Rotoscoping | Rotoscoping Wiki | rotoscoping.net
Another Rotoscope was invented by LeRoy Wottring for orthoptic training. See patent 2316139. The device was manufactured by the Wottring Instrument Company of Columbus, Ohio. In 1950, American Optical purchased the assets of Wottring Instruments and continued to build and market the product. Orthoptic training was used for a variety of eye conditions including amblyopia.
The technique was invented by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series Out of the Inkwell starting around 1915, with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown. Max patented the method in 1917.
Fleischer used rotoscoping in a number of his later cartoons, most notably the Cab Calloway dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s, and the animation of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels (1939). The Fleischer studio's most effective use of rotoscoping was in their series of action-oriented Superman cartoons, in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realistic movement.
Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Bros., producing cartoons geared more towards exaggerated comedy, used rotoscoping only occasionally.
Walt Disney and his animators employed it in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. From Snow White onwards, the rotoscope was used mainly for studying human and animal motion, rather than actual tracing.
Rotoscoping was used extensively in China's first animated feature film, Princess Iron Fan (1941), which was released under very difficult conditions during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
It was used extensively in the Soviet Union, where it was known as "Éclair" (in Russian — эклер), from the late 1930s to the 1950s; its historical use was enforced as a realization of Socialist Realism[dubious – discuss]. Most of the films produced with it were adaptations of folk tales or poems - for example, The Night Before Christmas or The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish. Only in the early 1960s, after the Khrushchev Thaw, did animators start to explore very different aesthetics.
The film crew on the Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine employed rotoscoping in numerous instances, most notably the sequence for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Ralph Bakshi used the technique quite extensively in his animated movies Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). Bakshi first turned to rotoscoping because he was refused by 20th Century Fox for a $50,000 budget increase to finish Wizards, and thus had to resort to the rotoscope technique to finish the battle sequences.
Rotoscoping was also used in Heavy Metal (1981), It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984), three of a-ha's music videos, "Take on Me" (1985), "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." (1985), and "Train of Thought" (1986), and Don Bluth's Titan A.E. (2000).
The technique was invented by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series Out of the Inkwell starting around 1915, with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown. Max patented the method in 1917.
Fleischer used rotoscoping in a number of his later cartoons, most notably the Cab Calloway dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s, and the animation of Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels (1939). The Fleischer studio's most effective use of rotoscoping was in their series of action-oriented Superman cartoons, in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realistic movement.
Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Bros., producing cartoons geared more towards exaggerated comedy, used rotoscoping only occasionally.
Walt Disney and his animators employed it in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. From Snow White onwards, the rotoscope was used mainly for studying human and animal motion, rather than actual tracing.
Rotoscoping was used extensively in China's first animated feature film, Princess Iron Fan (1941), which was released under very difficult conditions during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
It was used extensively in the Soviet Union, where it was known as "Éclair" (in Russian — эклер), from the late 1930s to the 1950s; its historical use was enforced as a realization of Socialist Realism[dubious – discuss]. Most of the films produced with it were adaptations of folk tales or poems - for example, The Night Before Christmas or The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish. Only in the early 1960s, after the Khrushchev Thaw, did animators start to explore very different aesthetics.
The film crew on the Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine employed rotoscoping in numerous instances, most notably the sequence for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
Ralph Bakshi used the technique quite extensively in his animated movies Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981), and Fire and Ice (1983). Bakshi first turned to rotoscoping because he was refused by 20th Century Fox for a $50,000 budget increase to finish Wizards, and thus had to resort to the rotoscope technique to finish the battle sequences.
Rotoscoping was also used in Heavy Metal (1981), It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984), three of a-ha's music videos, "Take on Me" (1985), "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." (1985), and "Train of Thought" (1986), and Don Bluth's Titan A.E. (2000).
