# A Scanner Darkly (2006)



## Dave (Feb 14, 2002)

*Warner Brothers Options Philip K. Dick's Scanner.* 

Warner Brothers has acquired the film rights to Philip K. Dick's semi-autobiographical novel A Scanner Darkly for Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's production company, Section 8, Variety reported. The book tells the story of Bob Arctor, a man in the grip of drug dementia whose delusions prevent him from discerning between his day job as a narcotics officer and his paranoid alter ego, Fred, who's submersed in the addict's lifestyle, the trade paper reported. No director is attached, but sources told Variety that the film is a possible candidate for either computer or traditional animation.

The proposed movie had been set up at Muse Productions, where producer Chris Hanley had attached Leonardo DiCaprio and for a time courted music-video director Chris Cunningham to develop it as his first feature, the trade paper reported. Those people are no longer involved.


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## Dave (Mar 31, 2004)

*Keanu Reeves to Star In Scanner*

Variety has reported that Keanu Reeves will star in this:


> _from SciFi Wire_
> 
> Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, for Warner Independent Pictures, Variety reported. Richard Linklater (School of Rock) is in talks to direct, the trade paper reported. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce.
> 
> ...



My father has been in an animation shot in this way (nothing big, it was a historical piece called 'The Hand and the Word' and was being shown at the Baltic Flour Mills art gallery in Gateshead.) 

But it seemed to be difficult for them to get the mouths in sync with the dialogue when animating this way, and as a result the final product looks pretty poor IMHO. There seems to be more films made like this though, I just saw a trailer for something called 'The North Pole Express' before Scooby Doo 2. I can't really see the point. If they are filming anyway, just do a film. It can't be a cheaper option either. Apart from being able to show a drug-users trips in 'A Scanner Darkly', it wouldn't really have any other redeeming qualities.


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Apr 1, 2004)

*Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly*

Hmf. 

After starring in that big, shiny trilogy that blisfully ripped off Philip K Dick's ideas and themes, wooden face is planning to take the attack closer to the source. OK, I'm being biased, just check this out: 

*Reeves Stars In Scanner *
[font=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Sans Serif]Keanu Reeves will star in _A Scanner Darkly_, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, for Warner Independent Pictures, _Variety_ reported. Richard Linklater (_School of Rock_) is in talks to direct, the trade paper reported. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Sans Serif]_A Scanner Darkly_ will employ the same technology Linklater used in _Waking Life_: It will be shot live-action, then animated, the trade paper reported.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Sans Serif]The story takes place in the future, where undercover agents change their faces along with their identities. Reeves plays one such officer, and his liberal ingestion of the drug Substance D causes him to develop a split personality, the trade paper reported.[/font]

Taken from: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2004-03/30/10.30.film


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 1, 2004)

*Re: Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly*

Thanks for that.


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## Foxbat (Apr 1, 2004)

*Re: Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly*

I look forward to this one.

It seems that Dick is definitely 'the new black' for filmmakers. Hoepfully one day my favourite Dick novel will make it to celluloid (The Man In the High Castle).


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## Dave (May 5, 2004)

I miss-understood earlier reports -- only parts of the film will be animated from film. I expect those are the drugged scenes.



> _from SciFi Wire_
> 
> *Scanner Cast Fills Out *
> 
> ...


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## Dave (Jun 30, 2004)

> _from SciFi Wire_
> 
> *Scanner Aims For Laughs*
> 
> ...



"Philip K. Dick is very funny"

I've read a lot of PKD though admittedly not 'A Scanner Darkly'. There is a lot of humour in them. The idea of 'Perky Pat' and such can never be taken completely seriously, and among all the post-apocalyptic stories there is some genuine humour, but none of them were out-and-out comedies. I like what Linklater says in the finally paragraph though.

No one else going to comment on this film?

'BladeRunner', 'Total Recall', 'Minority Report'... this film has got to have a good chance of being a huge success.

Or, does the fact that it is not an action film make it less commercial?


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## stencyl (Feb 21, 2005)

*A Scanner Darkly*

I thought this had a real god chance to be a great film when I saw that Charlie Kaufman (_Adaptation_, _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_, _Being John Malkovich_) had a script written for it. He seemed like a perfect fit for the film.

It now looks like they trawhed the script and Richard Linklater (_Slacker_, _Dazed and Confused_) has rewritten it and is directing it too.

I ould have liked to see the Kaufman script used.


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## stencyl (May 29, 2005)

*A Scanner Darkly*

It looks like this one has been pushed back to 2006.  

If anyone is interested, there is a teaser trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/


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## Mighty mouse (Aug 21, 2006)

*A Scanner Darkly*

Not since that tour de force in depression, Irvine Walsh's Acid House, have I felt the joi de vive sap out of me like water emptying from a bath. Four stoners in a house one of whom is a cop (Reeves) grind with increasing dysfunction to their inevitable end.
The characters are perfectly drawn (Philip K. Dick wrote it in 1977 nine years after 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', when it is alleged he was suffering from chemically induced paranoid schizophrenia). The performances are perfectly nuanced (especially Robert Downey as a hard motor mouth chemical head). The conversations and events encapsulate druggy life so well you can almost smell the vomit.
Whilst waiting in the foyer afterwards for my friend to throw up, two middle aged ladies totted past, one remarking "well that was certainly different". The attendants removed several people with slashed wrists.
If you go to see it check you seat for used needles.


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## Thadlerian (Aug 21, 2006)

This is the one made with rotoscoping, isn't it? It would be interesting to watch it, but who knows when it'll arrive in Norway...


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## movielad (Aug 21, 2006)

Well, IGN have the first 24 minutes of the film on their site.  I would post a link, but I don't have 15 posts to my name yet.  Best to use Google to search for "a scanner darkly 24 minutes" and it should be the first link it comes across.

M.


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## Highlander II (Aug 23, 2006)

I've merged about 5 threads on this topic into one.  None of them had large numbers of posts and merging the threads doesn't seem to have 'jostled' the post order too much.

Carry on...


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## Paige Turner (Aug 23, 2006)

Okay, is ANYBODY impressed with rotoscoping? Time was, it was a reviled and mocked cheap short cut for people who didn't know how to animate—"We'll just shoot live film and trace over it with felt pens." And now a computer does the tracing for you. That's some advance. (I say sarcastically)

I actually paid money to go see _Waking Life,_ but silly me, I forgot to drop acid, and had to sit through the whole thing waiting to be entertained. If they would DO something with the rotoscoping, trick it out, distort it, introduce strange elements, get all "Yellow Submarine," ANYTHING— but it just lays there like a dead trout until it's time to go home. What a waste of time, money, talent(?), effort, and air.


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## roddglenn (Sep 15, 2006)

I saw this at the Tyneside Cinema a couple of weeks ago.  I was very impressed with it as a whole.  Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jnr were top notch, as was Winona Ryder and Woody Harleson.  The rotoscoping works very well and the acting and music score are both very good.


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## AE35Unit (Dec 14, 2007)

*A Scanner Darkly*

We just rented this from Blockbuster(other half works there) but I wasn't aware it existed until I heard about it on here! I knew about the book but haven't read it so I have no idea what to expect,but it seems to be about drugs and paranoia and I hope there's more to it than that. From the cover it seems to be done in cartoon style,like Sin City? I was going to ask if its as good as the book but thats rather a silly question as they never are!


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## Thadlerian (Dec 14, 2007)

It's done with rotoscoping; filming, and then drawing on top. I've only seen the trailer, but the result looked pretty cool.


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## Stenevor (Dec 14, 2007)

Its pretty good though Im not sure how easy it would have been to follow had I not already read and enjoyed the book a couple of times. The cocaine recipe, paranoid car journey and bike gears sections always make me laugh.


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## unclejack (Dec 15, 2007)

It's a really good movie, I have to admit that it wasn't what I was expecting though. I rented it because the trailer looked trippy, I didn't know anything about the plot regarding drugs and everything, which is fine I just wasn't expectin it.


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## gully_foyle (Dec 15, 2007)

I haven't read the book, but it the film had a typically Dicksian paranoia and twist to it. I really enjoyed it as it is.


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## Metryq (Apr 10, 2011)

Paige Turner said:


> Okay, is ANYBODY impressed with rotoscoping? Time was, it was a reviled and mocked cheap short cut for people who didn't know how to animate—"We'll just shoot live film and trace over it with felt pens." And now a computer does the tracing for you. That's some advance. (I say sarcastically)



*Rotoscope* is a very old technique, and it is used in filmmaking in a variety of ways. It can be used to create traveling mattes for composite shots, as well as assist "animators who can't draw." [/SARC] Filmmaking can be endless hours of tedious, repetitive work sometimes. Don't begrudge the filmmakers any tool that saves time, produces more consistent output, and allows them to crank out more entertainment—provided the art doesn't suffer in the process. I've done a fair amount of rotoscope work for various purposes. And believe me, I didn't choose to do it because it's fun or the "easy way out."

The Web is riddled with fans of the "_Scanner Darkly_ look" seeking a magic bullet to do the same thing in Photoshop. _Fortunately_, there is no "filter" as a quick and dirty solution. Yes, the stable of artists who worked on _A Scanner Darkly_ had computer assistance, but the computers did not do the rotoscoping automatically. The artists had to laboriously trace out the vectors by hand. The keyframe "tweening" was computer assisted, but the world of animation has had "key animators" and "betweeners" since the very beginning.

I'm not a fan of the "_Scanner Darkly_ look," although I found it interesting—for the first 5 or 10 minutes. This sort of rotoscoping should not be confused with *cel shading*, a type of rendering for 3D animation to make it look like classic 2D animation. 

_No_ technique should be used as a substitute for art. For example, cel shading _could_ be used to mass produce animation that looks like 2D work, but the rigid models, perfect perspective, and other trademarks of 3D could rob the project of artistic flavor. That's why the Pixar animators working on _The Incredibles_ created figures with wildly distorted proportions and who stretch and bounce like 2D animations—yet _The Incredibles_ had a stylized "photo-realistic" look.

If you "don't like CGI," then it is probably because you didn't like what the artist did with it. But CGI does not have one "look" any more than another medium.

***

Paige—just out of curiosity—is that your real name, or are you simply that exciting?


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## Foxbat (Apr 11, 2011)

Metryq ...Interesting what you said about Rotoscoping.

I did some mucking about (I'm not a film maker, animator or anything else of that nature.....just a fiddler). I used Adobe After Effects to break down a short film of mine into seperate frames, used Photoshop to set up an automated batch file (to apply watercolour effects to each frame.....could have been any effect...black and white sketch is good too) and then reconstituted the whole thing with Adobe Image Ready. I thought it was pretty good quality (for me that is).

I'm just curious....what programs do professionals use?


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## Metryq (Apr 11, 2011)

Foxbat, I'm not Hollywood, or anything big like that. Although I have done a fair amount of visual effects work on video and got to work on one, small feature film. Adobe After Effects and Photoshop are very widely used, even in the big FX houses. Of course, many of the big places also have their own proprietary software, too. But the very same stuff you can buy as a consumer is also used in professional pipelines.

*Cinefex* is probably the best trade rag available. Mixed in with all the interviews you will learn the names of the apps the pros use.

And if you want to know about the absolute cutting edge of imaging technology, look up the SIGGRAPH papers each year. The Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques covers everything from "mundane" technologies like computer assisted colorization and High Dynamic Range Imaging to really bizarre "2D" systems that can see the backsides of objects. Once presented at SIGGRAPH, the technique will probably show up in a movie about a year later, and perhaps trickle down to the consumer level a couple years after that.

The really amazing thing is that it is mostly the technology that has changed since _Star Wars_ ushered in visual effects as big business, and not the techniques themselves. For example, when the completely computer generated *Hatsune Miku* appears on stage as a "hologram," or when *Madonna appears on stage with Gorillaz*, it is really an application of an old stage technique from 1862 known as *Pepper's Ghost*.

So I'm a big fan of learning how the old masters used to do things, as it will give you insights into how to apply digital tools. Raymond Fielding's *The Technique of Special Effects Cinematography* is a great resource. Once you _understand_ the principle of a thing, it is easier to venture beyond the "presets" and filters. For example, if you understand color separation, you can do bluescreen/greenscreen composites even without a chroma-key filter. Almost every video app can do chroma-key these days. But if you understand how the film technicians used color separation, you can venture beyond mere chroma-key.


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## Foxbat (Apr 11, 2011)

Thanks for all the info. Plenty reading there to keep me busy for a while

I had a look at the Pepper's Ghost article and realised where I'd seen something like this before. I'm sure Fritz Lang used that technique with mirrors to put crowds on the bridges in Metropolis. Now I know where he got it from.

I've been mucking around with blue and green screen composites and I'm finding that light levels and eliminating shadow are pretty critical to getting a good effect. 

Perhaps if (as you say)  I spend some time learning the principle it will help. To be honest, I just dabble for the sake of it but I do find it quite fascinating - especially how people like Lang could come up with such good effects so long ago.


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## JunkMonkey (Apr 11, 2011)

I still find it amazing that even with every frame being redrawn by hand there were still continuity errors in the finished film. The position of Woody Harrelson's hand as he picks up the bike from the table being the only one I can remember off-hand.  Having said that I loved the effect that all that hard work turned out.  It recreated that weird, scratchy, fidgety, not quite sure where the edges are feeling that make my student days such a vague blur in my mind.


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## Metryq (Apr 11, 2011)

Foxbat said:


> I'm sure Fritz Lang used that technique with mirrors to put crowds on the bridges in Metropolis.



That would be the *Schüfftan process*, a technique related to *matte paintings* and *forced perspective* models.






Daryl Hannah in a forced perspective model shot from _Attack of the 50ft Woman_​
The Schüfftan process and matte paintings _on glass_ are obsolete techniques, but forced perspective will always be useful. And a variation on the Pepper's ghost idea is used in front projection. 

There are at least two companies selling a "front-projection" chroma-key system. Instead of using an entire platoon of bright lights to illuminate a blue or green background, the talent stands in front of a "reflex" curtain. (Scotchlite reflective tape is one kind of reflex material that bounces light back towards its source.) The camera does not have a beam splitter or pane of glass, as with other front projection rigs. Instead, it has a ring of blue or green LEDs around the lens. The front projected light from the LEDs can illuminate even a huge screen. This approach to chroma-key is excellent for portable use, or any shot not requiring interactive shadows in the composite. Because there is no spill light from the reflex screen, this approach is also excellent for high key lighting.

There are many other "tricks" to making chroma-key painless, but I think I've hijacked this thread enough. Feel free to PM me if you want more detailed info, Foxbat.


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## Metryq (Apr 11, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> I still find it amazing that even with every frame being redrawn by hand there were still continuity errors in the finished film.



That's because the artists were tracing discontinuities in the action. Since the final product was hand-drawn, yes, the artists could have fixed the errors. But keep in mind that they were dealing with 3D source footage with highlights and shadows—moving an arm is a bigger problem when you have to deal with all that. It _could_ be done, but the producers might have shrugged it off when they heard what the "fix" would cost them.

The small feature film I worked on had lots of such errors. I was on the set a few times and wanted to strangle the producer every time I heard him say, "_We_'ll fix it in post" rather than shooting the shot again. But I wasn't getting paid by the hour.

In one of the shots, a hurricane is tearing a house apart. I had to insert lots of debris blowing down the hallway from a room at the other end that had been breached. (Those wimpy actors wouldn't let us actually throw chairs and books and other stuff at them.) Before I could insert all the airborne junk, I had to fix a continuity error. The hallway shot came in two parts. During the first part some framed photos fell off the wall as the room is first breached. The falling photos was a physical stage gag, and very obvious. Guess what? Those photos were still on the wall for the second part of the shot. The shot was hand-held, and the actors kept moving back and forth in front of the photos, so erasing them involved some match-moving and rotoscoping. _Then_ I could sit down and begin the actual FX work for the shot.



> Having said that I loved the effect that all that hard work turned out.  It recreated that weird, scratchy, fidgety, not quite sure where the edges are feeling that make my student days such a vague blur in my mind.



I never even smoked anything in my student days, but yeah—the movie made me feel fuzzy and missing the edges, too! So I guess the styling worked.


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## JunkMonkey (Apr 11, 2011)

Since we're in a SF forum it's just worth pointing out that the Front Projection system that was used for so long was developed by SF writer Murray Leinster (under his real name of William F. Jenkins).


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## JunkMonkey (Apr 11, 2011)

I understand how continuity errors get through too.  I worked as a 2nd Assistant Editor on a film in LA (with named stars) and after three months of post (we were editing on 35mm film - probably one of the last features to be rough-cut on an upright Moviola) I noticed that a central character's jacket appeared and disappeared off her shoulders during a montage.  I pointed this out to the Assistant who watched the footage, banged her head on the table a couple of times, thought for a few moments and then told me to forget I'd seen it. Our editor was such an indecisive ditherer it would have added a week to the edit to fix.  We had been on the show for so long we just wanted it to stop and go and get other jobs.


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## Metryq (Apr 11, 2011)

JunkMonkey said:


> Our editor was such an indecisive ditherer it would have added a week to the edit to fix.



An _indecisive_ editor? Holy oxymorons, Batman! And that's not dithering, it's film grain!


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