CMU School of Drama


Friday, September 20, 2013

Who Shot Roger Rabbit: The tech worked for Toons.

Tested: It’s difficult to believe that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is now 25 years old. And if you weren’t around when the movie first wowed audiences in theaters, it’s even more difficult to comprehend its significance to special effects. Animation and live action were brought together before by Disney, but Roger Rabbit took it to a whole new level. Just like the first time you saw Star Wars and Jurassic Park, you knew you were watching a major game changer in terms of filmmaking technology, but the technology never got in the way of the storytelling.

12 comments:

AAKennar said...

Yet again, another marvelous example of people having a very small idea of what they are doing and achieving great things. This makes me wonder, did the pyramid builder truly understand the scope of what they were doing. The film makers had to rebuild a camera for the show, that is awesome. I just loved this article. These people had no idea what was going on, and thankfully their gamble paid off. They went almost 50 million dollars over budget and made magic happen. The nice thing about this opportunity was that is paid off, but that does not always happen.

Camille Rohrlich said...

Reading this article made me realize how much of a step forward that movie was. Watching it now, it looks very cool but it's easily swept aside by the crazy CGI and other technological wonders that filmmakers are using nowadays.
I love reading about projects that take big risks, be it technologically or financially, and work out in the end. I think that art and technology are so great together because they are some of the two fields in which people dare to innovate and create the most.

Timothy S said...

I have always loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I always wondered how they were able to combine the live action with the animation way before the use of computers to do so. To read this article, it kind of ruined the magic of the movie. However, one of the biggest appeals of this movie was the fact that cartoons from several major movie studios were put together in one movie. This was a real revolution because prior to this (and even afterwards for that matter) the studios were extremely protective of their rights over animated characters. This is the only movie were you will see Mickey Mouse and Buggs Bunny in the same scene together.

Sophie Hood said...

I have always loved the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit -- I loved the creation of a world where cartoons were real. Absolutely fantastic! Reading this article has only made the movie more awesome. What a feat! I guess I never really thought about everything that went into combining animation with live action. I always loved when it happened -- like in Mary Poppins and Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, but I never really sat down and thought about all of the innovations that had to occur in order to make these things happen in these movies. Roger Rabbit still holds up today -- along with the other movies they mentioned too: Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. I think that's really a telltale of a great movie -- despite all the computer graphics and special effects available to us today, we can still watch a movie like Roger Rabbit and be completely taken in by it, which I have to say, isn't the case with a lot of modern movies using special effects on a whim instead of with careful thought and execution

Thomas Ford said...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of my favorite movie when I was a kid, but looking back I was so young when I saw it that I never really put too much thought into the integration of animation and the real world. After reading this though I'm fascinated by what they did, especially considering when it came out. The description of the challenges and processes that the movie took was fascinating, and I also really liked the references to other movies and the way technologies had to change/be created as new movies needed them. It's also really cool to think about how every effect in that movie was hand drawn, whereas today things would be done with computers. After reading this article I really want to watch this movie, and now that I know it's available for live streaming on Netflix I have an excuse to procrastinate.

Unknown said...

I loved this movie as a child part of that was the fact that I only watched animated movies until I was about 8, but, the two combination of animation and real convinced me to watch the movie. So when I stumbled across the article I was wondering what could be said about the movie. When the article mentioned that the film was a game changer in terms of movie I was stunned. I have never thought of it that way. As I though on I realized that with the out break of CGI and other uses of computers in movies and effects, that was all started with this movie. Although technology usually bring about changes and the increase technology would have combined the manipulation of film this movie was the first as in it is the face this kind of manipulation.

David Feldsberg said...

One of my favorite movies by far. I remember the first time I saw it, sitting alone in my living room home sick from school one day. I had never heard of such a thing but as soon as it started, I felt what the article described as "watching a major game changer in terms of filmmaking technology". It amazes me even to this day. I'm glad this article was posted; the story behind the making of this movie is almost a film by itself. It almost makes me laugh how much Disney was against this movie's ambition, considering how many movies they themselves have made since then that combine animation with live action.

JodyCohen said...

I agree with Adam. And I never realized how Robert Zimeckis struggled to get started, but I think that's incredible. The most impressive thing to me about this article is the numbers/costs of production. Today, a film is "independent" when it has a budget of less than $30 million. And they spend between $50mill and $70mill on this, almost 30 years ago. That's a completely different value that I can't even comprehend.

simone.zwaren said...

When I was younger I saw this movie and could not figure out what the big deal is, in fact I did not think it was particularly good. However my mother told me the importance of this film and later on when I got into theatre I re watched the movie. And the animation mixed with the live acting is really quite great for its first go. This was just the beginning of some amazing advances in animation. Just a bit over 20 years later movies such as Avatar are breaking out.

Olivia LoVerde said...

This was one of my favorite movies growing up and to be honest still is, I recently watched it on netflix and was still just as impressed as I was when I watched it for the first time many years ago. When I saw this article I just had to read it and learn a little more about the movie I love so much. This was really interesting to know that they went against most everything Disney wanted and made it so spectacular. The technology they used was older but managed to make a movie ahead of its time.

Albert Cisneros said...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was always one of my favorite movies as a kid! Its exciting and interesting to read this article and realize how difficult a process it was to create this film. When it comes to movies like Roger Rabbit, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park, my generation doesn't realize the importance of their creation. Each were breakthroughs in visual and special effects, allowing for the creation of movies and film techniques that we take for granted. The merge of animation and live action was done so well in Roger Rabbit that it will ALWAYS be one of my favorite movies. If I am sure of one thing, it is that Disney and their films will continue to break the limits of known filmmaking, awing audiences for years to come.

dharan said...

I love "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
I didn't know the same guy directed "Back to the Future" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". When thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense because those two movies have very similar sense of humor.
I always thought it was really amazing how they integrated the animation with the people. It's interesting to read on the difficulties they had doing it.
I didn't know they had to rebuild a camera for the movie. The thing is, a lot of movies do that know. Even James Cameron did it for Avatar.