a scanner darkly look. how to begin?

[seantree]

Just looking for some basic info on the look utilized in the upcoming "a scanner darkly" film. I've been wanting to utilize a look like this only in black and white. are the VFX guys painting over each frame of the footage? god, i hope not. I read that they have some in house software to assist. So is there a certain technique i should be looking into? I can use both AE and combustion. thanks

[Policar]

I think they're painting over each frame pretty much, though there's probably a bit of keyframing meaning it might only be every few frames for slow moving stuff and backgrounds might only be painted once for non-moving shots.

Pretty crazy, but they have a lot of money. I'd recommend tracing using flash or something; no plug in will achieve this look. (Unless you want to dress your actors in black and white only with white make up and black lipstick, etc, in which case a really bad aproximation would be possible in AE with greenscreening.)

[-zach-]

Originally Posted by Policar

Pretty crazy, but they have a lot of money.

They actually had almost no money, and employed anyone who had basic drawing skills. The "basic drawing" people then were given a strict set of guidelines on how to draw the scenes, and some scenes were even shot without backgrounds or anything- because the whole thing is being Rotoshopped.

Rotoshop is a software that was developed for an indie film that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Some have said that they leave some frames out. That isn't exactly true. About every five frames, the artist will trace everything on the frame, and color it to match, but with their style added. There isn't just some filter, it actually includes drawing. Then, they skip a couple, (if there's a lot of action, they'd probably have to trace every frame) and the Rotoshop software kind of fills in the blanks off of the template the artist has just traced. It's complicated.

The many established actors such as Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Robert Downey agreed to take a large paycut because, they're technically not in the movie. Everything is pretty much animated. I suggest if you really wanna go for the feel of "Scanner Darkly" you can do this:

1. Get a Tablet
2. Import your video at the highest setting, finished editing, into Flash 8 Professional.
3. Trace every frame on your tablet with the many features of Flash 8
4. Delete the video and export your animation as a DVD compatible burn format.

That takes alot of time. The thing that would take even more time is, do John's idea. For like 3 seconds of video he had 140 (nice looking, by the way) frames and it probably took him like 40 minutes to apply all the filters. You could export your final edited movie as frames and then trace them a la the Flash 8 method, or you could do John's method, just applying a filter, which I have to say did look wicked cool in its own "Scanner" inspired way.

Further educate yourself with the article from Wired:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...ner&topic_set=

-zach

[pixelpusher]

Check out www.synthetik.com

an automated approximation of roto.

[rawfa]

Originally Posted by pixelpusher

Check out www.synthetik.com

an automated approximation of roto.

That looks pretty cool. Anyone try this yet? Too bad it's for MAC only. Anyone knows if there's a similar software for pc?

[Blaine]

Originally Posted by rawfa

That looks pretty cool. Anyone try this yet? Too bad it's for MAC only. Anyone knows if there's a similar software for pc?

I've been running the demo and it looks nice but I've not been able to contact ANYONE at Synthetik to answer some questions I have. I've left several messages and sent a couple of e-mails.

[Duct Tape Films]

I talk to the developer all the time (I 'm autorotoscoping a feature length documentary right now), and they are getting ready to make a port of Studio Artist for Universal Binary, but behind the times me (all PPC Dual G5's in my studio), I dunno if that makes a difference for Windows or not. Insert shrug here....

[seantree]

thanks. I thought that is what they were doing, but was not sure. I may try combining some photoshop layers using the find edge tool and various other tools to acheive what i'm after. I'm not sure I want to roto that many frames :/ thanks again.

[Rich Lee]

yes, the scanner darkly guys are using a piece of software that aids in getting that look. from what i hear there is a definitly some hand holding that people have to do to keep it going.

i was thinking about this as well...how could you do this in a low budget way.

if you light your actors and sets a certain way, with hard shadows...no fluorescent. and have all the characters in makeup..nothing drastic, just to smooth out the skin and get rid of the imperfections and changes in skin color...kinda like a maxheadroom kinda thing i guys. i bet then you might be able to up the contrast and add some edge enhancements...you mighe at least get a bit closer to that look. you would still probably need to trace some of the edges to enhance it.

[thisiswells]

The word around Austin's film community -or- running joke per sey is that if you can draw a stick figure they would probably hire you to work on Scanner Darkly as an animator!

Only means they're a little short handed and have been for a while. That's the word, anyways.