Kohei Kadowaki on Hybrid Rotoscoping and Empathy in 'We Are Aliens'
Kadowaki's deliberate choice of hybrid rotoscoping, driven by empathy and a need to capture childlike gestures with an untrained crew, defines the visual language of a debut feature that has already premiered at Cannes.
Reporting from 1 sources: Cartoon Brew.
Director Kohei Kadowaki discusses his debut feature 'We Are Aliens,' which premiered at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and screens at Annecy. The film follows two boys over 20 years and uses a hybrid rotoscoping approach to capture natural movement, developed over five years with a mostly inexperienced animation team.
Kohei Kadowaki's debut feature 'We Are Aliens' took five years from concept to completion, with three and a half years of production. The film follows two classmates in a rural Japanese town during the Heisei era: Tsubasa, voiced by Ryota Bando, and Kyotaro, voiced by Amane Okayama. After an impulsive incident, their relationship fractures, sending them on diverging paths over 20 years.
Kadowaki told Cartoon Brew that most of the animators had little or no prior animation experience, so he turned to rotoscoping to capture subtle, natural gestures. The hybrid approach uses rotoscoping for delicate movements, facial expressions, and shifts in body weight while animating hair and clothing through traditional methods. Kadowaki said he avoided storyboard compositions that would expose the weaknesses of rotoscoping, inventing a visual language specific to the film.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.