15 Films That Took Major Strides In Animation

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was one of the first films to commit fully to the animated and live-action concept. After previous pushers of this, like Mary Poppins, it wanted to make it so the 2D and 3D worlds were believable, and not that the humans were standing on a flat plane or 2D characters being mismatched by the area not suited to their linear style.

However the Touchstone post production company created depth to their 2D characters with the use of three planes. These layers consisted of the actual character drawing, then shadows, and finally highlights. It made it so the drawings could breathe and hold real-life items without it seeming like something glued to paper.

It is no wonder that this film is a classic with the hand-drawn shadows the 2D character's cast, the camera moving while they are on screen, and unorthodox ways they solved how to animate characters interacting with 3D objects such as glasses or guns.

Thank the set designers and lads who'd have to hold long sticks in order to stay off-screen, because it made the artwork seem that much more plausible.