A Scanner Darkly (2006)

[Metryq]

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?

 

[Foxbat]

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?

 

[Metryq]

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.

 

[Foxbat]

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.

 

[JunkMonkey]

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.

 

[Metryq]

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.

 

[Metryq]

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.

 

[JunkMonkey]

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).

 

[JunkMonkey]

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.

 

[Metryq]

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!