Rotoscoping: Out of the inkwell

Rotoscoping is a type of animation technique which is when animators trace over live action footage filmed of someone talking and will follow those same movements so it appears that the animated of  characters are talking. This is done frame by frame, originally, recorded live action movie images were projected onto a frosted glass panel then redrawn by animator which would be used as the platform to animate with the objects for the animation. However this element has changed is now replaced by computers and in the visual effects industry, rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element from a live action shot such as of the actor talking then it is composited over another background. Rotoscoping was invented by Max Fleischer who used the technique in the Out of the inkwell series which was in released in 1918. The rotoscope would project motion picture film through an opening in the easel. Overall this show was considered the pioneer of rotoscoping and also incredibly influential, which is inspired many others to create animation in that genre. Another animator Ralph Bakshi who used the technique for films such as Wizards (1977), The lord of the rings (1978), American Pop (1981), Fire and ice (1983). For Wizards rotoscoping was used becuas of lack of budget so rotoscoping was used for battle scenes. This is not a technique that has been used consistently over the years. A positive of this technique is that you can have dialogue match with the voice which would add more character to the objects in the scenes rather than in clay animation where you can not move the mouth as much. Another positive is that there doesn't have to be a huge amount of movement with all the characters and the story can told just through the dialogue. However a negative is that takes a long time perfect the mouth with the voice as many times it can not look right, also it can never be done exactly to math and it can be easier to do for cut out animations.