is there a way to get an animation out of a video or something of the sort? (i.e. i put on a funny suit and stand near a blue screen and perform my animation) and if so, what would I need, be it additional software or a special camera?
have a look at this website.. http://motion.capture.free.fr/index.html ... i have never used this system but was pointed to it by someone that had been experimenting with it.. anyways it a good place to start and it does not need a massive Hollywood budget (though probably some budget if you don't have the bits already)
Har har, James Cameron is rolling in his grave.
I've looked into this stuff also, it seems it's being made expensive for the sheer reason as they can make expensive and people will but it. More inexpensive Augmented Reality programs are coming up these days. You could put a post-it on your bottom jaw and forehead to track a conversation from a video and parse it in Java or some other language. You might be able to find a cheap snippet of code somewhere that rips it into an .xml file so you can import it to max.
Good luck!