JOB ROLE – ROTO ARTIST Sector – Media and Entertainment Sector (Qualification Pack Code: MES/Q3504) ( Class-XI )

PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education Shyamla Hills, Bhopal – 462 013 , Madhya Pradesh, India ______www.psscive.ac.in 1 UNIT 1: ROTOSCOPY TECHNIQUE Chapter 3: Rotoscopy – Past, Present and Future

2 Content

Title Slide No. Chapter Objectives 04 Introduction 05 The origin of Rotoscoping 06-08 Max Fleischer’s Films 09 Rotoscoping in other Animation 10-11 Rotoscoping in Visual Effects 12-13 Digital Rotoscopy 14-16 Rotoscoping Technique in Video Games 17 Summary 18

3 Chapter Objectives The students will be able to:

❑ Identify Rotoscope,

❑ Describe rotoscoping process,

❑ Define the origins of rotoscoping,

❑ Interpret the use of rotoscopy in animation and visual effects,

❑ Describe digital rotoscopy and its process,

❑ Describe use of rotoscopy in video games.

4 Introduction

Rotoscoping is the process of manually modifying film or video footage. In simple words, it is the process of drawing over a piece of footage frame by frame. This produces a very smooth motion without any restrictions on the final look of the animation. It is done either by hand or through the use of computer software. It was initially developed to speed up the animation process that was not true.

5 The Origins of Rotoscoping

Artist and tech enthusiast Max Fleischer was working as an art editor for popular science monthly, when he came with an idea of rotoscoping. His goal was to introduce fluid and naturalistic motion in animation cartoons. He was assisted by his talented brothers- Dave, Joe and Charlie to develop and test the prototype of rotoscope device. In 1915, Max filed a patent for the device and its associated mechanism, which was granted in 1917. Fig. Max Fleischer’s Rotoscope Design 6 The Origins of Rotoscoping

The rotoscoping process required film footage. But, the problem was, how to playback this footage frame by frame. Fleischer did some experiment in his film camera and converted it into hand crank projector. During his first experiment, he went to the roof of an apartment building with film camera. There, he filmed one minute test footage of his brother Dave in a clown costume and developed it. After developing the footage, they had projected the film frame by frame by using hand crank projector through a glass panel on an art table. Max placed tracing paper over the other side of glass panel on an art table. Then he traced the image over it. He continued this tracing process till all frame were traced.

7 The Origins of Rotoscoping

After drawing all the images, they need to be photographed them individually. For the clone footage test, max converted projector into the camera once again. This time max exposed each drawn image into one frame of film. After completion, Max and his brother developed the film and played it back using the projector. The result was amazing and a new technique of animation had been Fig. Koko the Clown an animated introduced. During this process an character Created by max Fleischer animation character, Koko the clown was born. 8 Max Fleischer’s Films

Starting from 1919 with the “Out of the inkwell” series, featuring the character “Koko the Clown”. Further, max created iconic character Betty Boop and Popeye in the 1930s while in 1940s they produced famous realistic and costly "Superman" short features. Fleischer also used this technique in his film “Gulliver’s Travels” released in 1939. It was second full feature length animation Fig. Betty Boop and Popeye film produced in U.S.

9 Rotoscoping in Other Animation

During 1930s, there was another animator Walt Disney gave a tough competition to Max Fleischer. The first American full feature length animation was Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Before it was animated, They rotoscoped key frames at the beginning and end of character actions and animators elaborated the characters & scenery and created all in between shots on transparent animation cells.

Fig. A character animator working Fig. Still from Movie ‘Snow white on sequence of Movie ‘snow white and seven dwarf’ and seven dwarf’ 10 Rotoscoping in Other Animation

Rotoscoping was not always well received. some considered it a cheat or shortcut, and others complained that characters modeled on live actors differed in looks and movement from other moving characters, such as traditionally animated animals.

Some have used much heavier rotoscoping, resulting in movies that look like film footage. In the 1970, Ralph Bakshi, whose animated films like ‘Fritz the cat’ and ‘The Fig. Still from movie ‘The lord of lord of the rings’ targeted more mature the rings’ audience, because of heavy rotoscoping movie looks like a live image. 11 Rotoscoping in Visual Effects

Filmmakers started using mattes in visual effects. Rotoscoping become a great tool to combine different character and scene. In movie ‘Return of Jedi (1983) animated walking vehicle matted in real forest scene. A ‘hold out matte’ of some of the trees in the forest was hand rotoscoped frame by frame to create a matte. These were protected during optical printing, so the AT-ATs appear to walk between trees, adding a sense they were really there, in the midst of the action.

Fig. Still from movie ‘The lord of the rings’ 12 Rotoscoping in Visual Effects

In a scene of Alfred Hitchcock's the birds (1963), many birds attack a small town. It was impossible to control the birds or even shoot against the chroma key and the nature of the shots meant the birds and luma key against a sky was not possible. So, rotoscoping was the only option. You may be surprised to know that 500 frames in one shot took two artist almost 3 months to complete. Fig. Still from movie ‘The birds’ (1963)

13 Digital Rotoscopy

In the year 2000’s, Filmmaker Richard link produced two major motion pictures, ‘Waking life’ and a ‘Scanner Darkly’ using the rotoscoping technique. In these films, computer replaced the traditional rotoscope. Wacom pens and tablets, G5s and digital camera become the major tools. Link used Rotoshop software, to digitally brings this technique to the film. Fig. Still from movie ‘Scanner Darkly’ 14 Digital Rotoscopy

Take a look, how a live image converted in animation by Rotoshop software.

C) Enhance To enhance the 3-D effect in frames, animator use masking, warping and blending tools in software. Then, they add background and adjust Fig. Steps of digital Rotoscoping the colour. Some elements need multiple week to A) Film complete the work. Director Richard Linklater shoots with digital cameras. Since, details are D) Render added by animators, there are minimal The completed sequences are processed for costumes, props, and sets. eventual output to film. One 15-second scene that started out as 26MB file took a hour to B) Animate convert into whopping 486 MB. Artist use digital pen and tablet that is connected with software like rotoshop to trace the scene frame by frame. 15 Digital Rotoscopy

Recently, in 2019 ‘Undone’, Amazon prime web series become the first show to use Rotoscoping. Undone is a kind of show that is stuck in our head. But, Undone is not simply made by rotoscoping. The cast had to shoot their scene multiple times to get right angles. The computer animators created rough version of the space through, which the characters move. Another team of artist Fig. Still from ‘Undone’ creates oil painting to use the backdrop of a scene. 16 Rotoscoping Technique in Video game

Rotoscoping technique also used in video games to produce more fluid motion graphics for video games like 1989 ‘Prince of Persia.’

Fig. Video game ‘Prince of persia’ 17 Summary In this chapter you have learnt about origin of rotoscopy and its process, Further describe uses of rotoscoping in animation and Visual Effects. In addition, you also learnt about digital rotoscoping, its steps and use of rotoscoping techniques in video games.

18 Project Coordinator : Dr. Dipak D. Shudhalwar

Assistance Mr. Abhinaw Kumar Dwivedi Mr. Shanil Kumar

Joint Director PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education Shyamla Hills, Bhopal – 462013 , Madhya Pradesh, India ______E-mail: [email protected] Tel. +91 755 2660691, 2704100, 2660391, 2660564 Fax +91 755 2660481 Website: www.psscive.ac.in 19 © PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education, Bhopal 2019