Saturday 18 February 2012

Out Of The Inkwell - Trip To Mars (Max Fleischer, 1924)...Plus a little nod to Rotoscoping!





Decided it was time for another weird Out Of The Inkwell cartoon...In this one, Koko the Clown goes on an unwanted trip to mars!





The Out of the Inkwell series came about as a result of Max Fleisher's invention, the Rotoscope...a projector and easel combination that allows an artist to draw on top of live action to get more realistic results. Max's brother Dave Fleischer was working as a clown on Coney Island, so he became the inspiration and original model for what was to become Koko the Clown!




Rotoscoping as a technique has been used in animation, film and videogames ever since Fleischer's first experiments with it in 1915, and you can see examples in lots of titles, like Snow White, Star Wars, A-Ha's Take On Me video, He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe and the original Prince Of Persia game..to name but a few!



Speaking of Prince Of Persia, it's quite odd seeing Jordan Mechner's brother acting out the animations for it in this video he posted on Youtube, because the moves are so recognisable to anyone familiar with the game...





Anyway, it's a pretty cool technique, and I reckon Max Fleischer uses it best, so expect to see more of his cartoons on here again sometime!

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