ANONYMOUS: ROTOSCOPING

I really liked the use of rotoscoping and animation combined with archive images and live action footage in Tower, Keith Maitland 2016 and decided to explore and research this further. I was familiar with the technique and had a rough idea of how it was done.



As part of the idea for anonymous piece working in reverse and creating work style first and then finding subjects to use with it I wanted to investigate ways of making them anonymous. The idea being that the subject is never actually revealed but their character, narrative and story is still able to. I felt that the rotoscoping technique would be an excellent way to do this as well as being a really interesting style as demonstrated in Tower and added a contemporary original feel to documentaries.

Rotoscoping is the following
1. An animation technique in which frames or cels are traced from a live-action movie.
2. Named after the Rotoscope, a device for tracing from live-action movies invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer (1883-1972), American animator.

However to put it simply where live action video or film footage is traced over then the key aspects of the image coloured in. The background footage is then removed and more often than not replaced by another image. It can be hand-drawn on cels and this technique was used in the bearly pre-digital days of animation. Nowadays the images are most likely to have been drawn and coloured in on a computer and coloured in digitally. The technique has been employed for year on a multitude of sources including a multitude of Disney animated films, feature films a standout example being A Scanner Darkly by Richard Linklater (2006). It has also been used in music videos a pioneering one being AHA's Take On Me (1985) which combined live action with a hand drawn rotoscoping effect.



As an example of how it all works broken down here is the process in action without all of the technical bits just a demonstration of the process in action.



I will look to use the technique for my Anonymous idea once I get the right subject. I am confident I will be able to execute the technique but I will look to do a basic test to make sure before I use it within my work. My drawing skills are solid (if a little rusty and underused) and it is basically just tracing anyway and the colouring in will be the hardest part. I am confident in Adobe Photoshop but will need to get my head around Adobe After Effects a little more and learn to use a tablet. I will also need to make sure the best way to shoot the footage to make the process as easy and streamlined as can be. Whilst it looks great and will both fit with and be a technique that will hopefully serve the subject matter ideology aims and objectives of the piece the main issue is that it is very time consuming. However I feel it is certainly worth a go and from doing plenty of research found this excellent tutorial on rotoscoping to hold my hand whilst I try it out.