TURNING a pop star into a polar bear is all in a day's work for an Oxfordshire computer animation company, working in conjunction with a Hollywood giant.

AudioMotion, of Banbury, in partnership with special effects specialist Digital Domain of Los Angeles, has just completed a video to accompany the Icelandic pop star's new single, Hunter.

Richard Hince, of AudioMotion, said: "In the video Bjork morphs into the head of a computer-generated polar bear.

"This was a particularly tricky job as Bjork's facial movements had to be recorded an d integrated with the polar bear's head. "Each of Bjork's head and facial movements had to be precisely followed to give a realistic finished product."

Digital Domain, a leading computer graphics house, has already produced the special effects for blockbuster hit Titanic.

The motion capture process used in the Bjork project was the VICON from Oxford Metrics, involving seven cameras simultaneously.

To track the movements of Bjork's face, 32 tiny markers were placed at key sites such as eyebrows and lips.

Recently formed AudioMotion has the largest motion capture studio in Europe and will co-operate with Digital Domain on European projects.

A spokesman for Digital Domain said AudioMotion was chosen because it was able to provide an accurately synchronised time code which was essential for the success of the project. He said: "They were able to supply a unique technical solution which proved very cost effective."

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