Rotoscoping Animation and the "Take on Me" Video

Rotoscoping is an animation technique where animators trace over actual motion picture footage, frame by frame. It produces "drawn" animation but looks very realistic action. 

It is not a new technique. It was invented by animator Max Fleischer in 1915, and used in his groundbreaking Out of the Inkwell animated series (1918–1927) and was known as the "Fleischer Process" on the early screen credits, and was essentially exclusive to Fleischer for several years. Today it is done by computers, but the process is still called rotoscoping.

The rock band A-ha’s 1985 music video for "Take On Me" is a famous contemporary example of the technique being used. That video has more than a billion views on YouTube. 

The video was directed by Steve Barron and animated by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger who won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects in a Video for this work. They rotoscoped around 3,000 frames over 16 weeks using the reference live-action scenes of the band.

Here is a good video look at how it was made.

The Curious Case of an Animated 1001 Nights

Woodcut illustration from A Thousand and One Nights by Friedrich Gross, 1830

A friend told me about A Thousand and One Nights a Japanese 1969 adult anime feature film directed by Eiichi Yamamoto. The film was a hit in Japan but given limited screenings in America in 1970. As an X-rated animated film, it did not seem to appeal to an American audience in 1969.

The dubbed version of the film is now very rare, and has never been released on home video, and may be considered lost.

An English-dubbed version was cut to 100 minutes. The film predates the more successful release of Fritz the Cat, the first American X-rated animated film, by three years.

Having read the classic anonymous Tales from the Thousand and One Nights in college, I can only imagine what the filmmakers might have depicted based on some of the more erotic scenes.

This is NOT Disney’s story of Aladdin. In fact, Aladdin is not part of the original Arabic text. Still, it is one of the best-known tales in One Thousand and One Nights (AKA The Arabian Nights) though it was added to the collection in the 18th century by the Frenchman Antoine Galland, who acquired the tale from a Syrian Maronite storyteller named Hanna Diyab. "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" is one of the best known and most retold of all fairy tales.

Has anyone seen the film or know where it’s available? I can't find it, but I did find the original Japanese trailer for the film which I originally tried to post on my Tumblr site - but it was blocked. It's curious because I would hardly consider the trailer to be X-rated and I know that Tumblr still has far more X-rated and clearly pornographic images. That is despite their admirable attempts to clean up their image. Their algorithms for doing so really suck.

Animating Edgar Allan Poe

United Productions of America (UPA) was a film studio started by three former Disney employees in the 1950s. UPA studio was active from the 1940s through the 1970s. Beginning with industrial and World War II training films, UPA eventually produced theatrical shorts for Columbia Pictures, notably the Mr. Magoo series. In an attempt to take animation in new directions, they made a strange adaptation in 1953 of Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

At that time, it was considered "adult" in nature and it was the first animated film in the U.K. to receive an “X” rating. At the time that rating meant "suitable for those aged 16 and over." UPA didn't intend the film for children but it was still strange for a short "cartoon."

The film was designed by Paul Julian and shows the influence of Salvador Dali surrealism and German expressionism. It was narrated by James Mason.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” was voted the 24th greatest cartoon of all time, in a 1994 survey of 1000 animation professionals. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

The Simpsons love to do takes on literature. Edgar Allan Poe is a favorite and in season one there is an episode “The Tell-Tale Head” and in the 1990 “Treehouse of Horror,” they did Poe’s “The Raven” pretty faithfully with the narration by Darth Vader himself, James Earl Jones.

Understanding the Math and Science of Animation

I am a proponent of the concept of teaching in a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) framework that goes across disciplines. I have seen many attempts to use science and math in teaching art - some successful, some not.

A new project that does this in an engaging way is a collaboration between Pixar Animation Studios and Khan Academy that is sponsored by Disney. Called "Pixar in a Box," it gives a look behind-the-scenes at how artists at Pixar need to use STEM to make art.

To make balls bounce, leaves in trees move in the wind, fireworks explode or realistic rippling water takes more than drawing skills. It requires computer skills and considerations of math, science such as physics and digital humanities.

How do you make animated hair

look like real life hair?

One tough task in animation is creating realistic hair on characters. Drawing hair is not that difficult. But making hair that moves in a natural way as character move is very tough. In this learning series of videos on simulations, the Pixar artists use hair as an example of an animation problem that needed to be solved. Using examples from their films, such as the character Merida in Brave with her bouncy and curly hair, you learn how millions of hairs can be simulated if you think of them as being a huge system of springs.

As the lessons progress, you can learn about animation roles and will discover what a technical director does in the animation process.



The lessons are appropriate for grades 5 and up - though I can see many adults and younger kids interested in animation from a technical or artistic side enjoying the free series.