rotoscope
Americannoun
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Movies, Graphic Arts. a device that traces live-action footage and transforms it into animated sequences, used mostly in the 20th century before being replaced by digital technology.
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Digital Technology. a software application that merges live-action footage with digital animation and other graphics to create composite images.
verb (used with object)
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Movies, Graphic Arts. to trace (live-action footage) and transform it into animated sequences.
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Digital Technology. to merge (elements of live action and digital graphics) by utilizing a software application that creates composite images.
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of rotoscope
First recorded in 1935–40; roto ( def. ) + -scope ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It was so rough that there were times when he was having to personally narrate, and it was all on a rotoscope, which is sort of like cutting and pasting.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2021
Maitland used rotoscope animation in “The Eyes of Me” about blind teens, and in “Tower.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2018
No one who sees this wobbly but amusing hybrid of live action and rotoscope animation — an appreciably out-there debut feature from Brazilian director Pedro Morelli — will accuse it of being business as usual.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 22, 2016
No one who sees this wobbly but amusing hybrid of live-action and rotoscope animation — an appreciably out-there debut feature from the Brazilian director Pedro Morelli — will accuse it of being business as usual.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2016
The movements are supremely naturalistic: almost like watching an enhanced version of the rotoscope technique favoured by Richard Linklater in A Scanner Darkly.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 25, 2011
Due to a minuscule budget, the movie suffers especially with practical effects one would find in “The Toxic Avenger” film and some terrible rotoscoped lighting effects that look like they belong on Saturday morning shows.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 29, 2023
In the animated serial killer thriller “Canvas,” there’s a pretty significant disconnect between the rotoscoped look of the film, which is strikingly trippy, and the writing, which is often clunky and unnecessarily confounding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2022
From the creator of BoJack Horseman, Undone is a rotoscoped comedy-drama about a cynical young woman whose entire reality begins to fragment after a car accident.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 28, 2020
This family-dramedy-slash-philosophical thriller, from Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg of “BoJack Horseman,” uses entrancing rotoscoped animation to create a specifically observed reality that can dissolve into dreamland with its vision-questing protagonist.
From New York Times ● Dec. 2, 2019
Mostly, the film made me think that there has to be a better use for rotoscoped animation.
From The Verge ● Aug. 10, 2019
This isn’t the first time he has used animation layered over live performances, and this digital rotoscoping technique is especially attuned to nuances of gesture and facial expression.
From New York Times ● Mar. 31, 2022
But this is no “Waking Life” or “A Scanner Darkly,” though parts do use the rotoscoping technology he used in those films.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2022
The sequence was one of the more difficult ones for the production because it involved live-action photography from the set in Atlanta, rotoscoping and an enormous three-square-mile digital environment build.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 12, 2022
What sets it apart is its animation style, which is reminiscent of rotoscoping.
From Salon ● Nov. 1, 2020
Using the technique called rotoscoping, animators traced the footage frame by frame to produce the film that immediately won critical and popular acclaim.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 22, 2020
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
