Implementation of Live Action and Animation in Feature Films

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Implementation of Live Action and Animation in
Feature Films
using the examples Mary Poppins (1964) and Who
Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
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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.

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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

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Gertie the Dinosaur
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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 Petes Dragon

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Techniques

• Double printing two negatives onto the same
  release print
• Optical printers
• Aerial image animation cameras
• Rotoscoping

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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

8
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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Mary Poppins
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Mary Poppins
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit

• Was released in 1988
• Had a budget of 70 million dollars
• Directed by Robert Zemeckis
• Animation director was Richard Williams

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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)

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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

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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

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Roger Rabbit as a Puppet
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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 isnt
• Film makers created robots, machines and puppets
  to move the objects the cartoons came into
  contact with, such as guns, plates, pianos, etc.

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Blue Screen vs. The Finished Scene
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Robots as Cartoons
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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
• created one where Roger Rabbit is alone
• created one with Roger Rabbit as a matte where
  they backlit him
• created one for highlights
• 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

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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

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Style in Animation

• where DOES it comes from??
• by erika bird

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A movie clip

• from the beginning of Hercules

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Greek Pottery(in case youve never seen one)
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Abstract Muses world
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Gerald Scarfedesign consultant
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Gerald Scarfe
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Where is strong design seen in Hercules?
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Landscapes
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Phenomena
I see some greek columns here!
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Characters
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remember how Scarfe drew?

• swoop and reverse-lines

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Scarfe Characters

• look at those lines! swoop and reverse!

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Now, a clip to apply our learning (and to reward
your patience)
Ive 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 stylized-especially the pink one)
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A clip to apply our learning
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Hercules

• design permeated environs and characters matched
  each other
• an example of a 2-D animated movie with a strong
  design ethos
• ok, now were done with it

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Lets shift to my other example, The Incredibles,
another very stylish movie

• Ill preface this one with a clip about the
  films style from the Director, Brad Bird and
  the Production Designer, Lou Romano

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The Incredibles Driving Forces in its Design

• Retrofuture
• graphic style
• caricature

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Retrofuture influences included
Tomorrowland, Hanna Barbera, Bauhaus, Minimalism
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Incredibles house
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Graphic style

• Brad Bird wanted graphic, but CG requires
  photoreal surfaces.
• So Teddy Newton, Character Designer did photo
  cutouts

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Paper Cutouts
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Simple Textures
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Other Concept Art emphasized pastelseffective
for palette
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Palette (yknow--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

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Color Script for palette consistencyThe Golden
Years
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Color Script for palette consistencyInsuracare
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Color Script for palette consistency
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Incredible Clip the setup a scene with the
family at home, just normal family
stuffyou can get a good look at their house
and furniture
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An Incredible Clip
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Conclusion

• style in animation doesnt happen accidentally
• most movies create the look first, and then
  everything stems from that bible
• style can be really cool--you just dont often
  notice it right away

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for dessert, a final clip of something cool and
only sort of relevant
Flatworld
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