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A Scanner Darkly Sneak-Peek 197

Posted by timothy from the comic-shop-guys-out-in-force dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some images for the upcoming film 'A Scanner Darkly' have been posted on aintitcool.com. Looks like it's going to look alot like one of Richard Linklater's previous films, Waking Life."
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A Scanner Darkly Sneak-Peek More

A Scanner Darkly Sneak-Peek

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  • a-ha! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Saturday January 08, 2005 @10:45PM (#11301294) Homepage Journal

    Taaaaaaake oooooon meeeeeee
    Take! On! Me!

    Taaaaaake meeeeeee ooooooon!

    Great! I'm gonna have song in my head all day now!

  • I like it...! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by soliptic ( 665417 ) on Saturday January 08, 2005 @10:47PM (#11301303) Journal
    I had no idea this movie was taking this approach, I thought it was going to be standard live action.

    I've got to say, I think this could really work. Being "non-realistic" in the first place adds scope for elegantly coping with the multiple (and extremely blurred) levels of reality in the book (which, btw, is my favourite from all the Dick I have read so far).

  • I love this style. I'm really glad to see a few select individuals in Hollywood, that are trying to break away from the cliche of most Hollywood crap. Movies like A Scanner Darkly and Sin City are examples of this.

  • This style vs. Miyazaki (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Saturday January 08, 2005 @10:51PM (#11301333) Journal
    I gotta tell you, this more "realistic" style of cartooning is much more interesting than the anime style of Miyazaki. For one, the 3 dimensional depth aspect is added through the use of very well thought out shading, so the characters seem more alive than most other cartoons.

    With the exception of Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka), which succeeded because of the power of the story more than anything else, Miyazaki's work pales in comparison to the screenshots shown here.
    • You do realise "this more 'realistic' style" is just advanced rotoscoping? They film it like a normal movie then just animate on top of that. That is why it looks like there is great depth, because there actually is depth.
    • I gotta tell you, this more "realistic" style of cartooning

      "Realistic"???

      Did you actally watch "Waking Life"? The people's limbs randomly detach from their bodies and float a few inches away!

      And not durring the deliberalte surreal scenes!


      Give me huge eyes, insane hair-colors, and art that doesn't give me a seizure - I'd watch a Miyazaki rendition of "Days of our lives" before another "Waking Life" style movie!

    • What the heck, I'll feed the trolls..... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 08, 2005 @11:05PM (#11301435)
      Either you lack imagination or you're just lazy. Not trolling btw, just stickin' up for Miyazaki and for unrealistic animation in general. I've never once understood why people would go to the movies to see reality, or why they'd complain when they don't. Then again, I'm a boy, and I watch my niece play pretend that she's a mom/teenager all day and I don't understand that.

      Anyway, back on topic, what makes Miyazaki great is that it isn't real, it's better than real. When you're being real, you're limited by what's believable. When you don't bother with reality, you're only limited by consistency (i.e. stuff shouldn't come out of nowhere, and it doesn't in a Miyazaki film). It's easier, and more fun, to suspend disbelief when reality isn't smacking you in the face every couple of minutes....
      • Gotta love your username... Radiant Silvergun is one of the best games ever!

        Yeah, you moderating bastards, mod me off-topic, see if I care!

      • I have every anime (by Miyazaki) that has been released in the US. While I can't stand My neighbor Tortoro, my kids love every one. I personally really like Princess Mononoke. I didn't know realism was important in a movie, I've seen enough hollywood slop that I can't believe anyone expects realism. I agree with you that his anime is fun and enjoyable.

        Vertical
    • "I gotta tell you, this more "realistic" style of cartooning is much more interesting than the anime style of Miyazaki. For one, the 3 dimensional depth aspect is added through the use of very well thought out shading, so the characters seem more alive than most other cartoons. With the exception of Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka), which succeeded because of the power of the story more than anything else, Miyazaki's work pales in comparison to the screenshots shown here." Translation: This doesn't
    • It seems you don't realize that these images are rotoscoped, which means that they are drawings traced over live action footage.
    • this isn't a more realistic style of cartooning, this is rotoscoping, and as such can't even be considered animation. It's a more tedious process of color correction. If you apply a brush stroke photoshop filter to a photograph, it isn't called a painting, so doing the same to a live action segment (even if it's manually traced over instead of completely automated) can't be considered animation.
      • Wait...

        Just because the source for the work happens to be series of photographs instead of a series of sense impressions in some artists mind means that it's not animation?

        Please, that's just the fanboy mentality that calls pen & inkers "tracers." It's demeaning to the work involved in the process. In pen & ink, the artist takes a base drawing and adds furthur dimension and artistic merit by applying his or her own style.

        That's exactly what they animators (and yes, rotoscoping IS animation) are
        • I think the parent's line of thought is that to call something "animated" kind of implies that it wasn't animate to start with, and was made so. Since the starting material here is already animate, parent holds that it's not 'animated' in the sense that a movie constructed from a bunch of paper and some crayons (or a bunch of initially unrelated draw functions on a computer) is animated.

          If we're going to arbitrarily divide all two-dimensional entertainment into groups, it seems as good a place to put the
          • Except rotoscoping has been part of the animation tool chest for years, going back to Disney's Cinderella (1950), Fantasia (1940) and earlier. So to say that roto is not animation is to exhibit extreme ignorance of animation as an art form.
        • You're right in that rotoscoping is an animation technique, but it's also one of the most boring ones out there (I point to the late-70s Bakshi films as evidence).

          The most effective use of this technique that I've ever seen (in a feature film) is in An American Tale, where the humans were rotoscoped (perhaps to distance them from the fully-animated mice, cats, and birds). Unfortunately, not too many know how to really take advantage of this technique, and end up overdoing it.

    • Re:This style vs. Miyazaki (Score:4, Informative)

      by popo ( 107611 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @01:48AM (#11302163) Homepage
      Scanner Darkly isn't "animation" at all. Its a misnomer. Scanner Darkly is rotoscoped -- meaning that the scenes *are* actually filmed with a traditional camera. Then in post production, the individual frames are traced (or image-filtered) in order make the film look like hand-drawn animation.

      Rotoscoping used to be very time consuming, but now most of the rotoscoping is achieved through PC based image filters (like photoshop filters). (Here's [wikipedia.org] the wiki for more info on Rotoscoping.)

      For you to compare "This style", ie: ("Rotoscoping") with the unbelievable amount of work that goes in to frame by frame hand drawn cel animation is like comparing a photocopy to a mosaic. One takes almost no work, and the other takes an enormous amount.

      • Thanks for clearing that up. And all this time I thought that Cinderella [imdb.com] (1950) and Fantasia [imdb.com] (1940) were classics of animation.

        I'm glad we have scholars of animation like you around to dispel these myths and reveal Disney for the hoax he was.
    • 4: Interresting? That's it! The moderation system is broken.

      I gotta tell you, this more "realistic" style of cartooning is much more interesting than the anime style of Miyazaki. For one, the 3 dimensional depth aspect is added through the use of very well thought out shading, so the characters seem more alive than most other cartoons.
      Miyazaki's work pales in comparison to the screenshots shown here.

      It's ROTOSCOPY! Those "drawings" are traced over filmed images. And from the looks of it, it's vector bas

  • I'd just like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by los furtive ( 232491 ) <ChrisLamothe@gmF ... m minus language> on Saturday January 08, 2005 @10:54PM (#11301357) Homepage
    I want to see a great movie, not a great special effect.

  • My Printer (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The sequel, planned for next year, is titled "And My Printer Fading"

  • retro 70s sci-fi (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Bootle ( 816136 )
    I like the animation style, but animation seems to be a bit strong of a word. The technique, developed by a guy from MIT, strikes me as a cross between rotoscoping and key-frame animation. The actors are filmed and then painted over. So they have a complete reference for the shadows, etc. It's tracing, not true animation. I always pictured A Scanner Darkly the movie as looking very much like Cheech and Chong with bits of neat sci-fi tech. The book oozes its 70s setting with the cars and the guy's hous
    • Bob Arctor: Open up, man, it's me, Bob.
      Charles Freck: Bob's not here, man.

      If I was filming it (thank god I'm not), Up in Smoke would have been my main visual inspiration!

      Actually, I think I know what you mean. It's the blasted smog-filtered light, the haze that blankets Los Angeles in the summer, blasting off the tops of cars and the rear windows of the cars all around you as your piece-of-shit car crawls a yard at a time on the 5 past the old Firestone Tire Factory with it's images of Assyrian warriors
  • I have never seen that style used in a video before. I'm assuming its drawn or do that use an ultra-special post-processor?
    • If you haven't pieced it together from the various posts, Linkletter uses some custom rotoscoping [wikipedia.org] software created by a programmer in Austin, Tx. It was first used on a full length feature in Waking Life [imdb.com], Linkletter's off-beat (or beat off, according to some) and idiosyncratic meditation on the nature of reality (nobody can accuse Linkletter of being unambitious!).

      I'm not sure what capture medium was used to collect the source footage for "Scanner Darkly", but they used consumer grade DV cameras for "Wakin
  • When I first read the title, I thought it was for a next generation of scanners...single quotes (ie. a 'scanner darkly' sneak-peak) would've done the trick.
  • This book is amazing - absolutely one of PKD's best. It has a very creepy feel to it. The issues of identity, self, and addiction are brilliantly explored. Linklater hit a major homerun with Waking Life also explores the issues of self and identity brilliantly, using its unique rotoscoped look very effectively to enhance its exploration of these issues, making them in many ways more tangible than a simpler style of animation or a live action film could.

    This story using this technique, with Linklater at the

    • Agreed. I've always considered this to be one of Dick's most personal books, because it deals with the paranoia and schizophrenia associated with drug use. (Dick was a methamphetamine addict.)

      Clooney and Soderbergh are producing this film, and they do have support from the PKD estate.

  • Writing "alot" makes you look "alittle" retarded, don't you think, timothy?

  • Rotoshop - June 2006 (Score:4, Informative)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @12:06AM (#11301737) Homepage Journal
    This snippets were rotoscoped in a program typically dupped Rotoshop ( a combination of rotoscope and photoshop ) by Bob Sabiston at Flat Black Films [flatblackfilms.com]. You can find other examples of this type of animation. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio in 2001, IIRC. He's a programmer, and his preferred platform is the Mac.

    During the talk, people asked when he was going to release the program. He basic answer was he didn't want to become involed in anything that would take him away from programming -- starting a business, licensing, etc. I asked him about releasing it open source, and he said something to the effect of "I know it works, I'm just not sure how".

    In any case, I just checked on the studio's website, and it appears that the program will be released in June, 2006 [flatblackfilms.com]. You can put yourself on an email list to be notified of its release.

  • Read Charlie Kaufman's adaptation... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mattyohe ( 517995 ) <matt@yohe.gmail@com> on Sunday January 09, 2005 @12:16AM (#11301781)
    http://www.beingcharliekaufman.com/scanner.pdf [beingcharliekaufman.com]

    I would have prefered to see this one.

  • missing Dick's point about the drug war? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by willwarner ( 847805 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @12:33AM (#11301856) Homepage
    The protagonist is a drug dealer and a narcotics agent. The IMDB summary implies this is only because he uses drugs that split his personality. The much more interesting truth, which shone through Dick's novel, is that people do switch sides all the time! Captured drug dealers really are offered immunity from punishment if they'll be DEA double-agents. And agents who realize the money to be made, and their privileged position, really do succumb to temptation and start dealing drugs. More generally, both cartels and the DEA work to preserve the current Drug War, rather than managed and taxed legalization as with alcohol since Prohibition. Hopefully the movie pushes this home, despite IMDB's summary.

    Plus, he's played by Keanu Reeves. I mean, really.

    On the plus side, if they left the EEG machine in the movie, this should spike interest in OpenEEG [sourceforge.net].
  • So much of the book is consumed with dialogue between burnt-out or nearly burnt-out druggies, and they seem to have cast every indie-type star who's had a public bout with rehab. Winona Ryder as Donna? Woody Harrelson as Luckman? And you've gotta love Robert Downey, Jr. as Barris. If any

    I also think that the rotoscoping should make for a really cool effect for Fred's "vague blur" suits.

    (This is my favorite PKD novel-- and I did an undergraduate thesis on the guy, and so have read, at last count, 50 of
    • I had this friend who's an English/Comp Lit prof that gave a senior seminar entitled "Dick and Derrida" some years back. I heard from some of his students that it was a pretty cool class.

      Downey as Barris is brilliant casting. I can't think of a single big name actor that would be a better fit. But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.

  • Shameless fanboy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by adun ( 127187 )
    I enjoyed Waking Life, and I'm a certified Dick nut. A Scanner Darkly is one of the greatest pieces of "short" fiction of our century, and it's a shame that society regards Dick primarly as a scifi writer, when he was one of the most astute social commentators of our time. He just happened to be good at expressing his fears and thoughts through a captivating medium.

    For the unitiated, A Scanner Darkly is at the front of the reality-bending/drug/psychological thriller genre. Before there was Thomas Harris
    • "...it's a shame that society regards Dick primarly as a scifi writer, when he was one of the most astute social commentators of our time...."


      Same thing, man.
    • I'm a certified Dick nut

      The proper term is Dick Head. =)

      The cashier at Dark Carnival in Berkeley called me this circa 1988 when I brought a bunch of PKD books up to the counter.

      But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
  • I'm still waiting for 'man in the high castle' to be done as a movie.

    not as sci-fi as other PKD, just alternate-future. Good story, tho. Could translate well into movie form, I think...
  • If I don't piss myself laughing during the bit when they're talking about putting gold in the trunk and 12 friends in the back seat of his car to stop it from fishtailing I'll be pissed (sic).

    That was one of THE funniest things I've ever read book.

    The second funniest thing I've ever read was when they're trying to figure out the gears on a 12 speed bike.

  • Apparently you can read the book online (Score:5, Interesting)

    by felix rayman ( 24227 ) on Sunday January 09, 2005 @03:42AM (#11302518)
    It looks like the text of the original the novel is online [dvara.net].

    The main thing to note here is that they will fuck up the movie. There is no way they can be honest to the spirit of the novel and get the movie distributed in the malls of America. Then again, the perversion of the novel will pay for a shopping trip to those malls for the heirs of PKD, who, I would assume, are happy to live in the world he predicted.

    Anyways, my favorite part of the novel is this, where one of the characters has decided to commit suicide by overdose:

    Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, spent a few minutes contemplating his favorite page of _The Illustrated Picture Book of Sex_, which showed the girl on top, then placed the plastic bag of reds beside his bed, lay down with the Ayn Rand book and unfinished protest letter to Exxon, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, although he kept remembering the girl being on top, and then, with a glass of the Cabernet Sauvignon, gulped down all the reds at once. After that, the deed being done, he lay back, the Ayn Rand book and letter on his chest, and waited.
    However, he had been burned. The capsules were not barbiturates, as represented. They were some kind of kinky psychedelics, of a type he had never dropped before, probably a mixture, and new on the market. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. Well, he thought philosophically, this is the story of my life. Always ripped off. He had to face the fact--considering how many of the capsules he had swallowed--that he was in for some trip.
    The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed looking down at him disapprovingly.
    The creature had many eyes, all over it, ultra-modern expensive-looking clothing, and rose up eight feet high. Also, it carried an enormous scroll.
    "You're going to read me my sins," Charles Freck said.
    The creature nodded and unsealed the scroll.
    Freck said, lying helpless on his bed, "and it's going to take a hundred thousand hours."
    Fixing its many compound eyes on him, the creature from between dimensions said, "We are no longer in the mundane universe. Lower-plane categories of material existence such as 'space' and 'time' no longer apply to you. You have been elevated to the transcendent realm. Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end."
    Know your dealer, Charles Freck thought, and wished he could take back the last half-hour of his life.
    A thousand years later he was still lying there on his bed with the Ayn Rand book and the letter to Exxon on his chest, listening to them read his sins to him. They had gotten up to the first grade, when he was six years old.
    Ten thousand years later they had reached the sixth grade.
    The year he had discovered masturbation.

    That, my friends, is some fine fucking literature.
    • I flame you in another thread, but here I must humbly thank you for that link. And also for the well chosen excerpt. I think the best thing I can say here is that you, too, are covered in aphids.
    • The main thing to note here is that they will fuck up the movie. There is no way they can be honest to the spirit of the novel and get the movie distributed in the malls of America.

      Well, from what I understand, Waking Life was hardly multiplex fare either...

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