Humans and cartoon characters, " toons", regularly interact in animated shorts and films, with toons residing in an area of Los Angeles known as Toontown. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It won three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects and received a Special Achievement Academy Award for Williams' animation direction. It brought a renewed interest in the golden age of American animation, spearheading modern American animation and the Disney Renaissance. It grossed over $351 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1988. The film received acclaim from critics, who praised its visuals, humor, writing, and performances, with critics and audiences considering it to be "groundbreaking". Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released through Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner in the United States on June 22, 1988. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand, and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. Zemeckis was brought on to direct, and Canadian animator Richard Williams was hired to supervise the animation sequences. Price and Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in executive producer Steven Spielberg and his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Walt Disney Pictures purchased the film rights for the story in 1981. Its plot follows Eddie Valiant, a private investigator with a prejudice against toons, who must help exonerate Roger Rabbit, a toon framed for murder. Combining live-action and animation, the film is set in an alternate history Hollywood in 1947, where humans and cartoon characters (referred to as "toons") co-exist. The film stars Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Stubby Kaye, and Joanna Cassidy, with the voices of Charles Fleischer and Kathleen Turner. It is loosely based on the 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. I’ll be keeping my own eyes peeled for Judge Doom’s unbroken stare next time I sit down to watch this instant classic - which is kind of a funny thing to call Who Framed Roger Rabbit when you consider the early receptions for the film.Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. I just like to find little things that make him even more evil, and that was that. It wasn’t really difficult, I’d just keep my eyes open as long as I could, try to time it out with the next take and all that. It makes him even more ominous, more scary, if he’s just looking like that. They’re not human, so I just felt Judge Doom should never blink. I just felt a toon doesn’t have to blink their eyes to remoisten their eyeballs. In 2020, the Back to the Future cast member revealed in the following quote from a Twitter video during a Disney+ Q&A why he decided to abstain from blinking when portraying the odd and sinister character: However, perhaps the real MVP of the (mostly) live action Who Framed Roger Rabbit cast is Christopher Lloyd, who went unnecessarily (but admirably) far with his performance as Judge Doom - who not only turns out to be the one who framed Roger Rabbit, but is really the Toon who killed Eddie’s brother in disguise. (Image credit: Disney) Christopher Lloyd Avoided Blinking While Filming Who Framed Roger Rabbit were able to retain the same look and feel of old school cartoons and still feel authentic in a three-dimensional world. So drawn animation, by its own nature, you have to invent.īy making these two-dimensional creatures "2.5-dimensional," as Richard Williams called it, Roger Rabbit and co. By doing it 2.5 dimensional, it looks like the old stuff, and the old stuff is inventive. It’s the invention, especially when you’re looking at those old cartoons, they’re doing crazy stuff. However, a year earlier, he was able to dish on his ideas of how to make the Toons appear especially life-like with what he described to The Wrap as "old stuff inserted into new stuff." He elaborates on this in the following quote: (Image credit: Disney) Animator Richard Williams Aimed To Make The Toons "2.5-Dimensional"Įarning a special Academy Award for his work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the film’s Canadian animation director, Richard Williams, who unfortunately passed away in 2019 at the age of 86.
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