rotoscoping

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Animation Music

A Mesmerizing Rendering of Fiona Apple’s Lips Dance Across the Screen in the ‘Shameika’ Music Video

Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters was one of the few good things to come out of 2020, with the Grammy-nominated track “Shameika” even resulting in a heartwarming reunion between the singer and the schoolmate who inspired it. The now-iconic piano ballad is paired with an equally alluring music video created by graphic designer Matthias Brown, whose figurative gifs we’ve featured previously on Colossal, and follows a black-and-white rendering of Apple’s lips that shapeshift as she mouths the lyrics.

The video took a few years to complete, a lengthy process Brown documented in a timelapse and that began with rotoscoping, or tracing, videos of Apple’s face while she sang. The New York City-based designer then animated each drawing frame-by-frame and set it to the track. “I tried working directly analog, but my timing wasn’t working well with the music. I had a digital version of the animation completed, then printed every frame out and traced it using brush and ink,” he says. “All in all, there are about 4,000 frames. Scanning alone took about 20 hours.”

Brown says plans are in the works to sell stills from the video to raise money for Seeding Sovereignty and Harlem Children’s Zone. You can follow the designer’s most recent projects, which include a plafyul series of alphabet animations, on his Tumblr, Traceloops.

 

Animation

New Black and White Laser-Cut Animations by Matthias Brown Imitate 19th-Century Optical Illusions

Graphic designer Matthias Brown (previously here and here) creates hand drawn animations and cut paper GIFs which he posts to his Tumblr, Traceloops. Previously he’s experimented with rotoscoping techniques for his looping works, which requires each element of the animation to be scanned or traced, frame-by-frame. His subject matter is typically figural, working with dancing bodies, disembodied hands, or melting faces.

Recently, Brown has revisited paper-based animation with a centuries old method called a phenakistoscope. His handmade sculptures are laser-cut from one piece of paper, and imitate the mid-19th-century device by animating as they spin. Brown’s animation above was created from one of these devices, with a full version of the work on Vimeo. You can view a larger range of his recent GIFs on Traceloops.

   

Animation Art Dance

A Gorgeous Rotoscoped Music Video Created from 1,200 Hand-Painted Frames

This new music video for composer Ralf Hildenbeutel's track Disco was created from over 1,200 individually hand-painted frames. Directed by Boris Seewald, the clip uses an animation technique called rotoscoping to turn the real-life movements of dancers Althea Corlett and Simone Schmidt into a series of drawings and paintings to make each scene. Despite the wild variety of mediums and techniques used in the hundreds of sketches, the frame to frame continuity almost serves to enhance and accentuate the motions of the dancers.

Rotoscoping is a form of animation where live video is translated into hand-drawn animation stills with the help of a projector or transparencies. Some more notable examples from pop culture include several scenes from both of Disney’s Snow White and Peter Pan, or the 1984 music video for Ah Ha’s Take On Me.

Disco was animated by Boris, Mina, and Mihwa Seewald, and filmed by Georg Simbeni. (via Vimeo Staff Picks)

Animation

New Hand-Drawn Animations and Rotoscoping GIFs by Matthias Brown

Working with ink, paper, leaves, scissors, and other materials, Atlanta-based graphic designer Matthias Brown (previously) loves to experiment with rotoscoping and other traced animations that he shares on his Tumblr, Traceloops. Each animation is physically drawn, cut, carved and scanned frame-by-frame to create what you see here. Brown has also lent his design sense to a host of brands including Tate Modern, Converse, MTV and others, and you can get lost in more of his trippy animations here.