Rotoscope

A rotoscope is a device that enables animators to trace live action movement, frame by frame, for use in animation. Originally, pre-recorded live-film images were projected onto a matte windowpane and redrawn by an animator. The device was invented by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series "Out of the Inkwell" starting around 1914, with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown.

History

Fleischer used the rotoscope in a number of his later cartoons as well, most notably the Cab Calloway dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s, and the animation of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels.

Related Topics:
Cab Calloway - Betty Boop - 1930s - Gulliver's Travels

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Walt Disney and his animators employed it carefully and very effectively in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, primarily used in the animation of Prince Charming.

Related Topics:
Walt Disney - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

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By contrast, Ralph Bakshi used rotoscope quite extensively in his animated movies Wizards (1977) and The Lord of the Rings (1978). Bakshi was refused by 20th Century Fox for a $50,000 budget increase to finish Wizards, and thus had to resort to rotoscoping to finish the battle sequences. (This was the same meeting at which George Lucas was also denied a $3 million budget increase to finish Star Wars.)

Related Topics:
Ralph Bakshi - Wizards - 1977 - The Lord of the Rings - 1978 - George Lucas - Star Wars

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Richard Linklater produced a digitally rotoscoped feature called Waking Life, creating a surreal image of live action footage, a technique which is now being used to produce the movie A Scanner Darkly.

Related Topics:
Richard Linklater - Waking Life - Surreal - A Scanner Darkly

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It was also used in the 1980s A-ha music video "Take on Me".

Related Topics:
1980s - A-ha

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