Rotoscoping

The technique of Rotoscoping was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915 and was patented in 1917. Fleischer used rotoscoping for his series Out of the inkwell for his character Koko the clown. It was Fleischer’s brother, David who dressed in a clown outfit for the live action footage used.

Fleischer used rotoscoping in a number of his cartoons including some of the dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s. Live action footage was shot of a girl doing a hula dance and the movement was traced over and Betty Boop’s head placed on to the shoulders for one cartoon produced.

Disney employed the use of rotoscoping techniques in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. After this film, rotoscoping was only used for studying human and animal motion rather than for tracing as footage.

In the mid 1990s, animator Bob Sabiston developed a computer assisted interpolated rotoscoping technique which allowed him to make his award winning short film, Snack and Drink. Richard Linklater employed Sabiston’s artistry and techniques to create two full length rotoscope films, Waking Life (2001) and A scanner darkly (2006).

Rotoscoping is much more commonly used than I actually realised particularly in early animation, such as in Superman cartoons and He-man. There are some excellent examples of digital rotoscoping that can be seen today such as in the new Yaris adverts which I have added links to at the beginning of my blog.

Even though rotoscoping is extremely time consuming I feel it is the easiest way to achieve realistic movement in my final animation.