editors
JERRY BECK (LA)
AMID AMIDI (NY)
Video Cartoonizer
September 23, 2008 1:00 pm


Why draw when you can filter? Release your inner Richard Linklater with the Video Cartoonizer.

“Upload a personal home movie, hit a few buttons, shout action and let our Video Cartoonizer do all the work. Who knew full motion animation could be this easy?”

You be the judge.

(Thanks, R.T. Inoue)

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john says:
09/23/08  1:34pm

sweet, now i can make movies like pixar

 
fluffy says:
09/23/08  1:41pm

That looks terrible. It’s obvious that they’re processing every frame in isolation – they couldn’t even try to prevent static things in the background from moving around? It’s not THAT hard.

 
petro1986 says:
09/23/08  2:05pm

Kind of hard to get excited by this, would be cool for someone who was looking to add something to their Youtube videos with a few clicks.

Can’t see this coming as a relif to many animators (lazy ones maybe)

 
dan says:
09/23/08  2:29pm

your looking at the sad future of animation, i can imagine people in the next couple of years making ”cartoons” that look like that. it dosent even look like a cartoon.

 
red pill junkie says:
09/23/08  2:30pm

LOL, the worst part of it, is that Elvis HATED The Beatles’ guts, so the choice of the song couldn’t have been worst ;-)

 
Keith Paynter says:
09/23/08  3:16pm

Sadly, I expect this to be something music video producers will likely take advantage of…

 
acetate says:
09/23/08  3:43pm

Could have called it the Bakshi-izer !

 
Gabe Fullilove says:
09/23/08  3:51pm

Since when is a Photoshop filter applied to video considered animation? It looks very cheaply done.

 
John V says:
09/23/08  4:02pm

This is nothing new. Its just a bad polarizing filter. Its not like this is going to threaten the future of animation or anything, come on.

 
leticia says:
09/23/08  4:16pm

we all should give up being cartoonists. Let’s all be programmers!!

 
FP says:
09/23/08  4:22pm

Looks like TOON-IT, with a touch of VIDEO GOGH. I’m using those tools right now to create my very own abomination.

It’s possible to get less chattering with these filters than shown in the “Cartoonizer” demo.

 
John A says:
09/23/08  4:50pm

You know, some of us actually LIKE to draw. I like to think I’m pretty damned good at it. WTF is up with this business anyway? Everyone wants the goddamned machine to to everything.

 
Christina S. says:
09/23/08  5:34pm

At least rotoscoping takes dedication… Yeesh.

 
Mike Caracappa says:
09/23/08  5:39pm

I guess Don Bluth won’t have to rotoscope anymore…

 
David Nethery says:
09/23/08  5:52pm

“Who knew full motion animation could be this easy?”

WHAT ? And to think all these years I’ve been doing it the HARD way !!!

(Takes out gun and shoots self in the head …. BEEEE-WHOOOOP …
[iris out to black. The End ] . )

 
Geordie Martinez says:
09/23/08  6:01pm

Animators everywhere are gonna lose their jobs.

 
Groucho983 says:
09/23/08  6:46pm

It is all photoshop (or photoshop-like) filters, and I experimented with this kind of thing quite a bit with in college. If done right the video should almost looks like a moving impressionist painting. If not it looks like Elvis while having a seizure.

Ironically I was using Cartoon Modern as a reference on my stuff, so i do thank you Mr. Amidi for your wonderful book.

 
Allan Turner says:
09/23/08  9:39pm

The really scary thing is they already ARE making movies like this: http://www.yearofthefish.com/

 
A Longtime Observer says:
09/23/08  10:41pm

I’ve got to say it:

So there IS an animate button!

 
Kevin Geiger says:
09/24/08  12:03am

Dude practically swallows that girl’s head! ;-)

 
William Chappell says:
09/24/08  12:25am

Now in After Effects CS4!

 
Kyle says:
09/24/08  1:00am

That effect is always obvious as just being a filter.

 
Dennis Sisterson says:
09/24/08  2:06am

OK – let’s see it do Sylvester getting diced by a tennis racket, or Pinocchio turning into a donkey. Then I’ll worry.

 
Bitter Animator says:
09/24/08  2:07am

I’m not sure why you’re throwing digs at Linklater, who actually had his movies hand drawn and not filtered, and then you can post up a time lapse live-action movie under the guise of animation. What am I missing here?

The difference between this and Linklater’s movies is blindingly obvious when you see them in motion.

 
Davide Inglima - limaCAT says:
09/24/08  2:08am

I want to see the first video using that filter of an actor getting a ton of bricks on his head, being shot by a pig dressed as a hunter, escaping a train, falling down a chasm after saying “hello”…

 
Lippy says:
09/24/08  9:26am

“acetate”, you stole my line! Ha! Looks just like “American pop”.

Actually I kinda liked the 3rd-ish example of the couple rendered in mostly white with gray-ish outlines. I could see that as a starting point and taking it (much) further in Flash or something.

It AIN’T animation, though..

P.S. “Hi” to Dave Nethery.. remember me?

 
Alex says:
09/24/08  9:54am

I hate that song…

 
David Nethery says:
09/24/08  7:36pm

Hi, Lips.

Of course I remember you. How could anyone forget those years we spent together in a third world prison … oh, wait that was Filmation,
but you know what I mean …

 
Bill Field says:
09/28/08  9:23am

Wasn’t this the premise of The Three Stooges VS The Martians?
Awacky Professor created a camera that did this?- Except, the animation was actually —–good?

 
Randomer says:
08/20/09  9:54am

How do u get it? did they stop it in 09?

 
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