ABSTRACT
Most often, however, actors have become important for animation not as visionaries like Paul Wegener but for acting it out for animators to give them a real-life reference. The technique, originally developed by Max Fleischer (1883-1972), is basically known as rotoscoping. For many years, rotoscoping was also used as a VFX tool in film series like the Star Wars saga. Today's rotoscope is called motion or performance capture and is completely digitized, but the objective is still the same: to make humans animated actors and make cartoons more human. Low-budget filmmakers also used the process in the new film genre of animated documentaries and semidocumentaries. One who belongs to this group of animators is Ali Soozandeh who was born in Iran. To peek behind the curtain of Iran's split society, Soozandeh uses the stylistic devices of graphic novels and rotoscope: The fascinating imagery started with shooting real actors in a green screen studio.
