Rotoscoping is an animation technique that’s been around since 1914, when it was patented by Max Fleischer. It’s done differently today, of course, but the underlying idea — taking live action footage and making it look like a drawing — remains the same.
I can’t think of an instance where the Disney studio used it while Walt was alive (the integration of live action and animation doesn’t count), although film was often used as an animation guide by Disney artists. Disney was wise to stay away from rotoscoping, because, like anything, it can be overdone and/or misapplied as was the case with Ralph Bakshi’s mostly awful version of Lord of the Rings.
The distinctions between comics and cartoons and live action movies with digital effects are now so blurry as to be indistinguishable. In the future will still picture comics even exist as anything other than a niche, and for movie storyboards?
The Peanuts Motion Comics I talked about a couple of posts ago were done in Flash animation that obviously required no live action for reference. (They’re fun, by the way, and were based on 1964 comic strips that were some of the best material Sparky Schulz ever wrote.) Marvel Motion Comics are done in a similar way, but they’re much more detailed, of course, and they display the darker tone that everybody now associates with Marvel Comics.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/MarvelMotionComics.flv 480 360]
The first serious full-length movie to go all-out with Flash animation is Waltz with Bashir, which is brilliantly realized, but was obviously based upon live action source material, despite claims to the contrary that I’ve read. I’d also suggest taking a look at the clip from “Men in Black” (not the Will Smith movie) that I posted a couple of years ago.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/WaltzwithBashir.flv 480 270]
As I said, rotoscoping and its variants can be overdone. The ad agency that produced the new series of Charles Schwab commercials seems to have jumped on the Flash animation bandwagon, but it’s a misuse of the tool. This creepy image is supposed to make nervous investors feel more confident in a brokerage firm? Yuck!
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/MAR/CharlesSchwab.flv 480 270]