Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years. In the visual effects industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.

Another Rotoscope was invented by LeRoy Wottring for orthoptic training. See patent 2316139. The device was manufactured by the Wottring Instrument Company of Columbus, Ohio. In 1950, American Optical purchased the assets of Wottring Instruments and continued to build and market the product. Orthoptic training was used for a variety of eye conditions including amblyopia.

History

The technique was invented by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series ''Out of the Inkwell'' starting around 1915, with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown. Max patented the method in 1917.

Fleischer used rotoscoping in a number of his later cartoons, most notably the Cab Calloway dance routines in three Betty Boop cartoons from the early 1930s, and the animation of Gulliver in ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1939). The Fleischer studio's most effective use of rotoscoping was in their series of action-oriented ''Superman cartoons'', in which Superman and the other animated figures displayed very realistic movement.

Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' for Warner Bros., producing cartoons geared more towards exaggerated comedy, used rotoscoping only occasionally.

Walt Disney and his animators employed it in ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' in 1937. From the ''Snow White'' onwards, the rotoscope was used mainly for studying human and animal motion, rather than actual tracing.

Rotoscoping was used extensively in China's first animated feature film, ''Princess Iron Fan'' (1941), which was released under very difficult conditions during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

It was used extensively in the Soviet Union, where it was known as "Éclair" (in Russian — ''эклер''), from the late 1930s to the 1950s; its historical use was enforced as a realization of Socialist Realism. Most of the films produced with it were adaptations of folk tales or poems - for example, ''The Night Before Christmas'' or ''The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish''. Only in the early 1960s, after the Khrushchev Thaw, did animators start to explore very different aesthetics.

The film crew on the Beatles animated film ''Yellow Submarine'' employed rotoscoping in numerous instances, most notably the sequence for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

Ralph Bakshi used the technique quite extensively in his animated movies ''Wizards'' (1977), ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1978), ''American Pop'' (1981), and ''Fire and Ice'' (1983). Bakshi first turned to rotoscoping because he was refused by 20th Century Fox for a $50,000 budget increase to finish ''Wizards'', and thus had to resort to the rotoscope technique to finish the battle sequences.

Rotoscoping was also used in ''Heavy Metal'' (1981), three of a-ha's music videos, "Take on Me" (1985), "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." (1985), and "Train of Thought" (1986), and Don Bluth's ''Titan A.E.'' (2000).

While rotoscoping is generally known to bring a sense of realism to larger budget animated films, the American animation company Filmation, known for its budget-cutting limited TV animation, was also notable for its heavy usage of rotoscope to good effect in series such as ''Flash Gordon'', ''Blackstar'', and ''He-Man and the Masters of the Universe''.

Smoking Car Productions invented a digital rotoscoping process in 1994 for the creation of its critically acclaimed adventure video game, ''The Last Express''. The process was awarded , ''Digital Cartoon and Animation Process''.

In the mid-1990s, Bob Sabiston, an animator and computer scientist veteran of the MIT Media Lab, developed a computer-assisted "interpolated rotoscoping" process which he used to make his award-winning short film "Snack and Drink." Director Richard Linklater subsequently employed Sabiston's artistry and his proprietary Rotoshop software in the full-length feature films ''Waking Life'' (2001) and ''A Scanner Darkly'' (2006). Linklater licensed the same proprietary rotoscoping process for the look of both films. Linklater is the first director to use digital rotoscoping to create an entire feature film. Additionally, a 2005-08 advertising campaign by Charles Schwab uses Sabiston's rotoscoping work for a series of television spots, under the tagline "Talk to Chuck."

Technique

Rotoscope output can have slight deviations from the true line that differ from frame to frame, which when animated cause the animated line to shake unnaturally, or "boil". Avoiding boiling requires considerable skill in the person performing the tracing, though causing the "boil" intentionally is a stylistic technique sometimes used to emphasize the surreal quality of rotoscoping, as in the music video "Take on Me" and animated TV series ''Delta State''.

Rotoscoping (often abbreviated as "roto") has often been used as a tool for visual effects in live-action movies. By tracing an object, a silhouette (called a matte) is created that can be used to extract that object from a scene for use on a different background. While blue and green screen techniques have made the process of layering subjects in scenes easier, rotoscoping still plays a large role in the production of visual effects imagery. Rotoscoping in the digital domain is often aided by motion tracking and onion-skinning software. Rotoscoping is often used in the preparation of garbage mattes for other matte-pulling processes.

Rotoscoping has also been used to allow a special visual effect (such as a glow, for example) to be guided by the matte or rotoscoped line. One classic use of traditional rotoscoping was in the original three ''Star Wars'' films, where it was used to create the glowing lightsaber effect, by creating a matte based on sticks held by the actors. To achieve this, editors traced a line over each frame with the prop, then enlarged each line and added the glow.

Examples

Animated films

''Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (1937)

''Peace on Earth'' (1939)

''Gulliver's Travels'' (1939)

''Princess Iron Fan'' (1941)

The 1940s Superman cartoons

''Yellow Submarine'' (1968) (most notably during the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds sequence; other scenes)

''Taekwon V'' (1976)

''Wizards'' (1977)

''The Lord of the Rings'' (1978)

''American Pop'' (1981)

''Heavy Metal'' (1981)

''Fire and Ice'' (1983)

''Disney's Beauty and the Beast'' (1991)

''My Neighbors the Yamadas'' (1999) (baseball game television footage; scene where Takashi Yamada confronts hooligans)

''Year of the Fish'' (2008)

''Watership Down'' (1978)

''The Plague Dogs'' (1982)

Live action films

''The Birds'' (1963)

''Star Wars trilogy'' (lightsaber effects)

''Tron'' (1982)

''Ghostbusters'' (1984)

''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (1988)

''Forrest Gump'' (1994) (Rotoscoping was used to integrate the title character into footage of famous events)

''Waking Life'' (2001)

''Flags of Our Fathers'' (2006) (Rotoscoping was used instead of blue screens i.e. to integrate the CGI naval backdrops)

''Cicak Man'' (2006)

''A Scanner Darkly'' (2006)

''Juno'' (2007)

''Mars'' (2010)

''Attack The Block'' (2011) ( an advance form of Rotoscoping was used for the aliens)

''Alois Nebel'' (2011)

Video games

''Karateka'' (1984)

''Prince of Persia'' (1989)

''Another World'' (1991)

''Flashback'' (1992)

''Commander Blood'' (1994)

''Lester the Unlikely'' (1994)

''The Last Express'' (1997)

''Hotel Dusk: Room 215'' (2007)

''Last Window: The Secret of Cape West'' (2010)

''Dead Island'' (2011)

Music videos

"The One That Got Away" by Tom Waits directed by John Lamb (1976)

"Thumper" by Enter Shikari

"Save Me" by Queen

"Take on Me", "Train of Thought", and briefly in "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." by a-ha

"Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits

"Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits

"Shadrach" by Beastie Boys

"The Kids Aren't Alright" by The Offspring

"Get in Line" by Barenaked Ladies

"Destiny" by Zero 7

"Drive" by Incubus

"Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park

"Go with the Flow" by Queens of the Stone Age

"Rip It Up" by Jet

"Shoot the Runner" by Kasabian

"Heartless" by Kanye West

"Pagan Poetry" by Björk

"My Delirium" by Ladyhawke

"Guilty Conscience" by Eminem

"12:51" by The Strokes

"11th Dimension" by Julian Casablancas

"Frijolero" by Molotov

"Baby I'm Yours" by Breakbot, animation by Irina Dakeva

"Ten Thousand Strong" by Iced Earth

"Bubblecraft" by Pilotdrift

"Day 'N' Nite" by Kid Cudi

"Halo" by Machine Head

"Maybellene I Hofteholder" by Volbeat

Television shows

''It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown''

''American Idol''

''Delta State''

"Major Boobage" (South Park episode), an episode that heavily parodies the aforementioned 1981 feature film Heavy Metal.

''The New Adventures of Flash Gordon'' (Filmation 1979-1980)

''Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle'' (Filmation 1976–1980)

"Fringe"

Miscellanea

Skwisgaar Skwigelf lesson on the Dethklok season 1 DVD.

Opening intros for "Michael Jackson's Vision"

See also

Rotoshop is also referred to as interpolated rotoscoping

Motion capture

References

http://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral/gb1_inprint_starlog1984-10.htm

External links

Description of "Digital cartoon and animation process" (Digital Rotoscoping) Patent

Freeware to rotoscope a photo

Category:Animation techniques Category:Film and video technology

da:Rotoscoping de:Rotoskopie et:Rotoskoop es:Rotoscopio fr:Rotoscopie it:Rotoscope nl:Rotoscoop ja:ロトスコープ pl:Rotoskop pt:Rotoscópio ru:Ротоскопирование fi:Rotoskooppaus zh:转描机技术

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
name	Ralph Bakshi
alt	Head and shoulders of a bearded older man in glasses. Smiling, with eyes nearly closed, he is wearing a plain sweater and holding a microphone.
birth name	Ralph Bakshi
birth date	October 29, 1938
birth place	Haifa, British Mandate for Palestine (now Israel)
other names	Bill Schneider
occupation	AnimatorDirectorProducerWriterActorPainter
years active	1957–present
spouse	Liz BakshiElizabeth Bakshi
website	http://www.ralphbakshi.com/ }}

Ralph Bakshi (born October 29, 1938) is an Israeli-American director of animated and live-action films. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer and animator.

Beginning his career at the Terrytoons television cartoon studio as a cel polisher, Bakshi was eventually promoted to director. He moved to the animation division of Paramount Pictures in 1967 and started his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in 1968. Through producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi made his debut feature film, ''Fritz the Cat'', released in 1972. It was the first animated film to receive an X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and the most successful independent animated feature of all time.

Over the next eleven years, Bakshi directed seven additional animated features. He is well known for his fantasy films, which include ''Wizards'' (1977), ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1978) and ''Fire and Ice'' (1983). In 1987, Bakshi returned to television work, producing the series ''Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures'', which ran for two years before it was canceled due to complaints from a conservative political group over perceived drug references. After a nine-year hiatus from feature films, he directed ''Cool World'' (1992), which was largely rewritten during production and received poor reviews. Bakshi returned to television with the live-action film ''Cool and the Crazy'' (1994) and the anthology series ''Spicy City'' (1997).

He founded the Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning in 2003. During the 2000s, he has focused largely on painting. He has received several awards for his work, including the 1980 Golden Gryphon for ''The Lord of the Rings'' at the Giffoni Film Festival, the 1988 Annie Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation, and the 2003 Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest Film Festival.

Career

Early life (1938–1956)

Ralph Bakshi was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), as a Krymchak Jew. In 1939, his family emigrated to New York to escape World War II, and he grew up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family lived in a low-rent apartment, where Bakshi became fascinated with the urban milieu. As a child, he enjoyed comic books, and often dug through trash cans to get a hold of them.

In the spring of 1947, Bakshi's father and uncle traveled to Washington, D.C., in search of business opportunities, and soon moved the family to the black neighborhood of Foggy Bottom. Bakshi recalled, "All my friends were black, everyone we did business with was black, the school across the street was black. It was segregated, so everything was black. I went to see black movies; black girls sat on my lap. I went to black parties. I was another black kid on the block. No problem!"

The racial segregation of local schools meant that the nearest white school was several miles away; Bakshi obtained his mother's permission to attend the nearby black school with his friends. Bakshi was the only white student in the classroom. While most of the students had no problem with Bakshi's presence, a teacher sought advice from the principal, who called the police. Fearing that segregated whites would riot if they learned that a white student was attending a black school, the police dragged Bakshi from his classroom. Meanwhile, his father had been suffering from anxiety attacks. Within a few months, the family moved back to Brownsville, where they rarely spoke of these events.

At the age of 15, after discovering Gene Byrnes' ''Complete Guide to Cartooning'' at the public library, Bakshi took up cartooning to document his experiences and create fantasy-influenced artwork. He stole a copy of the book and learned every lesson in it. During his teenage years, Bakshi took up boxing. While attending Thomas Jefferson High School, he took little interest in academics, spending most of his time focusing on "broads, mouthing off, and doodling". After participating in a food fight and being caught smoking, Bakshi was sent to the principal's office. Believing Bakshi was unlikely to prosper at Thomas Jefferson, the principal transferred him to Manhattan's School of Industrial Art. In June 1956, Bakshi graduated from the school with an award in cartooning.

Early career (1956–1968)

When Bakshi was 18, his friend Cosmo Anzilotti was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons; Anzilotti recommended Bakshi to the studio's production manager, Frank Schudde. Bakshi was hired as a cel polisher and commuted four hours each day to the studio, based in suburban New Rochelle. His low-level position required Bakshi to carefully remove dirt and dust from animation cels. After a few months, Schudde was surprised that Bakshi was still showing up to work, and promoted him to cel painter. Bakshi began to practice animating; to give himself more time, at one point he slipped ten cels he was supposed to work on into the "to-do" pile of a fellow painter, Leo Giuliani. Bakshi's deception was not noticed until two days later, when he was called to Schudde's office because the cels had been painted on the wrong side. When Bakshi explained that Giuliani had made the mistake, an argument ensued between the three. Schudde eventually took Bakshi's side. By this point, the studio's employees were aware of Bakshi's intention to become an animator, and he began to receive help and advice from established animators, including Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Jim Tyer, Larry Silverman and Johnnie Gentilella.

Bakshi married his first wife, Elaine, when he was 21. Their son, Mark, was born when Bakshi was 22. Elaine disliked his long work hours; parodying his marital problems, Bakshi drew ''Dum Dum and Dee Dee'', a comic strip about a man determined "to get—and keep—the girl". As he perfected his animation style, he began to take on more jobs, including creating design tests for the studio's head director, Gene Deitch. However, Deitch was not convinced that Bakshi had a modern design sensibility. In response to the period's political climate and as a form of therapy, Bakshi drew the comic strips ''Bonefoot and Fudge'', which satirized "idiots with an agenda", and ''Junktown'', which focused on "misfit technology and discarded ideals". Bakshi's frustrations with his failing marriage and the state of the planet further drove his need to animate. In 1959, he moved his desk to join the rest of the animators; after asking Rasinski for material to animate, he received layouts of two scenes: a hat floating on water and Deputy Dawg, the lead character of one of Terrytoons' syndicated television series, running. Despite threats of repercussion from the animators' union, Rasinski fought to keep Bakshi as a layout artist. Bakshi began to see Rasinski as a father figure; Rasinski, childless, was happy to serve as Bakshi's mentor.

At the age of 25, Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series ''Sad Cat''. Bakshi and his wife had separated by then, giving him the time to animate each short alone. Bakshi was dissatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director: "We didn't really 'direct' like you'd think. We were 'animation directors,' because the story department controlled the storyboards. We couldn't affect anything, but I still tried. I'd re-time, mix up soundtracks—I'd fuck with it so I could make it my own." Independent animation studios such as Hanna-Barbera were selling shows to the networks, even as the series produced by Terrytoons (which was owned by CBS) were declining in popularity. In 1966, Bill Weiss asked Bakshi to help him carry presentation boards to Manhattan for a meeting with CBS. The network executives rejected all of Weiss's proposals as "too sophisticated", "too corny", or "too old-timey". As Fred Silverman, CBS's daytime programming chief, began to leave the office, an unprepared Bakshi pitched a superhero parody called ''The Mighty Heroes''. He described the series' characters, including Strong Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man, Cuckoo Man and Diaper Man: "They fought evil wherever they could and the villains were stupider than they were." The executives loved the idea, and while Silverman required a few drawings before committing, Weiss immediately put Bakshi to work on the series' development. Once Silverman saw the character designs, he confirmed that CBS would greenlight the show, on the condition that Bakshi serve as its creative director.

Bakshi received a pay raise, but was not as satisfied with his career advancement as he had anticipated; Rasinski had died in 1965, Bakshi did not have creative control over ''The Mighty Heroes'', and he was unhappy with the quality of the animation, writing, timing and voice acting. Although the series' first two seasons were successful, Bakshi wanted to leave Terrytoons to form his own company. In 1967, he drew up presentation pieces for a fantasy series called ''Tee-Witt'', with help from Anzilotti, Johnnie Zago and Bill Foucht. On the way to the CBS offices to make his pitch, he was involved in a car accident. At the auto body shop, he met Liz, who later became his second wife. Though CBS passed on ''Tee-Witt'', its designs served as the basis for Bakshi's 1977 film ''Wizards''. While leaving the network offices, he learned that Paramount Pictures had recently fired Shamus Culhane, the head of its animation division. Bakshi met with Burt Hampft, a lawyer for the studio, and was hired to replace Culhane. Bakshi enlisted comic book and pulp fiction artists and writers Harvey Kurtzman, Lin Carter, Gray Morrow, Archie Goodwin, Wally Wood and Jim Steranko to work at the studio. After finishing Culhane's uncompleted shorts, he directed, produced, wrote and designed four short films at Paramount: ''The Fuz'', ''Mini-Squirts'', ''Marvin Digs'' and ''Mouse Trek''. ''Marvin Digs'', which Bakshi conceived as a "flower-child picture", was not completed the way he had intended: It "was going to have curse words and sex scenes, and a lot more than that. [...] Of course, they wouldn't let me do that." He described the disappointing result as a "typical 1967 limited-animation theatrical". Animation historian Michael Barrier called the film "an offensively bad picture, the kind that makes people who love animation get up and leave the theater in disgust".

Bakshi served as head of the studio for eight months before Paramount closed its animation division on December 1, 1967. He learned that his position was always intended to be temporary and that Paramount never intended to pick up his pitches. Although Hampft was prepared to offer Bakshi a severance package, Bakshi immediately ripped up the contract. Hampft suggested that Bakshi work with producer Steve Krantz, who had recently fired Culhane as supervising director on the Canadian science fiction series ''Rocket Robin Hood''. Bakshi and background artist Johnnie Vita soon headed to Toronto, planning to commute between Canada and New York, with artists such as Morrow and Wood working from the United States. Unknown to Bakshi, Krantz and producer Al Guest were in the middle of a lawsuit. Failing to reach a settlement with Guest, Krantz told Bakshi to grab the series' model sheets and return to the United States. When the studio found out, a warrant for Bakshi's arrest was issued by the Toronto police. He narrowly avoided capture before being stopped by an American border guard who asked him what he was doing. Bakshi responded, "All of these guys are heading into Canada to dodge the draft and I'm running back into the States. What the fuck is wrong with that!?" The guard laughed, and let Bakshi through. Vita was detained at the airport; he was searched and interrogated for six hours.

Bakshi soon founded his own studio, Bakshi Productions, in the Garment District of Manhattan, where his mother used to work and which Bakshi described as "the worst neighborhood in the world". Bakshi Productions paid its employees higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on ''Rocket Robin Hood'', and later took over the ''Spider-Man'' television series. Bakshi married Liz in August 1968. His second child, Preston, was born in June 1970.

''Fritz the Cat'' (1969–1972)

In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and ''Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse'', a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation the studio was turning out, and wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed ''Heavy Traffic'', a tale of inner-city street life. Krantz told Bakshi that Hollywood studio executives would be unwilling to fund the film because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience. While browsing the East Side Book Store on St. Mark's Place, Bakshi came across a copy of Robert Crumb's ''Fritz the Cat''. Impressed by Crumb's sharp satire, Bakshi purchased the book and suggested to Krantz that it would work as a film. Krantz arranged a meeting with Crumb, during which Bakshi presented the drawings he had created while learning the artist's distinctive style to prove that he could adapt Crumb's artwork to animation. Impressed by Bakshi's tenacity, Crumb lent him one of his sketchbooks for reference.

Preparation began on a studio pitch that included a poster-sized cel featuring the comic's cast against a traced photo background—as Bakshi intended the film to appear. Despite Crumb's enthusiasm, the artist refused to sign the contract Krantz drew up. Artist Vaughn Bodé warned Bakshi against working with Crumb, describing him as "slick". Bakshi later agreed with Bodé's assessment, calling Crumb "one of the slickest hustlers you'll ever see in your life". Krantz sent Bakshi to San Francisco, where he stayed with Crumb and his wife, Dana, in an attempt to persuade Crumb to sign the contract. After a week, Crumb left, leaving the film's production status uncertain. Two weeks after Bakshi returned to New York, Krantz entered his office and told Bakshi that he had acquired the film rights through Dana, who had Crumb's power of attorney and signed the contract.

After Bakshi pitched the project to every major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros. bought it and promised an $850,000 budget. Bakshi hired animators he had worked with in the past, including Vita, Tyer, Anzilotti and Nick Tafuri, and began the layouts and animation. The first completed sequence was a junkyard scene in Harlem, in which Fritz smokes marijuana, has sex and incites a revolution. Krantz intended to release the sequence as a 15-minute short in case the picture's financing fell through; Bakshi, however, was determined to complete the film as a feature. They screened the sequence for Warner Bros. executives, who wanted the sexual content toned down and celebrities cast for the voice parts. Bakshi refused, and Warner Bros. pulled out, leading Krantz to seek funds elsewhere. He eventually made a deal with Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, a distributor specializing in exploitation films. Although Bakshi did not have enough time to pitch the film, Gross agreed to fund its production and distribute it, believing that it would fit in with his grindhouse slate. Despite receiving financing from other sources, including Saul Zaentz (who agreed to distribute the soundtrack album on his Fantasy Records label), the budget was tight enough to exclude pencil tests, so Bakshi had to test the animation by flipping an animator's drawings in his hand before they were inked and painted. When a cameraman realized that the cels for the desert scenes were not wide enough and revealed the transparency, Bakshi painted a cactus to cover the mistake. Very few storyboards were used. Bakshi and Vita walked around the Lower East Side, Washington Square Park, Chinatown and Harlem, taking moody snapshots. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of these photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, the technical pen preferred by Crumb, giving the film's backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. The tones of the watercolor backgrounds were influenced by the work of Ashcan School painters such as George Luks and John French Sloan. Among other unusual techniques, bent and fisheye camera perspectives were used to portray the way the film's hippies and hoodlums viewed the city. Many scenes featured documentary recordings of real conversations in place of scripted dialogue—this too would become a signature of Bakshi's.

In May 1971, Bakshi moved his studio to Los Angeles to hire additional animators. Some, including Rod Scribner, Dick Lundy, Virgil Walter Ross, Norman McCabe and John Sparey, welcomed Bakshi and felt that ''Fritz the Cat'' would bring diversity to the animation industry. Other animators were less pleased by Bakshi's arrival and placed an advertisement in ''The Hollywood Reporter'', stating that his "filth" was unwelcome in California. By the time production wrapped, Cinemation had released Melvin Van Peebles' ''Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'' to considerable success, despite the X rating it had received. When the Motion Picture Association of America gave Bakshi's film an X rating as well, Cinemation exploited it for promotional purposes, advertising ''Fritz the Cat'' as "90 minutes of violence, excitement, and SEX ... he's X-rated and animated!" ''Variety'' called it an "amusing, diverting, handsomely executed poke at youthful attitudes". John Grant writes in his book ''Masters of Animation'' that ''Fritz the Cat'' was "the breakthrough movie that opened brand new vistas to the commercial animator in the United States", presenting an "almost disturbingly accurate" portrayal "of a particular stratum of Western society during a particular era, [...] as such it has dated very well." ''Fritz the Cat'' was released on April 12, 1972, opening in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. A major hit, it became the most successful independent animated feature of all time. The same month as the film's release, Bakshi's daughter, Victoria, was born.

''Heavy Traffic'' (1972–1973)

By the time ''Fritz the Cat'' was released, Bakshi had become a celebrity, but his reputation was primarily based upon his having directed the first "dirty" animated film. Facing criticism of his work on publicity tours and in trade publications, he began writing poetry to express his emotions. This became a tradition, and Bakshi wrote poems before beginning production on each of his films. The first of these poems was "Street Arabs", which preceded the production of ''Heavy Traffic'' in 1972. Inspiration for the film came from penny arcades, where Bakshi often played pinball, sometimes accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Mark. Bakshi pitched ''Heavy Traffic'' to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who expressed interest in his take on the "tortured underground cartoonist" and agreed to back the film. Krantz had not compensated Bakshi for his work on ''Fritz the Cat'', and halfway through the production of ''Heavy Traffic'', Bakshi asked when he would be paid. Krantz responded, "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Bakshi did not have a lawyer, so he sought advice from fellow directors with whom he had become friendly, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. He soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied.

As he continued to work on ''Heavy Traffic'', Bakshi began pitching his next project, ''Harlem Nights'', a film loosely based on the ''Uncle Remus'' story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy, whom Bakshi encountered at a screening of ''The Godfather''. Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about ''Harlem Nights''. Bakshi said, "I can't talk about that", and hung up. After locking Bakshi out of the studio the next day, Krantz called several directors, including Chuck Jones, in search of a replacement. Arkoff threatened to withdraw his financial backing unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later.

Bakshi wanted the voices to sound organic, so he experimented with improvisation, allowing his actors to ad lib during the recording sessions. Several animation sequences appear as rough sketchbook pages. The film also incorporated live-action footage and photographs. Although Krantz, in an attempt to get the film an R rating, prepared different versions of scenes involving sex and violence, ''Heavy Traffic'' was rated X. However, due to the success of ''Fritz the Cat'', many theaters were willing to book adult-oriented animation, and the film did well at the box office. Bakshi became the first person in the animation industry since Walt Disney to have two financially successful movies released consecutively. ''Heavy Traffic'' was very well received by critics. ''Newsweek'' applauded its "black humor, powerful grotesquerie and peculiar raw beauty." ''The Hollywood Reporter'' called it "shocking, outrageous, offensive, sometimes incoherent, occasionally unintelligent. However, it is also an authentic work of movie art and Bakshi is certainly the most creative American animator since Disney." Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' ranked ''Heavy Traffic'' among his "Ten Best Films of 1973". Upon release, the movie was banned by the Film Censorship Board in the province of Alberta, Canada.

''Coonskin'' (1973–1975)

In 1973, Bakshi and Ruddy began production on ''Harlem Nights'', which Paramount was originally contracted to distribute. While ''Fritz the Cat'' and ''Heavy Traffic'' proved that adult-oriented animation could be financially successful, animated films were still not respected, and Bakshi's pictures were considered to be "dirty Disney flicks" that were "mature" only for depicting sex, drugs and profanity. ''Harlem Nights'', based on Bakshi's firsthand experiences with racism, was an attack on racist prejudices and stereotypes. Bakshi cast Scatman Crothers, Philip Michael Thomas, Barry White and Charles Gordone in live-action and voice roles, cutting in and out of animation abruptly rather than seamlessly because he wanted to prove that the two mediums could "coexist with neither excuse nor apology". He wrote a song for Crothers to sing during the opening title sequence: "Ah'm a Niggerman". Its structure was rooted in the history of the slave plantation: slaves would "shout" lines from poems and stories great distances across fields in unison, creating a natural beat. Bakshi has described its vocal style, backed by fast guitar licks, as an "early version of rap".

Bakshi intended to attack stereotypes by portraying them directly, culling imagery from blackface iconography. Early designs in which the main characters (Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox) resembled figures from ''The Wind in the Willows'' were rejected. Bakshi juxtaposed stereotypical designs of blacks with even more negative depictions of white racists, but the film's strongest criticism is directed at the Mafia. Bakshi said, "I was sick of all the hero worship these guys got because of ''The Godfather''." Production concluded in 1973. During editing, the title was changed to ''Coonskin No More...'', and finally to ''Coonskin''. Bakshi hired several African American animators to work on ''Coonskin'', including Brenda Banks, the first African American female animator. Bakshi also hired graffiti artists and trained them to work as animators. The film's release was delayed by protests from the Congress of Racial Equality, which called Bakshi and his film racist. After its distribution was contracted to the Bryanston Distributing Company, Paramount canceled a project that Bakshi and Ruddy were developing, ''The American Chronicles''.

''Coonskin'', advertised as an exploitation film, was given limited distribution and soon disappeared from theaters. Initial reviews were negative; ''Playboy'' commented that "Bakshi seems to throw in a little of everything and he can't quite pull it together." Eventually, positive reviews appeared in ''The Hollywood Reporter'', ''New York Amsterdam News'' (an African American newspaper) and elsewhere. ''The New York Times'' Richard Eder said the film "could be [Bakshi's] masterpiece [...] a shattering successful effort to use an uncommon form—cartoons and live action combined to convey the hallucinatory violence and frustration of American city life, specifically black city life [...] lyrically violent, yet in no way [does it] exploit violence". ''Variety'' called it a "brutal satire from the streets". A reviewer for the ''Los Angeles Herald-Examiner'' wrote, "Certainly, it will outrage some and, indeed, it's not Disney. [...] The dialog it has obviously generated—if not the box office obstacles—seems joltingly healthy." Bakshi called ''Coonskin'' his best film.

''Hey Good Lookin''' (1973–1975/1982)

After production concluded on ''Harlem Nights'', Bakshi wanted to distinguish himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi said, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy." ''Hey Good Lookin''' is set in Brooklyn during the 1950s; its lead characters are Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "The Stompers", his friend Crazy Shapiro and their girlfriends, Roz and Eva. Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based on Bakshi's high school friends Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. optioned the screenplay and greenlit the film in 1973.

An initial version of ''Hey Good Lookin''' was completed in 1975. A three-minute promo of this version was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and the film was scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter as a result of the backlash over the film ''Coonskin'', and felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its mix of live action and animation, and it would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself from the director's fees for other projects such as ''Wizards'', ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''American Pop''. The live-action sequences of ''Hey Good Lookin''' were gradually replaced by animation; among the eliminated live-action sequences was one featuring the glam punk band New York Dolls. Singer Dan Hicks worked on the initial musical score, but the final version was scored by John Madara.

''Hey Good Lookin''' opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. The film's release was limited, and went largely unnoticed in the United States, although it garnered respectable business in foreign markets. In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote, "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in ''Coonskin'', ''Heavy Traffic'', and ''Fritz the Cat''." The film has since gained a cult following through cable television and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred ''Hey Good Lookin''' to Martin Scorsese's ''Mean Streets''.

Shift to fantasy film (1976–1978)

In 1976, Bakshi pitched ''War Wizards'' to 20th Century Fox. Returning to the fantasy drawings he had created in high school for inspiration, Bakshi intended to prove that he could produce a "family picture" that had the same impact as his adult-oriented films. British illustrator Ian Miller and comic book artist Mike Ploog were hired to contribute backgrounds and designs. The crew included Vita, Turek, Sparey, Vitello and Spence, who had become comfortable with Bakshi's limited storyboarding and lack of pencil tests. As the production costs increased, Fox president Alan Ladd, Jr. declined Bakshi's requests for salary increases, and refused to give him $50,000 to complete the film. At the same time, Ladd was dealing with similar budget problems on George Lucas's ''Star Wars''. Bakshi and Lucas had negotiated contracts entitling them to franchise ownership, merchandising and back-end payment, so Ladd suggested that they fund the completion of their films themselves.

Bakshi chose rotoscoping as a cost-effective way to complete the movie's battle scenes with his own finances. Because he could not afford to hire a film crew or actors, or develop 35mm stock, Bakshi requested prints of films that contained the type of large battle scenes needed, including Sergei Eisenstein's ''Alexander Nevsky'', and spliced together the footage he needed. However, the cost of printing photographs of each frame would have cost $3 million. Learning that IBM had introduced an industrial-sized photocopier, Bakshi asked one of the company's technical experts if he would be able to feed 35mm reels into the machine to produce enlarged copies of each frame. The experiment worked, and Bakshi got the pages he needed for a penny per copy.

As ''War Wizards'' neared completion, Lucas requested that Bakshi change the title of his film to ''Wizards'' to avoid conflict with ''Star Wars''; Bakshi agreed because Lucas had allowed Mark Hamill to take time off from ''Star Wars'' to record a voice for ''Wizards''. Although ''Wizards'' received a limited release, it was successful in the theaters that showed it and developed a worldwide audience. Dave Kehr of ''The Chicago Reader'' saw it as "marred by cut-rate techniques and a shapeless screenplay". In the view of film historian Jerry Beck, the lead character, an aging sorcerer, "clearly owes much to cartoonist Vaughn Bodé's Cheech Wizard character. [...] The film has a few interesting moments, particularly in a series of still illustrations by Marvel comic artist Mike Ploog, but is perhaps most notable as a turning point, not necessarily a positive one, in Bakshi's film career."

Also during this time, Ralph's friend Cosmo Anzilotti left to work on the infamous "crack monster" segment for ''Sesame Street''. However, this was so scary, it was only aired twice and was to be never seen again.

In late 1976, Bakshi learned that John Boorman was contracted to direct an adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'', in which J. R. R. Tolkien's three-volume novel would be condensed into a single film. Bakshi arranged a meeting with Mike Medavoy, United Artists' head of production, who agreed to let Bakshi direct in exchange for the $3 million that had been spent on Boorman's screenplay. Down the hall from Medavoy was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Dan Melnick, who interrupted a meeting with Peter Bogdanovich when he learned that Bakshi wanted to discuss acquiring the rights to ''The Lord of the Rings''. Melnick agreed to pay United Artists $3 million, but was soon fired; the project was canceled by his replacement, Dick Shepherd. Bakshi contacted Saul Zaentz, who wrote a check to cover MGM's debt and agreed to fund the $8 million budget for the first of what was initially planned as a series of three films, and later negotiated down to two. Before production began, Bakshi and Zaentz insisted that the Tolkien estate receive residuals from the film.

Bakshi did not want to produce a broad cartoon version of the tale, so he planned to shoot the entire film in live action and animate the footage with rotoscoping. The film also incorporated brief cel animation and straightforward live-action footage. Production of the live-action sequences took place in Spain. During the middle of a large shoot, union bosses called for a lunch break, and Bakshi secretly shot footage of actors in Orc costumes moving toward the craft service table, and used the footage in the film. Jerry Beck later wrote that, while he found the rotoscoped animation "beautiful", he felt that it was unclear whether the use of live action was an artistic choice or due to budgetary constraints.

After the Spanish film development lab discovered that telephone lines, helicopters and cars were visible in the footage, they tried to incinerate it, telling Bakshi's first assistant director, "if that kind of sloppy cinematography got out, no one from Hollywood would ever come back to Spain to shoot again." When Bakshi returned to the United States, he learned that the cost of developing blown-up prints of each frame had risen. He did not want to repeat the process that had been used on ''Wizards'', which was unsuitable for the level of detail he intended for ''The Lord of the Rings'', so Bakshi and camera technician Ted Bemiller created their own photographic enlarger to process the footage cheaply. Live-action special effects and analog optics were used in place of animation to keep the visual effects budget low and give the film a more realistic look. Among the voice actors was the well-regarded John Hurt, who performed the role of Aragorn. The project's high profile brought heavy trade journal coverage, and fans such as Mick Jagger visited the studio for the chance to play a role. Animator Carl Bell loved drawing Aragorn so much that Bakshi gave Bell the live-action costume, which he wore while animating.

Viewing ''The Lord of the Rings'' as a holiday film, United Artists pressured Bakshi to complete it on schedule for its intended November 15, 1978, release. Once it was finished, Bakshi was told that audiences would not pay to see an incomplete story; over his objections, ''The Lord of the Rings'' was marketed with no indication that a second part would follow. Reviews of the film were mixed, but it was generally seen as a "flawed but inspired interpretation". ''Newsday''s Joseph Gelmis wrote that "the film's principal reward is a visual experience unlike anything that other animated features are doing at the moment". Roger Ebert called Bakshi's effort a "mixed blessing" and "an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job [which] still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story". Vincent Canby found it "both numbing and impressive". David Denby of ''New York'' felt that the film would not make sense to viewers who had not read the book. He wrote that it was too dark and lacked humor, concluding, "The lurid, meaningless violence of this movie left me exhausted and sickened by the end." The film, which cost $4 million to produce, grossed $30.5 million. The studio refused to fund the sequel, which would have adapted the remainder of the story. ''The Lord of the Rings'' won the Golden Gryphon at the 1980 Giffoni Film Festival.

''American Pop'' and ''Fire and Ice'' (1979–1983)

Following the production struggles of ''The Lord of the Rings'', Bakshi decided to work on something more personal. He pitched ''American Pop'' to Columbia Pictures president Dan Melnick. Bakshi wanted to produce a film in which songs would be given a new context in juxtaposition to the visuals. ''American Pop'' follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians, whose careers parallel the history of American pop. While the film does not reflect Bakshi's own experiences, its themes were strongly influenced by people he had encountered in Brownsville. The film's crew included character layout and design artist Louise Zingarelli, Vita, Barry E. Jackson, and Marcia Adams. Bakshi again used rotoscoping, in an attempt to capture the range of emotions and movement required for the film's story. According to Bakshi, "Rotoscoping is terrible for subtleties, so it was tough to get facial performances to match the stage ones." Bakshi was able to acquire the rights to an extensive soundtrack—including songs by Janis Joplin, The Doors, George Gershwin, The Mamas & the Papas, Herbie Hancock, Lou Reed, and Louis Prima—for under $1 million. Released on February 12, 1981, the film was a financial success. ''The New York Times'' Vincent Canby wrote, "I'm amazed at the success that Mr. Bakshi has in turning animated characters into figures of real feelings." Jerry Beck called it "one of Bakshi's best films". Due to music clearance issues, it was not released on home video until 1998.

By 1982, fantasy films such as ''The Beastmaster'' and ''Conan the Barbarian'' had proven successful at the box office, and Bakshi wanted to work with his long-time friend, the fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. ''Fire and Ice'' was financed by some of ''American Pop''s investors for $1.2 million, while 20th Century Fox agreed to distribute. ''Fire and Ice'' was the most action-oriented story Bakshi had directed, so he again used rotoscoping; the realism of the design and rotoscoped animation replicated Frazetta's artwork. Bakshi and Frazetta were heavily involved in the production of the live-action sequences, from casting sessions to the final shoot. The film's crew included background artists James Gurney and Thomas Kinkade, layout artist Peter Chung, and established Bakshi Productions artists Sparey, Steve Gordon, Bell and Banks. Chung greatly admired Bakshi's and Frazetta's work, and animated his sequences while working for The Walt Disney Company. The film was given a limited release, and was financially unsuccessful. Andrew Leal wrote, "The plot is standard [...] recalling nothing so much as a more graphic episode of Filmation's ''He-Man'' series. [...] ''Fire and Ice'' essentially stands as a footnote to the spate of barbarian films that followed in the wake of Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as Conan."

Unproduced projects and temporary retirement (1983–1986)

After production of ''Fire and Ice'' wrapped, Bakshi attempted several projects that fell through, including adaptations of Hunter S. Thompson's ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'', William Kotzwinkle's ''The Fan Man'', Eric Rücker Eddison's ''The Worm Ouroboros'', Stephen Crane's ''Maggie: A Girl of the Streets'', Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels and an anthropomorphic depiction of Sherlock Holmes. He turned down offers to direct Ray Bradbury's ''Something Wicked This Way Comes'' and Philip K. Dick's ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' He passed the latter to Ridley Scott, who adapted it into the 1982 film ''Blade Runner''.

During this period, Bakshi reread J. D. Salinger's ''The Catcher in the Rye'', which he had first read in high school, and saw parallels between his situation and that of the book's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Inspired to seek the film rights, he intended to shoot the story's bracketing sequences in live action and to animate the core flashback scenes. Salinger had rejected previous offers to adapt the novel, and had not made a public appearance since 1965 or granted an interview since 1980. Bakshi sent Salinger a letter explaining why he should be allowed to adapt the novel; the writer responded by thanking Bakshi and asserting that the novel was unfit for any medium other than its original form.

Prompted in part by Salinger's letter, Bakshi briefly retired to focus on painting. During this time he completed the screenplay for ''If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her'', a live-action feature he had been developing since the late 1960s. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios he pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense." In 1985, he received a phone call from The Rolling Stones' manager, Tony King, who told Bakshi that the band had recorded a cover of Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle", and wanted Bakshi to direct the music video. He was told that the live-action shoot needed to be completed within one day (January 28, 1986) for it to be shown at the Grammy Awards. Production designer Wolf Kroeger was forced to drastically compact his sets, and animation director and designer John Kricfalusi had to push his team, including Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith and Bob Jaques, to complete the animation within a few weeks. The band's arrival at the set was delayed by a snowstorm and several takes were ruined when the cameras crossed paths. Bakshi was forced to pay the union wages out of his own fees, and the continuity between Kricfalusi's animation and the live-action footage did not match; however, the video was completed on time.

Bakshi recognized Kricfalusi's talent, and wanted to put him in charge of a project that would showcase the young animator's skills. Bakshi and Kricfalusi co-wrote the screenplay ''Bobby's Girl'' as a take on the teen films of the era. Jeff Sagansky, president of production at TriStar Pictures, put up $150,000 to develop the project, prompting Bakshi to move back to Los Angeles. When Sagansky left TriStar, Bakshi was forced to pitch the film again, but the studio's new executives did not understand its appeal and cut off financing. Bakshi and Zingarelli began to develop a feature about Hollywood's Golden Age, and Bakshi Productions crewmembers worked on proposed cartoons influenced by pulp fiction. ''Bobby's Girl'' was reworked as a potential prime time series called ''Suzy's in Love'', but attracted no serious interest.

Return to television (1987–1989)

In April 1987, Bakshi set up a meeting with Judy Price, the head of CBS's Saturday morning block. Three days before the meeting, Bakshi, Kricfalusi, Naylor, Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald and Jim Reardon met to brainstorm. Bakshi remembers, "My car was packed to the windows. Judy was my last stop before driving cross country back to New York to my family." Price rejected Bakshi's prepared pitches, but asked what else he had. He told her that he had the rights to ''Mighty Mouse'', and she agreed to purchase the series. However, Bakshi did not own the rights and did not know who did. While researching the rights, he learned that CBS had acquired the entire Terrytoons library in 1955 and forgotten about it. According to Bakshi, "I sold them a show they already owned, so they just gave me the rights for nothin'!"

Kricfalusi's team wrote story outlines for thirteen episodes in a week and pitched them to Price. By the next week, Kricfalusi had hired animators he knew who had been working at other studios. ''Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures'' went into production the month it was greenlighted; it was scheduled to premiere on September 19, 1987. This haste required the crew to be split into four teams, led by supervising director Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team was given a handful of episodes, and operated almost entirely independently of the others. Although the scripts required approval by CBS executives, Kricfalusi insisted that the artists add visual gags as they drew. Bruce Timm, Andrew Stanton, Dave Marshall and Jeff Pidgeon were among the artists who worked on the series. Despite the time constraints, CBS was pleased with the way Bakshi Productions addressed the network's notes.

During the production of the episode "The Littlest Tramp", editor Tom Klein expressed concern that a sequence showing Mighty Mouse sniffing the remains of a crushed flower resembled cocaine use. Bakshi did not initially view the footage; he believed that Klein was overreacting, but agreed to let him cut the scene. Kricfalusi expressed disbelief over the cut, insisting that the action was harmless and that the sequence should be restored. Following Kricfalusi's advice, Bakshi told Klein to restore the scene, which had been approved by network executives and the CBS standards and practices department. The episode aired on October 31, 1987, without controversy.

In 1988, Bakshi received an Annie Award for "Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation". The same year, he began production on a series pilot loosely adapted from his ''Junktown'' comic strips. According to Bakshi, the proposed series "was going to be a revitalization of cartoon style from the '20s and '30s. It was gonna have Duke Ellington and Fats Waller jazzing up the soundtrack." Nickelodeon was initially willing to greenlight 39 episodes of ''Junktown''.

On June 6, 1988, Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association (AFA), alleged that "The Littlest Tramp" depicted cocaine use, instigating a media frenzy. The AFA, during its incarnation as the National Federation for Decency, had previously targeted CBS as an "accessory to murder" after a mother killed her daughter following an airing of ''Exorcist II: The Heretic''. Concerning Bakshi's involvement with ''Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures'', the AFA claimed that CBS "intentionally hired a known pornographer to do a cartoon for children, and then allowed him to insert a scene in which the cartoon hero is shown sniffing cocaine." Bakshi responded, "You could pick a still out of ''Lady and the Tramp'' and get the same impression. ''Fritz the Cat'' wasn't pornography. It was social commentary. This all smacks of burning books and the Third Reich. It smacks of McCarthyism. I'm not going to get into who sniffs what. This is lunacy!" On CBS's order, Klein removed the sequence from the master broadcast footage. Wildmon claimed that the edits were "a de facto admission that, indeed, Mighty Mouse was snorting cocaine". Despite receiving an award from Action for Children's Television, favorable reviews, and a ranking in ''Time'' magazine's "Best of '87" feature, ''Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures'' was canceled by CBS following the controversy.

The incident had a ripple effect, weakening Nickelodeon's commitment to ''Junktown''. Bakshi has also stated that "we were trying something different [...] but a series didn't make sense. It just didn't work". The series was scrapped, and the completed pilot aired as a special, ''Christmas in Tattertown'', in December 1988. It was the first original animated special created for Nickelodeon. Bakshi moved into a warehouse loft in downtown Los Angeles to clear his head, and was offered $50,000 to direct a half-hour live-action film for PBS's ''Imagining America'' anthology series. Mark Bakshi produced the film, ''This Ain't Bebop'', his first professional collaboration with his father. Bakshi wrote a poem influenced by Jack Kerouac, jazz, the Beat Generation and Brooklyn that served as the narration, which was spoken by Harvey Keitel. After a car crash, Bakshi completed the post-production in stitches and casts. Bakshi said of the work, "It's the most proud I've been of a picture since ''Coonskin''—the last real thing I did with total integrity."

As a result of the film, Bakshi received an offer to adapt Dr. Seuss's ''The Butter Battle Book'' for TNT. Ted Geisel had never been satisfied with the previous screen versions of his Dr. Seuss work. Bakshi wanted to produce an entirely faithful adaptation, and Geisel—who agreed to storyboard the special himself—was pleased with the final product. Bakshi next directed the pilot ''Hound Town'' for NBC; he described the result as "an embarrassing piece of shit".

Return to film, continued television projects and retirement (1990–present)

In 1990, Bakshi pitched ''Cool World'' to Paramount Pictures as a partially animated horror film. The concept involved a cartoon and human having sex and conceiving a hybrid child who visits the real world to murder the father who abandoned him. The live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting", a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. Massive sets were constructed on a sound stage in Las Vegas, based on enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by the house styles of Fleischer Studios and Terrytoons. As the sets were being built, producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., had the screenplay rewritten in secret; the new version, by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, was radically different from Bakshi's original. Paramount threatened to sue Bakshi if he did not complete the film. As Bakshi and Mancuso wrangled over their creative differences, Bakshi and the studio also began to fight over the film's casting. To keep actor Brad Pitt, Bakshi had to replace Drew Barrymore, his original choice for the character of Holli Would, with Kim Basinger, a bigger box office draw at the time. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, and were instead told by Bakshi, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"

Designer Milton Knight recalled that "audiences actually wanted a wilder, raunchier ''Cool World''. The premiere audience I saw it with certainly did." The critical reaction to the film was generally negative. Roger Ebert wrote, "The DJ who was hosting the radio station's free preview of ''Cool World'' leaped onto the stage and promised the audience: 'If you liked ''Roger Rabbit'', you'll love ''Cool World''!' He was wrong, but you can't blame him—he hadn't seen the movie. I have, and I will now promise you that if you liked ''Roger Rabbit'', quit while you're ahead." The film was a box-office disappointment. While other film projects followed, Bakshi began to focus more attention on painting.

In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget live-action feature for Showtime's ''Rebel Highway'' series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for ''If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her'', which he retitled ''Cool and the Crazy''. The picture, which aired September 16, 1994, starred Jared Leto, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Blanc and Matthew Flint. Reviewer Todd Everett noted that it had the same "hyperdrive visual sense" of Bakshi's animated films. He said, "Everything in 'Cool' [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong [performances] from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors".

In 1995, Hanna-Barbera producer Fred Seibert offered Bakshi the chance to create two animated short films for Cartoon Network's ''What a Cartoon! Show'': ''Malcom and Melvin'' and ''Babe, He Calls Me'', focusing on a trumpet-playing cockroach named Malcom and his best friend, a clown named Melvin. Both were heavily edited after Bakshi turned them in and he disowned them as a result. Bakshi was subsequently contacted by HBO, which was looking to launch the first animated series specifically for adults, an interest stirred by discussions involving a series based upon Trey Parker and Matt Stone's video Christmas card, ''Jesus vs. Santa''. Bakshi enlisted a team of writers, including his son Preston, to develop ''Spicy Detective'', later renamed ''Spicy City'', an anthology series set in a noir-ish, technology-driven future. Each episode was narrated by a female host named Raven, voiced by Michelle Phillips. The series premiered in July 1997—one month before the debut of Parker and Stone's ''South Park''—and thus became the first "adults only" cartoon series. Although critical reaction was largely unfavorable, ''Spicy City'' received acceptable ratings. A second season was approved, but the network wanted to fire Bakshi's writing team and hire professional Los Angeles screenwriters. When Bakshi refused to cooperate, the series was canceled.

Bakshi retired from animation once more, returning to his painting. In 2000, he began teaching an undergraduate animation class at New York's School of Visual Arts. He became involved in several screen projects, including a development deal with the Sci Fi Channel, without results. His attempt to independently finance a low-budget animated feature, ''Last Days of Coney Island'', intended as his most personal film, failed. In September 2002, Bakshi, Liz and their dogs moved to New Mexico, where he became more productive than ever in his painting.

In 2003, Bakshi received a Maverick Tribute Award at the Cinequest San Jose Film Festival. The same year, he appeared as a guest on John Kricfalusi's ''Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"'' and opened the Bakshi School of Animation and Cartooning. As of 2009, it is run by artist and educator Jess Gorell with Bakshi's son Eddie. The availability of Bakshi's work on the Internet sparked a resurgence of interest in his career, resulting in a three-day American Cinematheque retrospective held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, in April 2005. ''Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi'', a hardcover book of Bakshi's art, was released on April 1, 2008. The foreword was written by Quentin Tarantino and the afterword by Bakshi. In September 2008, Main Street Pictures announced that it would collaborate with Bakshi on a sequel to ''Wizards''. In 2010, it was announced that Bakshi will collaborate with Robert Rodriguez on a live-action remake of ''Fire and Ice''.

The Online Film Critics Society released a list of the "Top 100 Animated Features of All Time" in March 2003 that included four of Bakshi's films: ''Fritz the Cat'', ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''Coonskin'' and ''Fire and Ice''. ''Fritz the Cat'' was ranked number 56 in the 2004 poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 for its documentary ''The 100 Greatest Cartoons''. The Museum of Modern Art has added Bakshi's films to its collection for preservation.

Filmography

Films

Year	Film	Credited as
		! width=65	! width=65	! width=65
	align="left"
	align="left"
	align="left"
	align="left"
	align="left"
	align="left"

Television

Year	Show	Credited as
		! width=65	! width=65	! width=65	Animator	! width=65
	''James Hound''
''Heckle and Jeckle''
	''Deputy Dawg''
''Foofle''
	''Lariat Sam''
	''Sad Cat''
	''The Mighty Heroes''
	''Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures''
	''Christmas in Tattertown''
	''This Ain't Bebop''
''The Butter Battle Book''
''Hound Town''
	''Cool and the Crazy''
	''Malcom and Melvin''
''Babe, He Calls Me''
''Spicy City''
	''Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon"''

I Selected episodes II Provided the voices of Connelly and Goldblum in the episode "Sex Drive", and Stevie in the episode "Mano's Hands" III Provided the voice of Fire Chief in the episode "Fire Dogs 2"

References

Notes

External links

Category:1938 births Category:American animators Category:American comic strip cartoonists Category:American experimental filmmakers Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American painters Category:American screenwriters Category:Animated film directors Category:English-language film directors Category:Jews in Ottoman and British Palestine Category:Living people Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Terrytoons Category:Underground cartoonists Category:American Jews

bg:Ралф Бакши ca:Ralph Bakshi de:Ralph Bakshi es:Ralph Bakshi fr:Ralph Bakshi it:Ralph Bakshi he:ראלף באקשי nl:Ralph Bakshi ja:ラルフ・バクシ no:Ralph Bakshi pl:Ralph Bakshi pt:Ralph Bakshi ro:Ralph Bakshi ru:Бакши, Ральф fi:Ralph Bakshi sv:Ralph Bakshi tr:Ralph Bakshi

Chroma key compositing (or chroma keying) is a technique for compositing (layering) two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as color keying, color-separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC), greenscreen, and bluescreen. It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts, wherein the news presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map during live television newscasts, but in a television studio it is actually a large blue or green background. The meteorologist stands in front of a bluescreen, and then different weather maps are added on those parts in the image where the color is blue. If the meteorologist wears blue clothes, his clothes will become replaced with the background video. This also works for greenscreens, since blue and green are considered the colors least like skin tone. This technique is also used in the entertainment industry, for example for special effects.

History

For filmmaking, a complex and time consuming process once known as "travelling matte" was used prior to the introduction of digital compositing. The blue screen and traveling matte method were developed in the 1930s at RKO Radio Pictures and other studios, and were used to create special effects for ''The Thief of Bagdad'' (1940). At RKO, Linwood Dunn used a travelling matte to create "wipes" – where there were transitions like a windshield wiper in films such as ''Flying Down to Rio'' (1933).

The credit for development of the bluescreen is given to Larry Butler, who won the Academy Award for special effects for ''The Thief of Bagdad''. He had invented the blue screen and traveling matte technique in order to achieve the visual effects which were unprecedented in 1940. He was also the first special effects man to have created these effects in Technicolor, which was in its infancy at the time.

In 1950, Warner Brothers employee and ex-Kodak researcher Arthur Widmer began working on an ultra violet traveling matte process. He also began developing bluescreen techniques: one of the first films to use them was the 1958 adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novella, ''The Old Man and the Sea'', starring Spencer Tracy.

The background footage is shot first and the actor or model is filmed carrying out their actions against a bluescreen. To simply place the foreground shot over the background shot would create a ghostly image over a blue-tinged background. The actor or model must be separated from the background and placed into a specially-made "hole" in the background footage. The bluescreen shot was first rephotographed through a blue filter so that only the background is exposed. A special film is used that creates a black and white negative image — a black background with a subject-shaped hole in the middle. This is called a 'female matte'. The bluescreen shot was then rephotographed again, this time through a red and green filter so that only the foreground image was cast on film, creating a black silhouette on an unexposed (clear) background. This is called a 'male matte'.

thumb|right|Example of a basic blue screen set.The background image is then rephotographed through the male matte, and the shot rephotographed through the female matte. An optical printer with two projectors, a film camera and a 'beam splitter' combines the images together one frame at a time. This part of the process must be very carefully controlled to ensure the absence of 'black lines'. During the 1980s, minicomputers were used to control the optical printer. For ''The Empire Strikes Back'', Richard Edlund created a 'quad optical printer' that accelerated the process considerably and saved money. He received a special Academy Award for his innovation.

One drawback to the traditional traveling matte is that the cameras shooting the images to be composited can't be easily synchronized. For decades, such matte shots had to be done "locked-down" so that neither the matted subject nor the background could shift their camera perspective at all. Later, computer-timed motion control cameras alleviated this problem, as both the foreground and background could be filmed with the same camera moves.

Petro Vlahos was awarded an Academy Award for his development of these techniques. His technique exploits the fact that most objects in real-world scenes have a color whose blue color component is similar in intensity to their green color component. Zbigniew Rybczyński also contributed to bluescreen technology.

For ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', an ultraviolet light matting process was proposed by Don Lee of CIS and developed by Gary Hutzel and the staff of Image G. This involved a fluorescent orange backdrop which made it easier to generate a holdout matte, thus allowing the effects team to produce effects in a quarter of the time needed for other methods.

Some films make heavy use of chroma key to add backgrounds that are constructed entirely using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Performances from different takes can even be composited together, which allows actors to be filmed separately and then placed together in the same scene. Chroma key allows performers to appear to be in any location without even leaving the studio.

Computer development also made it easier to incorporate motion into composited shots, even when using handheld cameras. Reference-points can now be placed onto the colored background (usually as a painted grid, X's marked with tape, or equally spaced tennis balls attached to the wall). In post-production, a computer can use the references to adjust the position of the background, making it match the movement of the foreground perfectly. Modern advances in software and computational power have even eliminated the need to use grids or tracking marks – the software analyzes the relative motion of colored pixels against other colored pixels and solves the 'motion' to create a camera motion algorithm which can be used in compositing software to match the motion of composited elements to a moving background plate.

Weathermen often use a field monitor to the side of the screen to see where they are putting their hands. A newer technique is to project a faint image onto the screen.

The process

The principal subject is filmed or photographed against a background consisting of a single color or a relatively narrow range of colors, usually blue or green because these colors are considered to be the furthest away from skin tone. The portions of the video which match the preselected color are replaced by the alternate background video. This process is commonly known as "keying", "keying out" or simply a "key".

Green is currently used as a backdrop more than any other color because image sensors in digital video cameras are most sensitive to green, due to the bayer pattern allocating more pixels to the green channel, mimicking the human eye's increased sensitivity to green light. Therefore, the green camera channel contains the least "noise" and can produce the cleanest key/matte/mask. Additionally, less light is needed to illuminate green, again because of the higher sensitivity to green in image sensors. Bright green has also become favored as a blue background may match a subject's eye color or common items of clothing, such as jeans, or a dark-navy suit.

Blue was used before digital keying became commonplace because it was necessary for the optical process, but it needed more illumination than green. However, it is also further in the visual spectrum from red, the predominant color in human skin.

The most important factor for a key is the color separation of the foreground (the subject) and background (the screen) – a bluescreen will be used if the subject is predominately green (for example plants), despite the camera being more sensitive to green light.

In analog color TV, color is represented by the phase of the chroma subcarrier relative to a reference oscillator. Chroma key is achieved by comparing the phase of the video to the phase corresponding to the preselected color. In-phase portions of the video are replaced by the alternate background video.

In digital color TV, color is represented by three numbers (red, green, blue). Chroma key is achieved by a simple numerical comparison between the video and the preselected color. If the color at a particular point on the screen matches (either exactly, or in a range), then the video at that point is replaced by the alternate background video.

Clothing

A chroma key subject must not wear clothing similar in color to the chroma key color(s) (unless intentional), because the clothing may be replaced with the background video. An example of intentional use of this is when an actor wears a blue covering over a part of his body to make it invisible in the final shot. This technique can be used to achieve an effect similar to that used in the ''Harry Potter'' films to create the effect of an invisibility cloak. The actor can also be filmed against a chroma key background and inserted into the background shot with a distortion effect in order to create a cloak that is marginally detectable.

Difficulties emerge with bluescreen when a costume in an effects shot must be blue, such as Superman's traditional blue outfit. In the 2002 film ''Spider-Man'', in scenes where both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are in the air, Spider-Man had to be shot in front of the greenscreen and the Green Goblin had to be shot in front of a bluescreen, because Spider-Man wears a costume which is red and blue in color and the goblin wears a costume which is entirely green in color. If both were shot in front of same screen, one character would have been partially erased from the shot.

Background

Blue is generally used for both weather maps and special effects because it is complementary to human skin tone. The use of blue is also tied to the fact that the blue emulsion layer of film has the finest crystals and thus good detail and minimal grain (in comparison to the red and green layers of the emulsion.) In the digital world, however, green has become the favored color because digital cameras retain more detail in the green channel and it requires less light than blue. Green not only has a higher luminance value than blue but also in early digital formats the green channel was sampled twice as often as the blue, making it easier to work with. The choice of color is up to the effects artists and the needs of the specific shot. In the past decade, the use of green has become dominant in film special effects. Also, the green background is favored over blue for outdoors filming where the blue sky might appear in the frame and could accidentally be replaced in the process. Although green and blue are the most common, any color can be used. Red is usually avoided due to its prevalence in normal human skin pigments, but can be often used for objects and scenes which do not involve people.

Occasionally, a magenta background is used, as in some software applications where the magenta or fuchsia key value #FF00FF is sometimes referred to as "magic pink".

With better imaging and hardware, many companies are avoiding the confusion often experienced by weather presenters, who must otherwise watch themselves on a monitor to see the image shown behind them, by lightly projecting a copy of the background image onto the blue/green screen. This allows the presenter to accurately point and look at the map without referring to monitors.

A newer technique is to use a retroreflective curtain in the background, along with a ring of bright LEDs around the camera lens. This requires no light to shine on the background other than the LEDs, which use an extremely small amount of power and space unlike big stage lights, and require no rigging. This advance was made possible by the invention of practical blue LEDs in the 1990s, which also allow for emerald green LEDs.

There is also a form of color keying that uses light spectrum invisible to human eye. Called Thermo-Key, it uses infrared as the key color, which would not be replaced by background image during postprocessing.

Even lighting

The biggest challenge when setting up a bluescreen or greenscreen is even lighting and the avoidance of shadow, because it is best to have as narrow a color range as possible being replaced. A shadow would present itself as a darker color to the camera and might not register for replacement. This can sometimes be seen in low-budget or live broadcasts where the errors cannot be manually repaired. The material being used affects the quality and ease of having it evenly lit. Materials which are shiny will be far less successful than those that are not. A shiny surface will have areas that reflect the lights making them appear pale, while other areas may be darkened. A matte surface will diffuse the reflected light and have a more even color range. In order to get the cleanest key from shooting greenscreen it is necessary to create a value difference between the subject and the greenscreen. In order to differentiate the subject and screen a two-stop difference can be used, either by making the greenscreen two stops higher than the subject or vice versa.

Sometimes a shadow can be used to create a special effect. Areas of the bluescreen or greenscreen with a shadow on them can be replaced with a darker version of the desired background video image, making it look like the person casting the shadow is actually casting a shadow on the background image instead.

Another common, related, problem is lighting the subjects in a manner that is complementary to the scene being keyed in behind. Attention has to be paid to matching the direction of lighting and the color balance in the background. Any spill of the chroma key color will make the result look unnatural. Even a difference in the focal length of the lenses used can affect the success of chromakey.

Exposure

Another challenge for bluescreen or greenscreen is proper camera exposure. Underexposing or overexposing a colored backdrop can lead to poor saturation levels. In the case of video and digital cinema cameras, underexposed images can contain high amounts of noise, as well. The background must be bright enough to allow the camera to create a bright and saturated image.

Programming

There are several different quality- and speed-optimized techniques for implementing color keying in software.

In most versions, a function ''f''(''r'', ''g'', ''b'') → ''α'' is applied to every pixel in the image. α (alpha) has a meaning similar to that in alpha compositing techniques. ''α'' ≤ 0 means the pixel is the green screen, ''α'' ≥ 1 means the pixel is in the foreground object. Values between 0 and 1 indicate a pixel that is partially covered by the foreground object. A usable green screen example, which matches how chroma key was done on an optical printer, is ''f''(''r'', ''g'', ''b'') = ''K₀'' * ''b'' − ''K₁'' * ''g'' + ''K₂'' (''K_0..2'' are user-adjustable constants, 1 is a good initial guess for all of them).

Often the software does screen spill removal from the colors as well as figure out the alpha. This may be a separate function ''g''(''r'', ''g'', ''b'') → (''r'', ''g'', ''b''), a very simple green screen example is ''g''(''r'', ''g'', ''b'') → (''r'', ''min''(''g'', ''b''), ''b''). Or ''f'' is changed to return (''r'', ''g'', ''b'', ''a'') all at once, this is useful if part of the calculation is shared.

Most keyers use far more complicated functions. A popular approach is to describe a closed 3D surface in RGB space and determine the signed distance the point (''r'', ''g'', ''b'') is from this surface, or to find the distance the point (''r'', ''g'', ''b'') is between two closed nested surfaces. It is also very common for ''f''() to depend on more than just the current pixel's color, it may also use the (''x'', ''y'') position, the values of nearby pixels, the value from reference images, and values from user-drawn masks.

A different class of algorithm tries to figure out a 2D path that separates the foreground from the background. This path can be the output, or the image can be drawn by filling the path with ''α'' = 1 as a final step. An example of such an algorithm is the use of active contour. Most research in recent years has been into these algorithms.

See also

Compositing

Federal Standard 1037C

Filmmaking

''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show''

Film production

Front projection effect

Live action

Matte (filmmaking)

Muslin

Optical printer

Primatte chromakey technology

Rear projection effect

Reverse bluescreen

Schüfftan process

Signal processing

Sodium vapor process

Special effects

Video switcher

Virtual set

References

External links

Building a Chroma Key on a low budget (Google Knol)

How Blue Screens Work

Stargate Studios Virtual Backlot Reel 2009 -- A demonstration of green screen scenes

Category:Film and video technology Category:Television terminology

bn:ক্রোমা কি bar:Bluescreen-Technik bg:Син екран ca:Croma cs:Greenscreen da:Chroma key de:Bluescreen-Technik es:Croma fr:Incrustation ko:크로마 키 id:Kunci kroma is:Blátjald it:Chroma key he:מסך כחול (קולנוע) hu:Bluebox technika ml:നിറപ്പൂട്ട് nl:Chroma key ja:ブルーバック no:Bluescreen pl:Blue box pt:Chroma key ru:Хромакей fi:Chroma key sv:Chroma key zh:色键

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
name	Anna Karina
birth name	Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer
birth date	September 22, 1940
birth place	Solbjerg, Denmark
spouse	Jean-Luc Godard (1961–67)Pierre Fabre (1968–74)Daniel Duval (1978–81)Dennis Berry (1982–94)Maurice Cooks (2009–) }}

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer on 22 September 1940) is a Danish film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. Karina is known as a muse of the director, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. Her notable collaborations with Godard include ''The Little Soldier'' (1960), ''A Woman Is a Woman'' (1961), ''Vivre sa vie'' (1962), and ''Alphaville'' (1965). With ''A Woman Is a Woman'', Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Early life

Karina's mother was a dress shop owner and her father a ship's captain, although he left the family by the time she was a year old. She was raised by her maternal grandparents until she was four, and then spent four years in foster care, before returning to live with her mother. She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting to be loved", and as a child made numerous attempts to run away from home.

She began her career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials. At age 14, she appeared in a Danish short film by Ib Schedes, which won a prize at Cannes. She studied dance and painting in Denmark and for a while made a living selling her paintings. In 1958, after a row with her mother, she hitch-hiked to Paris.

Career

Modeling and meeting with Godard

Karina was 17 when she arrived in Paris—indigent and unable to speak French. Living off the streets she got a break while sitting at the cafe Les Deux Magots. She was approached by a woman from an advertisement agency who asked her to do some photos. She became a successful fashion model, meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Chanel helped her devise her professional name, Anna Karina.

Karina's first film appearance, although uncredited, dates from 1959, when a soap advertisement in which she appeared as a model was included near the end of Guy Debord's ''On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time''. The image was accompanied by Debord's voice-over: "The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life."

Jean-Luc Godard, then a film critic for ''Cahiers du cinéma'', first saw Karina in a series of Palmolive ads in a bathtub covered in soapsuds. He was casting his debut feature film, ''Breathless''. He offered her a small part in the film, but she refused when he mentioned that there would be a nude scene. When Godard queried her refusal, referring to the supposed nudity in the Palmolive ads, she is said to have replied "Are you mad? I was wearing a bathing suit in those ads — the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in your mind that I was undressed."

In the end, the character Godard reserved for Karina did not appear in the film. The next year, however, Godard offered her a role in ''Le Petit Soldat'' (1960). Karina, who was still under 21, had to persuade her estranged mother to sign the contract for her.

Film

Karina won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961 for her interpretation of the character Angela in the film ''A Woman Is a Woman''. Her acting career was not, however, limited to Godard's films, and she went on to a successful collaboration with other well-known directors. Her role in ''The Nun'' (1966) directed by Jacques Rivette is considered by some as her best performance. She also acted in Luchino Visconti's ''The Stranger''.

Other notable films include: George Cukor's ''Justine'' (1969), Tony Richardson's ''Laughter in the Dark'' (1969), Christian de Chalonge's ''L'Alliance'' (1970), Andre Delvaux's ''Rendezvous a Bray'' (1971), ''The Salzburg Connection'' (1972), Franco Brusati's ''Bread and Chocolate'' (1973) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's ''Chinese Roulette'' (1976). In 1972 she set up a production company named Raska for her film-directing debut ''Vivre Ensemble'', in which she also acted and which was released in 1973. She wrote and acted in ''Last Song'' in 1987. She has since appeared in ''Haut, Bas, Fragile'' (1995) by Jacques Rivette and sang in ''The Truth About Charlie''.

Theatre

Karina has also appeared on stage, in Rivette's adaptation of ''La Religieuse'', ''Pour Lucrece'', ''Toi et Tes Nuages'', Françoise Sagan's ''Il Fait Beau Jour et Nuit'' and Ingmar Bergman's ''Efter repetitionen''.

Singing career

Karina has also maintained an important singing career. At the end of the 1960s, she scored a major hit with "Sous le soleil exactement" and "Roller Girl" by Serge Gainsbourg. Both songs are taken from the TV musical comedy ''Anna'' (1967), by the film director Pierre Koralnik, in which she sings seven songs alongside Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Brialy. She subsequently recorded an album, ''Une histoire d'amour'', with Philippe Katerine, which was followed up by a concert tour. Karina has also made several appearances on television. In 2005 she released ''Chansons de films'', a collection of songs sung in movies.

Karina wrote, directed and starred in ''Victoria'', a musical road movie filmed in Montreal, Quebec and Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean in 2007. A review by Richard Kuipers in ''Variety'' praised it as "a pleasant gambol through the backwoods of Quebec...Given plenty of room to work off each other, the members of this fine ensemble keep pic on track...Big plus is the music and heartfelt songs by Philippe Katerine".

Books

Karina has written four novels: ''Vivre ensemble'' (1973); ''Golden City'' (1983); ''On n'achète pas le soleil'' (1988); and ''Jusqu'au bout du hasard'' (1998).

Personal life

Karina and Godard married on 3 March 1961, during the shooting of ''A Woman Is a Woman'', and divorced in 1965. After Godard, she was married to scriptwriter-actor Pierre Fabre (1968–1973), actor-director Daniel Duval (1978–1981) and director Dennis Berry (1982–1994).

Filmography

''Pigen og skoene'' (1959)

''Petit jour'' (1960)

''Le petit soldat'' (1960)

''Une femme est une femme'' (1961)

''Ce soir ou jamais'' (1961)

''Cléo from 5 to 7'' (1962)

''She'll Have to Go'' (1962)

''Le Soleil dans l'oeil'' (1962)

''Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux'' (1962)

''Les Quatre vérités'' (1962)

''Shéhérazade'' (1963)

''Dragées au poivre'' (1963)

''Le Voleur de Tibidabo'' (1964)

''Bande à part'' (1964)

''La Ronde'' (1964)

''De l'amour'' (1964)

''Alphaville'' (1965)

''Un mari à un prix fixe'' (1965)

''Le Soldatesse'' (1965)

''Pierrot le fou'' (1965)

''La Religieuse'' (1966)

''Made in U.S.A.'' (1966)

''Anna'' (1967)

''Zärtliche Haie'' (1967)

''Le Plus vieux métier du monde'' (1967)

''Lamiel'' (1967)

''Lo Straniero'' (1967)

''The Magus'' (1968)

''Before Winter Comes'' (1969)

''Michael Kohlhaas - Der Rebell'' (1969)

''Laughter in the Dark'' (1969)

''Justine'' (1969)

''Le Temps de mourir'' (1970)

''L'Alliance'' (1971)

''Rendez-vous à Bray'' (1971)

''Carlos'' (1971)

''The Salzburg Connection'' (1972)

''Pane e cioccolata'' (1973)

''Vivre ensemble'' (1973)

''L'Invenzione di Morel'' (1974)

''L'Assassin musicien'' (1975)

''Les Oeufs brouillés'' (1976)

''Le voyage à l'étranger'' (1976)

''La vie en pièces'' (1976)

''Chinesisches Roulette'' (1976)

''Ausgerechnet Bananen'' (1978)

''Chaussette surprise'' (1978)

''Olyan mint otthon'' (1978)

''L'éblouissement'' (1979)

''Historien om en moder'' (1979)

''Charlotte, dis à ta mère que je l'aime'' (1980)

''Also es war so...'' (1980)

''Chambre 17'' (1981)

''Regina Roma'' (1982)

''L'Ami de Vincent'' (1983)

''Ave Maria'' (1984)

''Treasure Island'' (1985)

''Blockhaus USA'' (1986)

''La dame des dunes'' (1986)

''Last Song'' (1987)

''Dernier été à Tanger'' (1987)

''Cayenne Palace'' (1987)

''L'oeuvre au noir'' (1988)

''Moravagine'' (1989)

''Manden der ville være skyldig'' (1990)

''Haut bas fragile'' (1995)

''Nom de code: Sacha'' (2001)

''The Truth About Charlie'' (2002)

''Moi César, 10 ans 1/2, 1m39'' (2003)

''Victoria'' (2008)

References

External links

Anna Karina at Yahoo! Movies

Anna Karina biography on newwavefilm.com

Anna Karina fan site

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:Danish expatriates in France Category:Danish female singers Category:Danish film actors Category:Danish film directors Category:Danish pop singers Category:Danish screenwriters Category:Female film directors

da:Anna Karina de:Anna Karina es:Anna Karina fa:آنا کارینا fr:Anna Karina it:Anna Karina hu:Anna Karina ja:アンナ・カリーナ pl:Anna Karina pt:Anna Karina ru:Анна Карина sh:Anna Karina fi:Anna Karina sv:Anna Karina zh:安娜·卡里娜

Coordinates	37°46′45.48″N122°25′9.12″N
Name	Sandeep Pandey
Death date
Known for	Asha for Education
Occupation	Activist
Nationality	}}

Sandeep Pandey is an Indian social activist. He co-founded Asha for Education with Dr. Deepak Gupta (presently Professor at IIT Kanpur) and V.J.P Srivatsoy while working on his Ph. D in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life

Sandeep Pandey is an alumnus of the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, India. After graduating in 1991 from UC Berkeley, he returned to India to teach at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and founded a registered organization named Asha Trust which has several centers/chapters across India. His team has launched a people's group named Asha Parivar in 2008 that focuses on strengthening democracy at the grassroots.

Career

Sandeep Pandey's work at Asha Parivar is focused on Right to Information and other forms of citizen participation in removing corruption and improving the efficiency of governance. He leads National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), the largest network of grassroots people's movements in India.

He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award (often termed as 'Asian Nobel prize') in 2002 for the emergent leadership category. Pandey led an Indo-Pakistan peace march from New Delhi to Multan in 2005.

He has served as an adviser to the Indian government's Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE). His idea of education is based on empowerment by imbibing the spirit of cooperation instead of competition. Currently he is working as a visiting professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar.

Controversies

In 2002, he attended a conference organized by the Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist Liberation, (CPI-MLL) to honor the kin of about 1000 Naxalites who were killed in police action in Bihar. Upon receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award, which from the very beginning has been funded by the US government, he referred to America as "the biggest terrorist state in the world."

Personal life

Sandeep Pandey lives in Indira Nagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. He is married to Arundhati Dhuru and they have a son, Chaitanya Pandey and a daughter, Anandi Pandey.

See also

Right to Information Act

References

External links

Detailed Bio of Sandeep Pandey

Category:Living people Category:Indian educationists Category:Banaras Hindu University alumni Category:Ramon Magsaysay Award winners Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur faculty Category:People from Ballia