By
Go Guy:
More often than not,
people criticize something they cannot understand or get a strong-hold of. Take
for example, the issue of Rotoscoping or cheating animation, as some people
call it. It was a tool intended to ease and to enhance the animator’s job,
however some misconstrue it as a cheating tool for weak artists. Rotoscoping is
one of the earliest motion capture technique whereby artists trace over a live footage
of an action film frame by frame; to be later used for animation.
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| A Scene from: Who framed Roger Rabbit? |
This technique was originally developed by Max Fleischer, who later got a U.S patent for his invention in 1917. The process begins by first recording live actors and then projecting the recorded images on a glass. Thereafter, artists redraw all the projected images on a tracing paper frame by frame to produce the final cartoon.
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Max Fleischer |
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| Roto US Patent |
Earlier in the history
of animation, cartoons produced were very stiff and jerky. But the invention of
Max
Fleischer changed all that. For the first time,
animators could portray a realistic humanlike movement in their reels. Soon
studios began to see the advantage of this and began to produce animated
shorts.
However, Walt Disney
Studio was the first to rise up to the challenge and using this technique, produced
a full length film of snow white and the seven Dwarfs. This brought the Studio
a lot of accolades as for the first time people could watch the classic tale for
almost an hour; in an animated, but realistic portrayal of movements, dance and
walk cycles.
But just as earlier
explained at the beginning, some artists still couldn’t still see why a good
animator would want to copy poses instead of being creative - that would be
tantamount to cheating! Those in the school of thought do no only claimed that
the process forestalls creativity, but it also inhibits the incorporation of some
of the basic principles of animation, for example, the exaggeration and the
squash and stretch. They claimed that no human actors could really mimic
cartoon movements perfectly.
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| Snow White Roto |
That notwithstanding, Walt
Disney Studio was able to surmount all that. It followed a three tier process
to achieve this. The first stage was tracing over the video reels frame by
frame to capture the basic movement of the characters, and then the next stage
is to pass the rotoscoped images to another artist, who would then redraw and
reduce some of the details in the first. Finally, the drawings are given to the
animator, whose creativity and ingenuity will now come to play. Often taking some
of the key poses and would then incorporates all the necessary principles of
animations and abstractions to produce the final result.
Other classic examples that
are worthy of mention are: “Who framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam”. And since
the beginning of the 20th century down to the present day, studios
all over the world have continuously made use of this process. Even as 3D animations
become the common trend today, some animation studios still use Rotoscoping as
a motion capture technique to produce the basic action movements before
Computer Graphics (CG) take over, as done in the Star war movie.
Musicians too are not
left behind. Some have come to love the visually appealing effect it produces
on their animated musical videos that not even the full traditional, 2 or 3D
can. The animation process can seamlessly
incorporate the painterly effect on live footages as some choose to paint
directly on the cells.
Just as any tool can be
used and also misused, it should also be clear that Rotoscoping, like any other
tool like the computer or Tablet is a means of intelligence amplification; or
simply said, a means to enhance what we already know. Studios and independent
animators all over the world have continued to look for other creative ways of
using this tool; the internet is full of such examples.
At the end of the day,
it still boils out to the fact that it is one’s creativity that will stand him
out. You can make your opinions count by
responding to this tread.
Till the next time when
we meet again on TOONY TITBIT, Have a
blissful weekend.
References:
12
Principles of Animation (Alan Becker Tutorials)
E-MAIL : goguyone@gmail.com.
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