Hand drawn or 2d rotoscope was the original form of rotoscope invented in 1915 by Mat Fleischer to make animate characters move more realistically. The technique was achieved by projecting a scene onto glass panels to be able to trace it frame by frame. It was useful in speeding up the drawing stage and the movements may be less twitchy and more humanlike than seen on screens previously. Because of this. Fleisher’s technique was still quickly becoming an important part of animation history.

Up until 1934, the Fleischer studios were the only ones allowed to use the rotoscoping technique, but Disney in 1937 adapted the process himself after Fleischer’s death and reclaimed it through ‘snow white and the seven dwarfs, Pinocchio and Alice in wonderland.

 In snow white, all the human characters are animated this way apart from the dwarfs to create realism and at points mimic’s 3D using the multiplane camera and uses techniques from the live action filmmaking, such as deep focus photography, and simulated camera movement in the live footage which contributed greatly to how the scene presents itself in comparison to older animations. Therefore, animation benefitted greatly from the creation and use of rotoscope in Snow White.

 This was just the first of Disney rotoscoping. The technique was adapted into being faster and more conventional through the movies, Cinderella, Alice in wonderland, and used the footage as direct reference instead of tracing it onto the glass panels to be more observant of body movements and expressions and was a useful and inexpensive shortcut to speedup Disney animation process.

 In many ways, Cinderella changed the game for Disney and was able to revive a failing company after many of his earlier films and shorts films received less than expected at box office. But Cinderella combines two storylines, the main Cinderella story but also the subplot of the mice and cat which added an aspect of comedy that the audience loved.

Due to the cost of the film however, there was the need to use shortcuts such as live action rotoscoping. Furthermore, often the technique of direct frame by frame rotoscoping can come out to be stiff and lifeless. However, when altered and interpreted by an animator, changes are made to the scenes such as timing and proportions to keep the look of the original scene whilst adapting to be more natural and fit the animated characteristics.

Disney often recycles past animation for different characters to save time which is as different example of how Disney uses other animation to reference instead of redoing it from scratch from a video.

Individual task

The three tasks I completed for the industry module were, storyboarding, 2d fight animation and rotoscoping.

Storyboarding.

I initially lacked inspiration straight off the bat for this project, but I planned to complete the storyboard first. Therefore, I made a rough mind map to create an idea that I would want to make. I knew I wanted to incorporate an already established character and with a couple options I decided to use SpongeBob and Patrick. I also roughly planned out the story and composition for each frame for the boards to look more cohesive. a storyboard is a series of illustrations that map out the key events in a story and to plan out and structure the scene – often for a film or animation to make the process going smoother. my storyboard kind of is more comic like than storyboard and to fix this I could have added more scenes that show more actions in each scene, Aswell as mentions of camera angles and stage directions to make it less basic. I do however, like the storyline i created and i feel it would work for an actual episode of SpongeBob if it were more developed.

For week 2 i completed a short 2d fight animation. Animation is the process of combining still images or drawings to order to create a moving video sequence. This is mostly used in order to bring characters and stories to life but also is often used alongside videos for vfx.  I used youtube in order to find an inspiration for the stabbing pose i wanted to create. . I altered the reference to loop which I think I did successfully. I originally had more frames in the original draft, but I felt it was taking me a long time to do and would use even more time for it to look decent. I grabbed the two most expressive scenes and made in-betweens. I overall like the timing of the animation, especially how it pauses on that mid frame to make it more dynamic and stronger. I feel I could have added more in-betweens to make the scene smoother and more humanlike.

In week 3 i completed a 2d rotoscope. Rotoscoping is a process where live action Is traced or mimicked for animation or VFX, originally on glasspane and traced.It was created in 1915 by max fleischer and later caught on by disney to make the animation process easier and faster. In modern days, the technique has been adapted to be digital using programs such as after effects, photoshop for 2d  or even blender for 3d or vfx . I videoed my own reference video of me and my cat and used photoshop to break it down – frame by frame and trace it overtop using video layering.

I found, with this specific process, I didn’t have much control of the timing and had to redraw muliple frames in almost identical positions. Furthermore, I could have made it less jittery by using an additional onion skin layer in order to make each scene more consistent. Honestly overall, I don’t mind the style and i like the kind of look that it gives at the end.