Animation film A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope, which was previously used in Linklater's film Waking Life. Linklater discussed the ideas and inspiration behind his use of rotoscoping in a UK documentary about him in 2004, linking it to his personal experiences of lucid dreaming. Rotoscoping in traditional cell animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation, however, makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames automatically. Sabiston and his team initially managed this unprecedented animation pipeline, but at the time of his departure, art direction in the studio was still not established and the film's production process was extended well past its initial September 2005 release date target. Each minute of animation required 500 hours of work.

anasonic AG-DVX100

Rotoshop Rotoscope