{"title":"Rotoscoping","authors":"R. Pierson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the use of the tracing of lines over live-action footage, or rotoscoping, in animation practice. In particular, the chapter makes a distinction between rotoscoping by outline, in which the animator traces over the boundaries of an actor’s body at every frame, and rotoscoping by through-line, wherein the animator draws according to lines of force that underlie an actor’s movements. In rotoscoping by through-line, used at Disney, the drawn line seems part of the footage beneath it. In rotoscoping by outline, used by Ralph Bakshi and the Fleischer studio, the line seems partially independent of the footage; this, the chapter argues, is where the oft-noted unsettling quality of some rotoscoping comes from. The chapter then examines a use of rotoscoping by outline in Mary Beams’s film Going Home Sketchbook (1975), which paradoxically has none of this unsettling quality. By having a line snake freely over light values around live-action figures, the film exhibits an intimate, even loving, attachment to its footage.","PeriodicalId":439910,"journal":{"name":"Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics","volume":"91 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127050266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Walk Cycles","authors":"R. Pierson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the use of walk cycles in animation practice. Walk cycles—frames of characters’ actions that can be repeated in loops—have been important in animation not only for portraying coordinations of moving parts to convey lifelike movement but also for saving labor. However, if a cycle is noticed by the viewer, the figure’s movement will appear imposed and not self-directed, leaving the figure lifeless. Through a study of Norman McLaren and Grant Munro’s film Canon (1964), this chapter further argues that cycles can be layered to create a living, open system of cyclical parts.","PeriodicalId":439910,"journal":{"name":"Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics","volume":"196 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120865975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soft Edges","authors":"R. Pierson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the use of soft edges in animation practice. Unlike hard-edged forms, such as the contour-based characters found in studio cartoons, figures with patchy forms often appear to not hold together strongly. Consequently, when these forms change shape, their metamorphoses appear passive, coming from without—as opposed to the active, self-directed metamorphoses of cartoon figures. Through a history of cloudy forms in animation, focusing especially on Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker’s 1933 short film Night on Bald Mountain, this chapter argues that soft-edged forms provoke a special kind of engagement called “exposure,” which makes concrete our vulnerability to the world of forces that undergirds us.","PeriodicalId":439910,"journal":{"name":"Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134011719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perspectival Movement","authors":"R. Pierson","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the use of perspectival movement (or camera movement) in animation practice. In particular, it argues that the ambiguity of the out-of-field space that perspectival movement creates entails a suppression of another kind of ambiguity: the graphic ambiguity of marks on a surface. Thus, much of the history of animated space can be seen as a history of trade-offs between the possibilities of camera movement and those of graphic metamorphoses. However, two films—Norman McLaren’s Blinkity Blank (1955) and Caroline Leaf’s The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977)—manage to combine these possibilities, creating spaces that seem to transform themselves as the camera moves through them.","PeriodicalId":439910,"journal":{"name":"Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132765056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}