Hybrid animation has been around a long time
But no other film has been able to pull it off as well as Who Framed Roger Rabbit
and you're about to find out why
So sit back and relax because you're about to discover the reasons why
there will never be another film made like Who Framed Roger Rabbit again
[Film clapper sound, music continues]
To kick things off
It's important for you to understand that this movie was made in the late 1980s
when CGI was in its infancy
The director Robert Zemeckis did consider the idea of using computers to animate the cartoon characters
But one of his main goals with the movie was to pay an homage to the Golden Age of American animation
So in order to do that
He decided that they had to animate everything by hand
in order to make the characters look and move as they did in the early 1900's
Earlier attempts at hybrid animation had been made by Disney and even Warner Brothers
all with varying degrees of success
But they had all one thing in common
They only use hybrid animation for short segments
Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the other hand was a full-length feature film
with a total runtime of 104 minutes
and 55 of them would contain animated characters
Which means that more than half of the movie was going to rely upon hybrid animation to tell the story
So in order for Who Framed Roger Rabbit to be a success
Zemeckis and his team had one huge problem to solve–
how to make a believable connection between the cartoons, the live actors,
and the real world–using only hand-drawn animation techniques
The filmmakers decided that maintaining sight lines was critical
to establish a believable connection between the cartoons and the actors.
And they concluded that previous attempts like in Mary Poppins hadn't done this well enough.
Because if you look closely at this scene
you can see Julie Andrews isn't always looking directly at every character
to make you believe that she actually sees them
To make sure this didn't happen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
each scene was shot twice
One with cartoon dummies so that the actors would know where their sight line should be.
Then again without the dummies
and then the director would watch them both simultaneously
to see if the sight lines matched.
This hopefully helps you realize how amazing Bob Hoskins performance was.
He had to convince you that he was seeing someone that wasn't really there.
He wasn't perfect at it however,
but because the animators were working on the movie after the whole thing had been shot
they were able to make adjustments to fix those problems.
Like having Roger stand up on his toes to match Hoskins's sight line
or using Rogers hand to meet his gaze to make sure that I contact was never lost.
To achieve another critical element of realism
required the filmmakers to break one of the biggest rules in animation–
Don't move the camera.
And the animation director Richard Williams explained that there's only one reason why this rule exists.
Because they're lazy.
I mean, we're supposed to be able to turn things in every direction
That's our job
So you can shoot your movie and we'll just fit the character in.
He said, "Well, isn't that a lot of work?"
Yeah!
Twice as much work!
Despite the extra work involved,
Zemeckis knew that changing the characters proportions in relation to the cameras movement
was extremely important to sell the realism of animated characters coexisting in the real world.
The interactivity of the cartoons with the real world
was another key element to the story.
Since the movie had to be shot before animation was added
this meant the filmmakers had to design all of the sets and props to react to the characters
as if they were actually in the scene.
For example the real world objects you see the toons interact with
were being controlled by robotic mechanisms
and then they were covered up with the animations later on.
For other shots involving props
they used wires to create an "invisible man effect"
or special contraptions like a spout that was built into the sink
so Roger could spit out real water.
But by far the most complicated scene to shoot
was the ink and paint Club
For example,
to do the Penguins trays the whole set had to be built about 8 feet above the ground
so that the puppeteers could be beneath it,
running around with the trays attached to rods
while moving around on a designated track.
Donald and Daffy's pianos were designed to play "Hungarian Rhapsody" by themselves
and hydraulic lifters and collapsible legs were installed
so the instruments could react to Donald and Daffy's movements throughout their performance.
Not only that the filmmakers have to make audiences believe that the tunes could interact with the real world,
But they also had to make the characters blend in with the real world as well.
Which they achieved in painstaking detail with 'chiaroscuro'
meaning the use of light and shadows to make two-dimensional characters look three-dimensional.
Now remember, they didn't use computers
So this meant that the effects team had to photograph each frame of the character
using four different types of lighting mattes.
You can imagine how slow this process would be
because there were 82,080 frames of animation in the movie.
It took two years just to complete the animation side of the movie
requiring the animators to sometimes work upwards of
20 hours a day to meet deadlines.
The best scene that shows how the animators went above and beyond audience's expectations of realism
is in the "rotgut" room when Eddie Valiant bumped the lamp with his head.
You'll notice that the sway of the light was depicted on Rogers body in perfect timing.
The lights intensity was also adjusted on Roger according to how close he was to the lamp.
And the animators even went so far as to make his ear transparent
due to the light shining directly behind it.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the most expensive movies of its time
costing around $45 million dollars to make.
And the animations alone averaged between $250,000 and $300,000 dollars a minute
but the painstaking work and expensive price tag paid off.
Because Who Framed Roger Rabbit won several Oscars
for its groundbreaking ability to combine live action, animation,
and special effects to tell a compelling story
Other hybrid animation films have been released since Roger Rabbit hit theaters way back in 1988.
But because hand-drawn 2D animation is nearly extinct nowadays
It is more than likely that we'll never see
another movie made like Who Framed Roger Rabbit again.
If you want to find the easter eggs and other hidden secrets inside the movie
then click the video up above
or click the suggested video down below to discover more fun facts about your favorite films.