How School Of Rock Pushed Robert Downey Jr. To Star In A Scanner Darkly
As of this writing, filmmaker Richard Linklater has directed three animated features: 2001's
"Waking Life," 2006's "A Scanner Darkly," and the brand new "Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood."
In all three cases, Linklater employs an animation technique called rotoscoping,
which involves filming live-action actors and then animating directly onto their movements.
This allows for imagined backgrounds to come to life ("Apollo 10 1/2" recreated the suburban living
rooms of the 1960s without having to build sets) or casual bodily mutation (as with the
dreamlike tour guide characters of "Waking Life" who pulse and vibrate).
In "A Scanner Darkly," adapted from a novel by Philip K. Dick, Linklater depicts a group of strung-out
addicts and uses animation to realize their hallucinations, as well as a high-tech
disguise suit that gives its wearer several faces simultaneously.