Tinseltown for the taking (cont.)
What Rotoshop does is not new but old: It "rotoscopes" existing live action so it can be stylised as animation. From early Walt Disney to the summer 2001 release Final Fantasy, that approach has made animated movement look more lifelike-â€"because it is.
The Blair Witch Project showed beyond argument that a US$35,000 movie shot on digital video can gross upwards of US$140 million. It probably also demonstrated that such a miracle could happen only once. For the most part, mainstream megaplex movie goers expect a film to look as if some money was spent on it. Thanks to Sabiston and Pallotta, transmuting low-budget footage by animation to make it look measurably slicker has now become practical. Combine digital video, desktop computers, and Rotoshop, and you will sooner or later get a sensational movie from a junior Spielberg labouring in his archetypal garage.
Consider, too, that Garage Animation doesn't have to have the seamless final perfection of The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast. Audiences have been conditioned to accept low-tech animation, all the way down to the calculated simplicity of South Park. Rotoshop animation is several big steps up from South Park in the general direction of Toy Story; that it was made by hand (well, by Macintosh home computers, Final Cut Pro, and Rotoshop) doesn't keep it from looking sensational.
The news about iDVD and Rotoshop in early 2001 suggests that maybe we were all betting on the wrong pony when we assumed movies would be distributed on the Web. Video on demand is still waiting for more bandwidth. There's a utopian vision in which filmmakers showcase and distribute their wares on the Web; few people want to watch a 90-minute movie on a computer monitor. Even though Miramax posted one of its features on the Web in January (downloadable for a fee), and even though Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America announced that other studios would also start streaming features, this will not be big business for a while.
But how about this emerging model: The Garage Filmmaker posts a trailer, a free scene, or even the first 15 minutes of a new film on the Web. If you like it, you buy the DVD. He has no overhead apart from his desktop machine, because he burns the DVDs only as needed.
The visionaries of film, video, and animation have already set up shop online -- is Hollywood about to take the plunge? Our annual Hollywired report takes a look at where the industry is now and where it's headed.
