ABSTRACT
Pixilation means that actors are transforming into animation, even more so than in rotoscoping, by actually acting frame by frame. Pixilation is a stop-frame technique by which live actors are animated exactly like stop-motion puppets, a variation of object animation that was known since the early days of trick cinematography when Georges Melies, Segundo de Chomon, Emile Cohl, and others, as if by an invisible hand, moved tables, chairs, and furniture around. One of the gems of the genre is a tour-de-force pixilation starring animator Mike Jittlov that became part of the feature film The Wizard of Speed and Time. Pixilation, although done frame by frame, seems to be absolutely spontaneous and grows in action like a slapstick comedy while doing it in front as well as behind the camera. The film was intended as a calling card for Jittlov and his friends and just grew from there.
