FMP: Rotoscope Research

What is rotoscoping?

Rotoscoping is an animation technique where a subject is traced over, frame by frame, so it may be composited with a different background.[1] For example, live action footage can be digitally traced over using programmes such as Adobe Animate and Photoshop to create an animated version.

Who is known for using the rotoscope technique?

Max Fleischer

Rotoscoping was patented in 1915 by animator Max Fleischer when he wanted to quickly draw realistic character movement. One of the first characters he created using the rotoscope technique was Koko the Clown.

He would film his brother and project the moving image onto an easel covered by glass. He would then trace over each frame onto individual sheets of tracing paper for each frame. This technique was continued in his work, and he went on to create rotoscoped characters such as Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman.[2]

Matthias Brown

Matthias Brown is an animator who posts all of his work online, on websites such as Tumblr. He mostly creates short rotoscoped GIFs, which are very simplistic and similar to the style I am going to create in my animation.

This is a looped animated GIF which he produced using rotoscope animation.[3] This is the style of line animation I want to create, but I would like to include slightly more detail. The reason I would like to add more detail is because I feel as though the small details add a nice boiling effect to the animation – which I have displayed in my rotoscope animation practice.

He uses animation to experiment with the perception of motion, which is seen in the GIF above. The motion of the arms and legs is dragged out to emphasise this particular movement. I may experiment with this effect in my final animation in order to make it more visually interesting. The lines in this animation are very crisp, however, each frame doesn’t exactly line up with the one before. This creates a boiling effect (line wobbling) which makes the animation look less frozen, and more fluid. This is a technique I will make sure to consider when making my animation, and is something I can easily recreate by redrawing each frame individually.

Malcolm Sutherland

Malcolm Sutherland is another animator who basis his work online. I showed one of his videos in my ‘Ideas’ post when I was first exploring ideas for this project. I liked the hand drawn style of his videos, however, I wanted to work with a more digital style, therefore, I researched some of his other work. When doing this I discovered some online content he created for Adidas’ website, which is more similar to the style of animation I would like to create.

Although this may not be rotoscope animation, there are aspects of it which could have been created using rotoscoping. For example, the walking could be successfully created using rotoscope animation, and I would like to include a walking animation in my final piece. The lines in this animation are very solid, which isn’t something I am going to recreate in my animation as I would like more of a sketchy effect – this will create more of a line boil, as well as being more efficient in terms of time.

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References:

[1] Videomaker.com. (2014). The Horrors of Rotoscoping. [online] Available at: https://www.videomaker.com/article/f06/17164-the-horrors-of-rotoscoping [Accessed 23 Mar. 2018].

[2] Maher, M. (2015). Rotoscoping: From Early Animation to Blockbuster VFX. [online] RocketStock. Available at: https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/rotoscoping-from-early-animation-to-blockbuster-vfx/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

[3] Brown, M. (n.d.). [Blog] Trace Loops. Available at: http://traceloops.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2018].