Saturday, September 14, 2019

Undone/Redone

Amazon has a new animation series, and because its approach isn't done a lot anymore, it gets awed attention:

Undone's rotoscoped animation style, which was produced by the studio Minnow Mountain and involves drawing over live-action footage. ... Thanks to lush watercolor backgrounds and immersive three-dimensional environments. Undone is such a revelation I wouldn't be surprised if it leads to a revival of rotoscoping, a technique pioneered by the early 20th century animator Max Fleischer. ...

Of course, there are animated features with rotoscope and "lush watercolor backgrounds". (Snow White and Gulliver's Travels come to mind. Also Don Bluth's Anastasia and a bunch of Zemeckis features such as A Christmas Carol ... and let's not forget Spielberg's Tin Tin.

But memories, also attention spans, are short. The only thing that's true with the engadget.com piece is rotoscoping doesn't get used on the small screen a lot.)

However, let's get over a notion that Undone is pushing the rotoscope process to "new heights". Methinks it's already been pushed. It's just that nobody has much noticed. (Which I'm sure is a major sadness to Robert Zemeckis, since he was enamored with rotoscope. It's just that, few others were.)

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