Rotoscoping

After effects is such a great and efficient program it is easy to forget what people had to do before the emergence of computers and these types of software. A man named Max Fleisher was the first to introduce rotoscoping to the animation world in 1914. He would draw on top of a glass panel with film projected onto it in order to trace over every frame of the film. This would give the animation a fluid and realistic motion that no other project could capture. Fleisher used this technique on shows such as "Betty the Boop" and "Poopeye the Sailor." Year 1937 was the beginning of the Walt Disney's rotoscoping milestone when they released "Snow White." This film was groundbreaking because Disney decided to rotoscope some characters while classically animating the others. Since then, there has been many films and television shows that use rotoscoping and it has become a very popular practice. Now, instead of having to trace a movie frame by frame, the advancements in technology allow even us to rotoscope a film.

I have attached a small clip of "Snow White" for you to see the motion differences between Snow White and the dwarves. Snow White was rotoscoped while the dwarves were not.