It Rocked!

yep, it was totally amazing. i highly recommend that you see this movie. aside from it's unbelievable artistic genius, it's got a pretty good, and slightly hard to follow plot line. buy it, steal it, borrow it. just watch it.

directed by: Richard Linkslater
other film credits: School of Rock, Slacker, and Dazed and Confused

here's a quote from the director:

“There is kind of an animation ghetto that exists in the industry. From the beginning, we lived with the Hollywood truism that adults don’t see animated movies. But I have always had the response that, yeah, adults don’t go see animated movies until they do! All it takes is one movie.”
~ Richard Linklater

for all of you who don't know what rotoscope technology is:

images courtesy of warner bros.

1. Film

Director Richard Linklater shoots with digital cameras. Since details are added by animators, there are minimal costumes, props, and sets.

2. Animate
Artists use Wacom digital pens and tablets connected to Apple G5s running Rotoshop software to trace the movement of actors in a scene. Not every frame is hand-drawn; the software fills in the gaps.

3. Enhance
The animators use Rotoshop's masking, warping, and blending tools to enhance the 3-D effect. Then they add scenery and adjust the color. Some elements take weeks to complete.

4. Render
The completed sequences are processed for eventual output to film. One 15-second scene that started out as a 26-Mbyte file took an hour to convert into a whopping 486 Mbytes.

-wired