If you want to learn more about early animation, check out this video about the delightfully weird origins of stop motion. ruclips.net/video/80CKTOjjZFQ/видео.html
@@chrismarinohardin9929 Nope, the OP is right. Both patents and copyrights are different sides of the same coin; one to protect inventions and the other to protect artistic creations, so to speak, but that can all be summed up as intelectual property and we all know very well how Disney tends to treat its IP. Don't forget that copyright also used to expire after a while until Disney started to lobby against it and successfully managed to have legislation changed through bribery, effectively extending it until forever. Disney wouldn't let diabetics get a hold of insulin if it had that patent!!! I shudder to think of a world where Disney has ownership of important inventions of any kind...
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 Kinda sad about what Disney is now and what it used to be on the the time Walt was alive. Now it's just...remakes and copyright stuff.
I know this is a joke, but Disney isn't exempt from patent expiration. For example, the omnimover created in '67 by Disney, now can be used by anyone since it's patent has expired with parks such as KIng's Island having used the ride system in the past.
Fleischer cartoons were weird, but great. Their downfall came from two sources. One was that the Fleischer brothers fought as much as the Gallagher brothers of Oasis. The other was that Disney raised the stakes with Snow White, leading the Fleichers to make Gulliver's Travels, which was a studio-killing flop.
Sounds like you already know the history, but to anyone lurking in the comments, that book by Leslie Cabarga is a great read. It lets you imagine an alternate history for animation (one that would have been deliciously weird). And, of course, it lets you know why it didn't happen.
The final nail in the Fleischer coffin: their attempt at a second feature, Mr Bug Goes to Town, had its Christmas release cancelled after Pearl Harbor was attacked and the US entered the Second World War.
They really should have highlighted Snow White instead of Gulliver's Travels since it came first and was much more groundbreaking at the time than the latter.
Max Fleischer pioneered the creation of animation techniques. Walt Disney pushed and perfected the potential of these and other techniques in animated films. Both are capital figures in the history of animation.
@Robert Barry Max wasn't pushed of by Disney. It was wanted that Fleischer tames Betty, what was a fall, as at that point the attention fell. Who would want to see a character that was free as a bird, in the dress of a normal woman doing laundry. It's a shame and I hate Disney for taking all credit.
My dad was a rotoscoper for disney 1980-1993. From Tron to Aladdin, we had plenty of frames of in between shots of animation he'd bring home for us to see
I know that you’re mostly joshing, but Vox is right-you can’t patent a dance. If anything, copyright would be what would apply to dances (including Carlton’s dance), and as that goes, you might check out Legal Eagle’s video “Carlton v. Fortnite - Copyright Dance -Off” for some analysis from a real lawyer about whether dances are copyrightable. (Spoiler: It so happens that “simple” dance routines are explicitly not copyrightable. Now you might be asking, “Is Carlton’s dance a ‘simple dance routine’?” Well, that much may be for the courts to decide.)
You can copyright a dance, it just needs to within a larger sequence of syncopated moves. So instead of a singular move, the whole routine is under copyright
He actually said "you can patent a device but you can't patent that". The "that" he was referring to was the "different type of genius" it took to create this, not the dance.
Rotoscoping is still heavily used for harder sequences that require intricate movement. Like ice-skating or dancing etc. It's a cool technique but is used rarely since principles have evolved in animation that now that can make the job of animating something almost close to realism possible through raw skills and intuition. Edit: However even though Rotoscoping is used, it is still hard to do. The movements when traced from an actor will never feel natural and have generally "wonkiness" in their motion, it is usually difficult to account for *every* subtle movements in the human body. So a ton of cleanup work and corrections have to be performed for it to look convincing and in a way still requires a lot of skills as an animator.
I would say that though rotoscoping does have it's strengths it also has weaknesses specifically when it comes to the uncanny valley with its movements,but I can't deny that yeah it is still a pretty useful tool,you just have to know when and when not to use it
@@bbumbs747 uncanny valley is strictly about faces. You can simply trace the body movements without tracing the face and you will not have any uncanny effects. The effect came from a weird and uncalled for decision of some animators to trace not only body movements but mimics as well.
Speaking as an animator, rotoscoping can be great, but it's important to remember that it quickly ends up looking floaty and weightless. It's best to copy the main poses and look at the breakdown, but amplify the timing and spacing to fit better
Yes! You have to note balance changes and ground contact. I'd like to add an example for people reading this: Things like a foot lightly stepping on the ground could be nearly missed in video reference looking at the frame by frame, but in animation you'd often want to exaggerate that contact. By anchoring the foot in place, or showing the shift in balance from heel to toe more obviously. It could take more frames than in the reference, but you compensate with a faster 'spring' from the ground in the rest of the step.
I miss the old style of animation where literally every object could become anthropomorphic at any moment and then go back to normal and no one cared. What happened to that?
Animation started becoming more literal, lead mostly by Disney's leaning towards naturalism. On of the few times he went back to that was in shorts like Little Toot, SUZIE THE BLUE COUP, and the feature, ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
I love thinking about Cab Calloway laughing hysterically at the animation of himself as a walrus. And anyone who hasn't seen Betty Boop Minnie the Moocher should look it up ASAP.
I mean with lyrics like "She messed around with a bloke named Smokey She loved him though was cokey He took her down to Chinatown And he showed her how to kick the gong around". This cartoon is pretty trippy
Oh wow, I had no idea the Fleischers had *invented* the rotoscope. That explains so much about their studio's success when the late 70's cartoon explosion came about.
Actually the 80s & 90s are good but not that great as 30s-50s The real disaster decades are the 60s and 70s were 90% of the animations are limited and not traditional.
What I loved about fleischer studios was their absurdity in making cartoons. People are quick to refer to Disney when talking about old animation but fleischer's weird style is what their most likely talking about subconsciously. If people thought disney was weird back then; they we're merely watching a watered down version of fleischer's cartoons.
But disney made superior cartoons and even animated films like fantasia and snow white what did fleisher have to show compared to fantasia mr. Bug goes to town?
In a way, rotoscoping was basically like an old-timey motion capture. It looked fairly awkward with the ghostly walrus, though Koko the Clown and his ghost form looked noticeably better, and they perfected it with the Old Man of the Mountain.
@@lyraleen1504 exactly. as an artist myself tracing other ppls art is definitely not allowed (espc. if you claim it as your own). but using irl references are recommended because well, what other reference can you use?
but to add onto that: maybe instead of tracing real people, try doing something like gesture drawing. you pretty much 'copy' the exact pose, but rather than just directly trace over, you make inferences for form and line and shape.
Cab Calloway is unbelievably influential. Even his dance moves now stand out in 2022 as uniquely his own. Fletcher absolutely picked the perfect dancer to rotoscope.
It would be interesting to learn about the animation outsourcing industry. Many people don't know that their favorite cartoons were animated in the Philippines, Korea, India, etc. The Philippine animation industry beginnings are really interesting! It would be great to have Vox cover this.
I’ve done this before, as a short movie for the Academy of Creative Technologies(ACT) with layers in photoshop in ‘01. I as an artist didn’t know the depth of the history of the work I was doing, and you filled that gap. Thank you.
Always good to see Cab Calloway and Koko being brought up. I didn’t find out about them until this year even though they’re a part of entertainment history.
I dont believe they did actually! I think they filmed an actress doing Snow Whites actions in full costume, but only used it as reference. They didnt actually rotoscope the images.
@RyanLaVoisin I can't speak to Snow White, but I know they didn't rotoscope for Sleeping Beauty about 20 years later, they just used the live performances as reference. Aurora dipping her toes into the water, dancing, and even Prince Philip battling the great dragon-form Maleficent were all performed by the actors on set to use as reference for the animators, there's even a very limited amount of footage of these
No, they used refrence video and prints of the still photos behind a lightbox. There is still copies of the refrence videos you can compaire - and its not exact. Rotoscoping has a very reconizable... jitter to it. Even modern computer rotoscoping can still have problems with jitter.
The patent for the rotoscope expired in 1934, the same year that Snow White's production started. In fact, Max Fleischer upon learning that Disney was using the rotoscope tried to sue him for patent infringement, but finally didn't do so because he realized that the patent expired in 1934, and the technique was already in public use. And neither Fleischer nor Disney worked together on any projects, with the exception of the live-action film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, directed by Richard Fleischer (Max Fleischer's son).
I now want to found a movement in the world of filmmaking where we go back to the old ways and make these really weird but oddly beautiful cartoons with flowing animation that blurs and focuses the line between actual footage and animation in the best ways possible
god i love this so much.... i love that this is now becoming more popular and well known. also cab calloway had some amazing songs. id love for you guys to tackle lotte reiniger, master of shadow animation, one of my favorite animators and one of the first animation film directors (who, yes, directed a fully animated feature film before disney came with snow white). she and his husband have a fascinating history, from rubbing elbows with berthold brecht and fritz lang while in germany, to working in italy with the most respected italian directors at the time. (also she used multiplane cameras even before these guys, so)
Phil Edwards, the work you do for Vox is absolutely wonderful. It inspires me, and most, most likely, many others to look at the world a little differently and try something new. Thank you.
I wonder how proud these people would be of modern day animators Cause like a majority of us don’t do this anymore well people who don’t rotoscope we have to come sit in our head and I wonder how impressed I would be by that
I could definitely see people being either unsettled or wonderfully intrigued by this when it first came out. Its like all of a sudden, drawings were moving like they were alive and it must’ve had a sort of uncanny valley feeling at first, still kind of does. Its sort of like how it seems a little odd or impressively alarming seeing those boston dynamics robots being able to do parkour and do perfect backflips and stuff. It seems a little too real for comfort for a lot of people.
Ralph Bakshi's work has been a love of mine since I first saw Wizards when I was 5 years old (1989)..after that I sought out his entire catalog and to this day, I own The Lord of the Rings, Wizards, Fire and Ice, American Pop, etc on VHS
That's not all that Max invented. He had a early form of Aerial Image compositing in 1924 where the animation was photographed frame by frame over projected live action. That was the Rotograph.
I wanted a reference on how to go from sitting on the ground to standing up. I found a video and rotoscoped it, sort of. The problem with rotoscoping, you risk entering the motion version of the uncanny valley. Since I'm using a 3D model I tend to have the video in the scene next to the actor instead of directly over. That way it is still manual animation driving the character.
Rotoscoping is a valuable tool in any animators arsenal but it tends to put characters in the uncanny valley, meaning it has that creepy effect of being almost life-like but not quite. The real breakthrough came from the 12 principles developed by Disney animators in the 30’s and 40’s and described in detail by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their book, The Illusion of Life.
That's why king dice from cup head dances like that. I don't know if they used actual rotoscoping but it still looks like it and it's one of my favorite details in cup head
I'd love to see you guys approach documenting the video games evolution or their own narrative, animation, planning, programming or visual art progress through the years or on certain games that changed history. Great content guys! One of my top 5 favorite RUclips channels
"You can patent device,but you can't patent That!" Cab Caloways super- stylish-swag,was pricelessly- timeless!He took the bland standard, dry stiffness,out of Max Fleischers creative mechanical clever animation!Amongst others who Bit-n-Rippd his 1 of a kind class-act,"Birth of Cool",Be-Bop Hip figurative,origin of Original "RagTime" smooth moves!In the Real 20's Cab was "The Man"he put everybody on The Map!"Heide, Heidi,Heide-Ho!"Along with The only Chick, that was too Cool for School,was Betty-Boop!"Boo- Boopy-Doop" (Cold-Dope download)Thanx!!
What an amazing video. It was informative, in-depth, interesting, and entertaining. Honestly I just wanted to know what rotoscoping was exactly. I wasn't expecting a quick 5 minute video to have such a dramatic impact, but for the rest of my life I'll never forget what you taught me about rotoscoping, Cab Calloway, and Fleischer Studios. You guys really knocked this one out of the park. Well done. Thank you!
I always loved the Fleischer's style of animation. To me, it was the precursor to motion capture. Who would've thought this little studio in New York would be the innovator for Hollywood in the future. Disney wouldn't have pushed for more innovation it wasn't for Fleischer Studios.
If you haven't seen the Fleischer Superman films, you are doing yourself an incredible disservice. Also if you get the chance, check out KaptainKristian's video essay that goes over those films a ton, it's a great video from an underrated RUclipsr.
I don’t think you can patent or copyright INDIVIDUAL dance moves but you can do so for full choreographies as it is considered an art form I think that was why it didn’t go through
@@Bakedcakeyyy No, that would be matter for copyright. Theoretically a dance move could be patented, because methods of doing things are indeed patentable. It's just that it would be very hard to prove novelty and utility of a dance move -- and you couldn't get a design patent for a dance move, only a utility patent.
Watching this video was awesome. It's kind of hard to explain to ppl just how groundbreaking this sort of cartoon-making was done. I don't expect future ppl to watch this whole video, either (if I were to recommend it) but it kind of leaves me with butterflies in my stomach. Thanks for making the video.
I feel so ancient watching a formerly commonly known practice like rotoscoping (seen in the original Star Wars laserblasts, Tron, Ralph Bakshi films, etc) discussed like some rare archaeological find.
Internet artists: Noooo! You can’t just learn about movement and anatomy from other people! That’s pose theft! Delete your account or I’ll report you noooOOO! Golden age animators:
And honestly, having contributed to the method behind Star Wars' lightsaber effect has been another magnificent addition to pop culture media as a whole
3:30 Disney tried to sell this process as something he developed. But the German Fischerkoesen Cartoon Wheatherbeaten Melody has also the use of multiplan camera
Have always been amazed with how naturally the "prince" walked and run in the old DOS version of Prince of Persia. Tried to find a book on physics of human movement or some mathematical explanation. Your video beats any such book. Thanks!
I think the guy narrating this video is unsettling. He is clearly acting as an entertainer more than a humble teacher or informant. I'd love to rotoscope his hand-gestures. Furthermore, the piece is peppered with sensational tripe such as: when filming Dave on the rooftop, the sheet with the wind, almost blew him off the rooftop. There is better truth in the most basic books on animation written decades ago by those who were closer to the remnants of those who actually worked with this process. Leave the squeaky clean effects of time alone and stick to the fact. They're more boring.
When this kid saw the man's hand in the cartoon opening, and Koko coming out of the inkwell and pen, I knew it was as real as anything else. I'm still of the same opinion. Max Fleischer reigns supreme.
It feels soo good to look at the old classic animation. The earliest of the clunky animation(the umbrella guy) is still what we have in India..Rarely 1 or 2 % can be called animation here..Yet they hail it as amazing..meh!!
I absolutely love the style of the Fleischer cartoons, it was amazing even seeing the style adapted into a video game when Cuphead came out. I think my favorite will always be the Betty Boop as Snow White cartoon with Koko singing Cab Calloway's "St James Infirmary Blues" not just because of the dancing and singing, but because of how if you look at the background you'll see different imagery reflecting the lyrics as they're sung!
Man to think I pretty much had everything shown in this video on VHS. That superman villain from the robot one was unhinged. Gulliver's Travels was lit too, that one little goofy guy that finds him always gets me.
I feel like this subject needed a longer video. For five minutes, it does its job, but it oversimplifies in ways that I feel feed into the general public's misconceptions about animation.
If you want to learn more about early animation, check out this video about the delightfully weird origins of stop motion.
ruclips.net/video/80CKTOjjZFQ/видео.html
Vox ok
*stocks*
I want to know more about ub iwerks
Now you have to talk about Sakuga Animation.
wow im almost 40 year old and i just learned something, thanx dude
Imagine *Walt Disney* coming up with Rotoscoping, and the patent would've NEVER EXPIRED.
We have screens now :D
Naughtius Maximus you are mixing up copyrights and patents. Disney has lobbied up copyrights forever, not invention patents.
@@chrismarinohardin9929 Nope, the OP is right. Both patents and copyrights are different sides of the same coin; one to protect inventions and the other to protect artistic creations, so to speak, but that can all be summed up as intelectual property and we all know very well how Disney tends to treat its IP. Don't forget that copyright also used to expire after a while until Disney started to lobby against it and successfully managed to have legislation changed through bribery, effectively extending it until forever. Disney wouldn't let diabetics get a hold of insulin if it had that patent!!! I shudder to think of a world where Disney has ownership of important inventions of any kind...
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 Kinda sad about what Disney is now and what it used to be on the the time Walt was alive.
Now it's just...remakes and copyright stuff.
I know this is a joke, but Disney isn't exempt from patent expiration. For example, the omnimover created in '67 by Disney, now can be used by anyone since it's patent has expired with parks such as KIng's Island having used the ride system in the past.
Fleischer cartoons were weird, but great. Their downfall came from two sources. One was that the Fleischer brothers fought as much as the Gallagher brothers of Oasis. The other was that Disney raised the stakes with Snow White, leading the Fleichers to make Gulliver's Travels, which was a studio-killing flop.
Sounds like you already know the history, but to anyone lurking in the comments, that book by Leslie Cabarga is a great read. It lets you imagine an alternate history for animation (one that would have been deliciously weird). And, of course, it lets you know why it didn't happen.
The final nail in the Fleischer coffin: their attempt at a second feature, Mr Bug Goes to Town, had its Christmas release cancelled after Pearl Harbor was attacked and the US entered the Second World War.
They really should have highlighted Snow White instead of Gulliver's Travels since it came first and was much more groundbreaking at the time than the latter.
@@MizzKittyBichon
Perhaps, but the innovations of the Fleischers began more than a decade earlier.
Cartoon history
Thank you for sharing that with us!
They used rotoscoping in A-Ha’s “Take On Me” music video
I wish music videos these days had more creative stuff like that
:0 wow I would’ve never guessed!1!1
What thats cool . i always wonder about that. The first time i got high i watched a-ha "take on me" thanks for the info
I think that's pretty obvious, considering they occasionally turn back into normal people throughout the video
*AND IT STILL LOOKS AMAZING TODAY*
Walt Disney: I revolutionised animation!
Max Fliecsher: Hold my clown...
You mean, hold on you rat.
Max Fleischer pioneered the creation of animation techniques.
Walt Disney pushed and perfected the potential of these and other techniques in animated films.
Both are capital figures in the history of animation.
@Robert Barry Max wasn't pushed of by Disney. It was wanted that Fleischer tames Betty, what was a fall, as at that point the attention fell. Who would want to see a character that was free as a bird, in the dress of a normal woman doing laundry. It's a shame and I hate Disney for taking all credit.
😂😂😂
*mcdonald
My dad was a rotoscoper for disney 1980-1993. From Tron to Aladdin, we had plenty of frames of in between shots of animation he'd bring home for us to see
That's awesome
Wow that's so nice
"You can patent a device, but you can't patent a dance!"
-Carlton wants to know your location
William Drewes Still true. Also, Carlton’s dance was copied from a dance Bruce Springsteen.
I know that you’re mostly joshing, but Vox is right-you can’t patent a dance.
If anything, copyright would be what would apply to dances (including Carlton’s dance), and as that goes, you might check out Legal Eagle’s video “Carlton v. Fortnite - Copyright Dance -Off” for some analysis from a real lawyer about whether dances are copyrightable.
(Spoiler: It so happens that “simple” dance routines are explicitly not copyrightable. Now you might be asking, “Is Carlton’s dance a ‘simple dance routine’?” Well, that much may be for the courts to decide.)
send location
You can copyright a dance, it just needs to within a larger sequence of syncopated moves. So instead of a singular move, the whole routine is under copyright
He actually said "you can patent a device but you can't patent that". The "that" he was referring to was the "different type of genius" it took to create this, not the dance.
*For some reason*
This made me feel nostalgic of the time when I was not even born
Duchi There is a name for that, but I cant remember. Its pretty common feeling.
This feeling is called *Anemoia*
I have always wondered what is the term for that.
Duchi same
Ah yes, all the financial depression, segregation, polio and subjugation of women; sounds peachy!
Rotoscoping is still heavily used for harder sequences that require intricate movement. Like ice-skating or dancing etc. It's a cool technique but is used rarely since principles have evolved in animation that now that can make the job of animating something almost close to realism possible through raw skills and intuition.
Edit: However even though Rotoscoping is used, it is still hard to do. The movements when traced from an actor will never feel natural and have generally "wonkiness" in their motion, it is usually difficult to account for *every* subtle movements in the human body. So a ton of cleanup work and corrections have to be performed for it to look convincing and in a way still requires a lot of skills as an animator.
I think a lot of Yuri on Ice is rotoscoped. (And I love it for it)
@@akinmytua4680 I instantly thought of Yuri too, so nice scenes!
I would say that though rotoscoping does have it's strengths it also has weaknesses specifically when it comes to the uncanny valley with its movements,but I can't deny that yeah it is still a pretty useful tool,you just have to know when and when not to use it
@@bbumbs747 uncanny valley is strictly about faces. You can simply trace the body movements without tracing the face and you will not have any uncanny effects. The effect came from a weird and uncalled for decision of some animators to trace not only body movements but mimics as well.
Undone on Amazon Prime 👌👌
Speaking as an animator, rotoscoping can be great, but it's important to remember that it quickly ends up looking floaty and weightless. It's best to copy the main poses and look at the breakdown, but amplify the timing and spacing to fit better
How’d you become an animator?
@@Kal-El207 Went to an animation school, The Animation Workshop, and got a degree in Character Animation
Yes! You have to note balance changes and ground contact. I'd like to add an example for people reading this: Things like a foot lightly stepping on the ground could be nearly missed in video reference looking at the frame by frame, but in animation you'd often want to exaggerate that contact. By anchoring the foot in place, or showing the shift in balance from heel to toe more obviously. It could take more frames than in the reference, but you compensate with a faster 'spring' from the ground in the rest of the step.
Thanks guys. I just tried animation, like a literal amateur using Flipaclip. Will try this.
Any works I can see that you were involved in? :D
I miss the old style of animation where literally every object could become anthropomorphic at any moment and then go back to normal and no one cared. What happened to that?
You.. didn't cared? as in.. you did not noticed?
The Amazing World of Gumball did that a little bit.
Animation started becoming more literal, lead mostly by Disney's leaning towards naturalism. On of the few times he went back to that was in shorts like Little Toot, SUZIE THE BLUE COUP, and the feature, ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
@@zappers8027 meaning that the characters aren’t amazed by the inanimate objects moving- they just treat it as part of life.
Well, unless you can find a creative spin for it, I feel most people would think the bit is a little dated and run dry…
I love thinking about Cab Calloway laughing hysterically at the animation of himself as a walrus.
And anyone who hasn't seen Betty Boop Minnie the Moocher should look it up ASAP.
I remember watching it in my History of Animation class. It's still one of my favorite Fleischer animations.
@@idavis094 OMG YOU'RE SO LUCKY!!
@@antisfoxes how am I lucky? It was part of the that college class. We went through a lot of different animators and animations.
Big Mouth
I mean with lyrics like
"She messed around with a bloke named Smokey
She loved him though was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
And he showed her how to kick the gong around".
This cartoon is pretty trippy
Michael Gutierrez hideho!
@@altheaequatorin1179 hee Dee he dee
Ho de go de ho de ho!
@@namejeff5849 Hi dee hi dee hi dee hi!
@@siddharthiyer7244 brrrrrrrt. ain't a playa' if he ain't know my WAP.
how things have changed.
Oh wow, I had no idea the Fleischers had *invented* the rotoscope. That explains so much about their studio's success when the late 70's cartoon explosion came about.
You mean 30s-40s?
Ralph Bakshi was the primary Rotoscoper in the late 70s
Yeah
70s? Fleicher studios went bankrupt in the 40s
@@davidbanan. It was more complicated than that.
4:28 I find it really wholesome that Cab loved the animation so much he fell to the floor laughing
I always wondered why old cartoons had better movement than those of the 80's and 90's.
Same
Actually the 80s & 90s are good but not that great as 30s-50s
The real disaster decades are the 60s and 70s were 90% of the animations are limited and not traditional.
@@fzcbh4698 I think these new animation that are 2020s are worser then 90s 80s or old cartoons.
@@justsomeguywhoexploreforfu8236 That's cause you look at things with rose-tinted glasses.
@@fzcbh4698 Limited can be traditional
What I loved about fleischer studios was their absurdity in making cartoons. People are quick to refer to Disney when talking about old animation but fleischer's weird style is what their most likely talking about subconsciously. If people thought disney was weird back then; they we're merely watching a watered down version of fleischer's cartoons.
So true, it is so upsetting what happened to fiescher studio, I mean disney great and all but nobody gives enough credit to the Fleicher's cartoons
*they're
*were
@@alzack112 Congrats, you've corrected a 2 year old comments incorrect use of words! On the internet no less! Truly a hero. /s
@@alzack112 congrats
But disney made superior cartoons and even animated films like fantasia and snow white what did fleisher have to show compared to fantasia mr. Bug goes to town?
I heard rotoscoping freaked people out when it was first used.
Yubi K. - it is unnatural when the animated movements doesn’t seemed synced up with the character.
Yeah i still find it a little uncanny in some applications
Uncanny valley :)
I mean it looks human but cartoony
Hmm
Finally, Cab Calloway is getting the recognition he deserves !
Exactly!
the character design for King Dice from Cuphead was inspired from Cab Calloway :,)
@@ratpiss147 mhm!
Go watch the blues brothers, he is in that movie
You just learned about him.
In a way, rotoscoping was basically like an old-timey motion capture. It looked fairly awkward with the ghostly walrus, though Koko the Clown and his ghost form looked noticeably better, and they perfected it with the Old Man of the Mountain.
Twitter: "Tracing is a crime against the art community!"
People in the 1900s:
Tracing other peoples art its the crime, tracing real people its ok
@@lyraleen1504 exactly. as an artist myself tracing other ppls art is definitely not allowed (espc. if you claim it as your own). but using irl references are recommended because well, what other reference can you use?
@@stxllr4687 yeah, when I get my digital pen (I dont remember the name In english) I Will trace real people for training
but to add onto that: maybe instead of tracing real people, try doing something like gesture drawing. you pretty much 'copy' the exact pose, but rather than just directly trace over, you make inferences for form and line and shape.
@@stxllr4687 ok, i will try it, thanks
Cab Calloway is unbelievably influential. Even his dance moves now stand out in 2022 as uniquely his own. Fletcher absolutely picked the perfect dancer to rotoscope.
Thanks to Ghostemane - Mercury the interest in this animation resurfaced for a while
gtabro1337 they didn’t start it
Agree. I instantly recognized the dance when I saw the thumbnail. Even played the music in my mind for seconds lol.
gtabro1337 this is also used in the reverb of "kid kudi" by playboi carti
elder reid ya because the creator of that was most likely inspired by mercury by ghostemane
Needle_Man no his came before ghostemane's... other way around
It would be interesting to learn about the animation outsourcing industry. Many people don't know that their favorite cartoons were animated in the Philippines, Korea, India, etc.
The Philippine animation industry beginnings are really interesting! It would be great to have Vox cover this.
I’ve done this before, as a short movie for the Academy of Creative Technologies(ACT) with layers in photoshop in ‘01. I as an artist didn’t know the depth of the history of the work I was doing, and you filled that gap. Thank you.
Always good to see Cab Calloway and Koko being brought up. I didn’t find out about them until this year even though they’re a part of entertainment history.
Yes, the animation of Fujiwara Chika from the ending of Kaguya-sama: Love is War was also achieved through rotoscoping. Thanks a lot for the video!
I can't wait for Kaguya-sama S2
Haha wow
2:22 look at this poor clown, he lost one of his AirPods
bruh
Bruh
Bruh
Bruh
Bruh
Snow White used rotoscoping long before the patent expires. Though Disney and fleichter did work together on some projects
I dont believe they did actually! I think they filmed an actress doing Snow Whites actions in full costume, but only used it as reference. They didnt actually rotoscope the images.
@RyanLaVoisin I can't speak to Snow White, but I know they didn't rotoscope for Sleeping Beauty about 20 years later, they just used the live performances as reference.
Aurora dipping her toes into the water, dancing, and even Prince Philip battling the great dragon-form Maleficent were all performed by the actors on set to use as reference for the animators, there's even a very limited amount of footage of these
No, they used refrence video and prints of the still photos behind a lightbox. There is still copies of the refrence videos you can compaire - and its not exact. Rotoscoping has a very reconizable... jitter to it. Even modern computer rotoscoping can still have problems with jitter.
The patent for the rotoscope expired in 1934, the same year that Snow White's production started. In fact, Max Fleischer upon learning that Disney was using the rotoscope tried to sue him for patent infringement, but finally didn't do so because he realized that the patent expired in 1934, and the technique was already in public use.
And neither Fleischer nor Disney worked together on any projects, with the exception of the live-action film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, directed by Richard Fleischer (Max Fleischer's son).
@@ramonsancheztorello7111 Snow White was made in 1933.
So Max Fleischer pre-dates Disney’s depth camera?! This is all amazing to me. So much freaking talent...
I now want to found a movement in the world of filmmaking where we go back to the old ways and make these really weird but oddly beautiful cartoons with flowing animation that blurs and focuses the line between actual footage and animation in the best ways possible
god i love this so much.... i love that this is now becoming more popular and well known. also cab calloway had some amazing songs.
id love for you guys to tackle lotte reiniger, master of shadow animation, one of my favorite animators and one of the first animation film directors (who, yes, directed a fully animated feature film before disney came with snow white). she and his husband have a fascinating history, from rubbing elbows with berthold brecht and fritz lang while in germany, to working in italy with the most respected italian directors at the time.
(also she used multiplane cameras even before these guys, so)
Phil Edwards, the work you do for Vox is absolutely wonderful. It inspires me, and most, most likely, many others to look at the world a little differently and try something new. Thank you.
Don't forget without Rotoscoping lightsabers in Star Wars would still be sticks that actors are trying to avoid as if they were threatening.
That Betty Boop short has so many bizarre ideas that were so great they would later become tropes. Absolutely brilliant.
I wonder how proud these people would be of modern day animators
Cause like a majority of us don’t do this anymore well people who don’t rotoscope we have to come sit in our head and I wonder how impressed I would be by that
I could definitely see people being either unsettled or wonderfully intrigued by this when it first came out. Its like all of a sudden, drawings were moving like they were alive and it must’ve had a sort of uncanny valley feeling at first, still kind of does. Its sort of like how it seems a little odd or impressively alarming seeing those boston dynamics robots being able to do parkour and do perfect backflips and stuff. It seems a little too real for comfort for a lot of people.
I was thinking exactly the same. Two years later!!!
So that’s how they made the Chika dance look so good
Test ED Fun fact, the Chika dance was NOT rotoscoped.
Awesome! , didn't know someone else watched Chika dance and Vox
Wait no, my bad, it was rotoscoped, confirmed by the show director
man of culture
Madlad
The Rotoscoping effects on Lord Of The Rings scared me when I was younger. Those Orcs looked like they could be from a Black Metal band
The Colorization Channel RIGHT?!?! Im honestly shocked that so many people know what you are talking about. I love love love that film so much.
Ralph Bakshi's work has been a love of mine since I first saw Wizards when I was 5 years old (1989)..after that I sought out his entire catalog and to this day, I own The Lord of the Rings, Wizards, Fire and Ice, American Pop, etc on VHS
@@post-leftluddite I honestly think that American Pop is my favourite Ralph Bakshi film
Let’s not forget the ring wraith midnight hit men murder scene with realistic stabbing sounds. Sweet dreams, 7 year old me.
Me too. I love Wizards and Fire and Ice! Some of my favorite films.
So animation started with motion capture, and now we have finally come full circle. Amazing.
Max Fleischer’s Rotoscope invention and his stereoptical 3D process were AMAZING for early animation!
That's not all that Max invented. He had a early form of Aerial Image compositing in 1924 where the animation was photographed frame by frame over projected live action. That was the Rotograph.
I wanted a reference on how to go from sitting on the ground to standing up. I found a video and rotoscoped it, sort of. The problem with rotoscoping, you risk entering the motion version of the uncanny valley. Since I'm using a 3D model I tend to have the video in the scene next to the actor instead of directly over. That way it is still manual animation driving the character.
taking a summer animation class in a couple months and vox rlly be hyping it up for me even more w all these videos aaaa!! ❤️❤️❤️
you're gonna love it!
The Wolpertinger good for you man
Rotoscoping is a valuable tool in any animators arsenal but it tends to put characters in the uncanny valley, meaning it has that creepy effect of being almost life-like but not quite. The real breakthrough came from the 12 principles developed by Disney animators in the 30’s and 40’s and described in detail by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their book, The Illusion of Life.
That's why king dice from cup head dances like that. I don't know if they used actual rotoscoping but it still looks like it and it's one of my favorite details in cup head
Cab Calloway recorded "Minnie the Moocher" in the 30s and then in the late 70s recorded a disco version. He was even in the Blues Brothers move.
I'd love to see you guys approach documenting the video games evolution or their own narrative, animation, planning, programming or visual art progress through the years or on certain games that changed history.
Great content guys! One of my top 5 favorite RUclips channels
cab calloway is such a legend.
"You can patent device,but you can't patent That!" Cab Caloways super- stylish-swag,was pricelessly- timeless!He took the bland standard, dry stiffness,out of Max Fleischers creative mechanical clever animation!Amongst others who Bit-n-Rippd his 1 of a kind class-act,"Birth of Cool",Be-Bop Hip figurative,origin of Original "RagTime" smooth moves!In the Real 20's Cab was "The Man"he put everybody on The Map!"Heide, Heidi,Heide-Ho!"Along with The only Chick, that was too Cool for School,was Betty-Boop!"Boo- Boopy-Doop" (Cold-Dope download)Thanx!!
What an amazing video. It was informative, in-depth, interesting, and entertaining. Honestly I just wanted to know what rotoscoping was exactly. I wasn't expecting a quick 5 minute video to have such a dramatic impact, but for the rest of my life I'll never forget what you taught me about rotoscoping, Cab Calloway, and Fleischer Studios.
You guys really knocked this one out of the park. Well done. Thank you!
I always loved the Fleischer's style of animation. To me, it was the precursor to motion capture. Who would've thought this little studio in New York would be the innovator for Hollywood in the future. Disney wouldn't have pushed for more innovation it wasn't for Fleischer Studios.
I thought they were based on Maimi.
@@CaptainCretaceous91 they became that
Each video of Vox is a masterpiece. An absolute joy to see and hear ♥️♥️♥️
If you haven't seen the Fleischer Superman films, you are doing yourself an incredible disservice.
Also if you get the chance, check out KaptainKristian's video essay that goes over those films a ton, it's a great video from an underrated RUclipsr.
Vox: You can patent devices, but you can't patent dance moves.
Floss Kid: Hi
Olaf Lesniak He didn’t Patent it though..?
His greedy mom wanted to. The mooves were even done by a bunch of people, some RUclipsrs, years earlier.
I don’t think you can patent or copyright INDIVIDUAL dance moves but you can do so for full choreographies as it is considered an art form
I think that was why it didn’t go through
You realize that this was all back 80 years or so ago. No, back then, you wouldn't be able to.
@@Bakedcakeyyy No, that would be matter for copyright. Theoretically a dance move could be patented, because methods of doing things are indeed patentable. It's just that it would be very hard to prove novelty and utility of a dance move -- and you couldn't get a design patent for a dance move, only a utility patent.
Watching this video was awesome. It's kind of hard to explain to ppl just how groundbreaking this sort of cartoon-making was done. I don't expect future ppl to watch this whole video, either (if I were to recommend it) but it kind of leaves me with butterflies in my stomach. Thanks for making the video.
Its uncanny seeing these old videos of Phil without his moustache
oh, this is definitely cool beans.
KatsuraMu *E*
KatsuraMu Cool beans it is
Most definitely
Amazing storytelling and production. Thank you Vox.
amazing, those Cab Calloway animations are incredible
I always wondered how they were able to track scenery and 3D objects moving through space 😄
I feel so ancient watching a formerly commonly known practice like rotoscoping (seen in the original Star Wars laserblasts, Tron, Ralph Bakshi films, etc) discussed like some rare archaeological find.
0:26 that groovy music..
the dancing walrus literally looks terrifying I wish I never saw that abomination
Internet artists: Noooo! You can’t just learn about movement and anatomy from other people! That’s pose theft! Delete your account or I’ll report you noooOOO!
Golden age animators:
I'm an artist too and believe me, it annoys me a lot. I'll use rotoscoping as inspiration anyways.
Are you talking about twitter?
So basically Disney when they 2D animated, they didnt draw stuff by theirselves, they just traced??
Oooh that’s why I always wondered why backgrounds in old cartoons looked so realistic! Awesome!
I love so much this cartoon where Koko becames the ghost and sings St James infirmary, it's just so well done and beautiful
The movie Waking Life is a great example of this.
ThahDeepSeaDivuh - & A Scanner Darkly
Great movies
Or how about the entire career of Ralph Bakshi
Don’t forget heavy metal with the Taarna story, roger rabbit on Jessica rabbit or Undone
You forget what pioneers these guys really were sometimes .
great video but i'm kinda bummed y'all didn't bring up one of the most iconic animators who used this technique; Ralph Bakshi
Even heavy metal, Jessica rabbit and undone too
And honestly, having contributed to the method behind Star Wars' lightsaber effect has been another magnificent addition to pop culture media as a whole
3:30 Disney tried to sell this process as something he developed.
But the German Fischerkoesen Cartoon Wheatherbeaten Melody has also the use of multiplan camera
I found this page today I learned something today
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for this, Vox!
GHOSTEMANE - Mercury
Have always been amazed with how naturally the "prince" walked and run in the old DOS version of Prince of Persia.
Tried to find a book on physics of human movement or some mathematical explanation. Your video beats any such book. Thanks!
Amazing that so much animiation is still made guessing what real movement looks like instead of tracing it directly from a real source.
The dancing ghost and the old-man of the mountain was very creepy for me
Okay, for outstanding animation. You HAVE talk about “The Thief and the Cobbler”.
The first animated film (el apostol) was made in Argentina by Quirino Christiani
yep yep. unfortunately theres so little material and info about it to make a full vox video, i guess
I love how Walt Disney did his work .I know that others did cartoons frist ,but never knew who did until now this is amazing.
One of the most important videos about animation.
When Cab Calloway saw his dance animated, he rofl'ed.
Anyone else think that walrus in the beginning is unsettling?
I think the guy narrating this video is unsettling. He is clearly acting as an entertainer more than a humble teacher or informant. I'd love to rotoscope his hand-gestures. Furthermore, the piece is peppered with sensational tripe such as: when filming Dave on the rooftop, the sheet with the wind, almost blew him off the rooftop. There is better truth in the most basic books on animation written decades ago by those who were closer to the remnants of those who actually worked with this process. Leave the squeaky clean effects of time alone and stick to the fact. They're more boring.
I’m surprised there aren’t as many people talking about Cuphead here.
Edgy Nightmeme yeah, right? cab was the muse for king dice. super amazing! also dice is my favorite cuphead character ❤️❤️
Did they have to copy from real people?
No, but it was partially and artistically inspired by the cartoons mentioned in this video, as well as a lot that weren’t.
It looked like King Dice's head and hands are rotoscoped during the battle.
@@altheaequatorin1179 SAME OMG
When this kid saw the man's hand in the cartoon opening, and Koko coming out of the inkwell and pen, I knew it was as real as anything else. I'm still of the same opinion. Max Fleischer reigns supreme.
i find that kind of motion very nostalgic, and i’d really like it if modern 2d animations were to dabble in that rotoscoping style again.
AoT fans came here to learn what's rotoscoping is🌚
Yes! 😂
True
It feels soo good to look at the old classic animation.
The earliest of the clunky animation(the umbrella guy) is still what we have in India..Rarely 1 or 2 % can be called animation here..Yet they hail it as amazing..meh!!
the most recent animation that stick out the most to me is spiderverse. Sony did it very well
Did they use rotoscoping? And how much/often?
i believe all modern animation/movie use rotoscope as movement reference. But my main point is how SpiderVerse animation style really pop out
@@thomasrainbow mocap is the equivalent for rotoscoping for 3d animation.
I absolutely love the style of the Fleischer cartoons, it was amazing even seeing the style adapted into a video game when Cuphead came out. I think my favorite will always be the Betty Boop as Snow White cartoon with Koko singing Cab Calloway's "St James Infirmary Blues" not just because of the dancing and singing, but because of how if you look at the background you'll see different imagery reflecting the lyrics as they're sung!
Man to think I pretty much had everything shown in this video on VHS. That superman villain from the robot one was unhinged. Gulliver's Travels was lit too, that one little goofy guy that finds him always gets me.
Remember when patents and copyrights use to expire?
I feel like this subject needed a longer video. For five minutes, it does its job, but it oversimplifies in ways that I feel feed into the general public's misconceptions about animation.
Whenever I see that clown I hear heavy music
@@bigmantj2408 i think he means the mercury song that became a meme by ghostmane
Jazz
Ko-ko
0:27 thx for letting us see this, vox
Every time I see these Animations,I'm Bumping GhostMane in my head.
Nobody:
Mario: 3:16
When your'e going down to St James Infirmary:
Cab Calloway was the Micheal Jackson of the 30’s
He actually inspired Michael Jackson
Im a 69 year old 3rd generation animatir who has worked in the industry..thank you for sharing..