnny Carson Center for students, involving other guest lectures, workshops and seminars around creative development and professional development.
Published in the Daily Nebraskan, read here.
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