Implementation of Live Action
and Animation in Feature Films
using the examples Mary Poppins (1964)
and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
History of Live
Action/Animated movies
• First example of this combination was in 1914 with Winsor
McCays, “Gertie the Dinosaur”
• McCay drew out his animation and projected it on a white
screen
• He then stood in front of the projection screen and “told”
Gertie to do different things like one would command a dog
• You would then see Gertie act out the various commands
• The live action and the animation are two completely
different parts of the film and are not connected on one reel.
History of Live
Action/Animated movies
•
Examples of interaction between Gertie and McCay
•
He called her out from her cave to start the act
•
He would command her to bow to the audience and she would
obey
•
He would ask her to raise her right leg, then her left
•
One of the better acts was he would have an orange in his and
hand and he would throw it to her to catch. He would palm it as
he throw it and an animate version would appear on the screen
where she would then catch it
•
For the finally he would hide back stage and an animated
version of himself would be picked up by Gertie and carried
away
Gertie the Dinosaur
History of Live
Action/Animated movies
• Some examples of this style of film
making since then:
• 1945 The Three Caballeros
• 1946 Song of the South
• 1971 Bedknobs and Broomsticks
• 1977 Pete’s Dragon
Techniques
• Double printing two negatives onto the
same release print
• Optical printers
• Aerial image animation cameras
• Rotoscoping
Double Printing Negatives
• Director would film the live action and the
animation on two completely separate
reels
• They would then combine the two reels in
the final edit to create one final release
print that is then sent to the theaters to be
viewed
Optical Printers
• A devise consisting of one or more film
projectors mechanically linked to a movie
camera
• This allows filmmakers to re-photograph
one of more strips of film
• In this case they could photograph the
live action and the animation to create
the one combined reel
Aerial Image and
Animation Cameras
• An aerial image is one that is basically
floating in space and is added to an existing
scene.
• Used to add an animated character of scene
to a live action shot or sequence
• An animation camera is a type of rostrum
camera (which is used to animate a still
picture or a still object) that is adapted for
frame-by-frame shooting
Rotoscoping
• An animation technique where an
animator traces over live action film
movement
• Instead of tracing over a live action
sequence, they would use it as a
reference to add the animation to play off
the live action actors
Mary Poppins
• Released in 1964
• It was the third live
action/animation movie
done by Walt Disney
• This film is widely
known as his crowning
achievement
Mary Poppins
• Technique used by Walt Disney
• Disney used the sodium vapor process to combine the
live-action actors and the animated background
• An actor is filmed performing in front of a white screen and
lit by powerful sodium vapor lights
•
Sodium light is used because it is a narrow spectrum
source that falls neatly into a notch between sensitive
layers of the color film
• This allows the complete range of colors to be used in
costumes, make up, and props
Mary Poppins
• Techniques cont.
• They would then use a camera with a beamsplitter prism
that exposes two separate film elements
• The first film element is regular color negative film that is
into very sensitive to sodium light
• The second is a panchromatic fine grain black and white
film that is sensitive to the color of the sodium vapor lights
• The second film element is used to create a matte, to that
the regular color footage can later be combined with
another shot without the two images showing through each
other
Mary Poppins
• Techniques cont.
• The matte is then used as a the template for the animated
portion of the movie
• Making it at the same time as the live action makes it an
easier fit in post production optical printing
Mary Poppins
• They had the actors acting to practically nothing.
• They sometimes had cardboard cutouts marking
the location of the object the actors had to react
to
Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Was released in 1988
• Had a budget of 70 million dollars
• Directed by Robert Zemeckis
• Animation director was Richard Williams
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Fun Facts:
• Animation was all hand drawn
• Rogers voice actor Charles Fleisher dressed as a
rabbit and stood in for Roger in some of the scenes
• Sparked the most recent era in American animation
• Last appearance of famed cartoon voice artists; Mel
Blanc (Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and
Sylvester) and Mae Questel (Betty Boop)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Fun Facts:
• First and only time were characters from
several animation studios appeared in the
same film
• First time Bugs Bunny and Mickey mouse met
on screen
• First time Daffy Duck and Donald Duck met on
Screen
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Techniques:
• As a reference the film makers created exact, life sized
rubber sculptures of the animated characters so that
the live actors could react towards them
• These models were also used to see the size of the
character on camera and how the light would fall on
them
Roger Rabbit as a Puppet
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Techniques cont:
• They used a blue screen as a blank canvas when the
live actor had to be in an all cartoon environment
• The actors went to mime training to gain an
understanding of how to make it look like there is
something there event though there isn’t
• Film makers created robots, machines and puppets to
move the objects the cartoons came into contact with,
such as guns, plates, pianos, etc.
Blue Screen vs. The Finished
Scene
Robots as Cartoons
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
•
Techniques cont:
•
When the animators where drawing out the individual slides
for the animated characters they created 4 different layers per
slide
1. created one where Roger Rabbit is alone
2. created one with Roger Rabbit as a matte where they
backlit him
3. created one for highlights
4. created one for low lights
•
All the layers where then sent to ILM and using their optical
printers would composite them with the live action plates
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Rule in animation is to keep the camera still so that you
only see one side of the character, which makes it easy
for the animator cause they only have to draw them from
one angle
• Zemeckis shot the live action like a normal movie, so the
camera was always moving
• The animators had to compensate for this movement and
draw the characters more 3D then they usually would
•
Which meant drawing twice as much
Style in Animation
where DOES it comes from??
by erika bird
A movie clip:
from the beginning of Hercules
Greek Pottery
(in case you’ve never seen one)
Abstract Muses world
Gerald Scarfe
design consultant
Gerald Scarfe
Where is strong design
seen in Hercules?
Landscapes
Phenomena
I see some greek columns here!
Characters
remember how Scarfe drew?
swoop and reverse-lines
Scarfe Characters
look at those lines! swoop and reverse!
Now, a clip to apply our learning
(and to reward your patience)
I’ve edited this one, so in the first short
bit, check out the cloud hades makes
with his hand;
the rest of the clip is about the two
minions (they are quite stylizedespecially the pink one)
A clip to apply our learning
Hercules
design permeated environs and characters;
matched each other
an example of a 2-D animated movie with a
strong design ethos
ok, now we’re done with it
Let’s shift to my other
example, The
Incredibles, another very
stylish movie
I’ll preface this one with a clip about the
film’s style from the Director, Brad Bird* and
the Production Designer, Lou Romano*
QuickTime™ and a
H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The Incredibles
Driving Forces in its Design
Retrofuture
graphic style
caricature
Retrofuture
influences included Tomorrowland,
Hanna Barbera, Bauhaus, Minimalism
Incredibles house
Graphic style
Brad Bird wanted graphic, but CG requires
photoreal surfaces.
So Teddy Newton, Character Designer did
photo cutouts
Paper Cutouts
Simple Textures
Other Concept Art;
emphasized pastels
effective for palette
Palette
(y’know--colors, lighting)
pure colors in the “Golden Years”; highly
saturated
a shift to drained colors at Insuricare
introduce some color back in to support the
story
at end of film, color is natural and balanced
Color Script for palette consistency
The Golden Years
Color Script for palette consistency
Insuracare
Color Script for palette consistency
Incredible Clip
the setup:
a scene with the family at home, just
normal family stuff
you can get a good look at their house and furniture
An Incredible Clip
Conclusion
style in animation doesn’t happen accidentally
most movies create the look first, and then
everything stems from that ‘bible’
style can be really cool--you just don’t often
notice it right away
for dessert, a final clip of
something cool and only
sort of relevant:
Flatworld