Live Action + Animation

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 film that uses a mix of live action and animation. A lot of the animation used to mostly in the background, with the actual footage of the characters composited on top, with just a few exceptions where the fishes and bubbles are animated on a layer about the characters, the show them swimming and moving in the foreground rather than the background.


 

On the other hand, Mary Poppins (1964) uses on a painted background, with the animation in the foreground and as extra characters. I think this makes the animation come alive more and feel more realistic; the animations are reacting to their surroundings, whereas Bedknobs and Broomsticks seemed just awkwardly placed above it all. This probably would have taken more time and be more expensive to do, but I think it works much better. It also gives the audience much more to look at, with a much livelier scene - as the target audience is children, I think this is a good idea because it keeps them much more engaged.




I think that Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)  has an even better used of mixed animation and live action than the two above, however. The character of Jessica Rabbit is fully animated, with a wholly live action background - this means that she interacts completely with the real set and with real actors, giving the animation a lot more life, and focusing on her rather than making her a background piece as real life action goes on. This is more entertaining and engaging, and it is interesting to see how well it works.




Space Jam (1996) does the exact opposite, with a wholly animated background but live action characters. This technique is similar to Mary Poppin, except that there's a lot more animation in the background (and not just for one song) and the characters, live action and not all interact a lot more with the background, whereas in Mary Poppins the background was largely ignored and unneeded. In fact, even taking out all live action elements of Space Jam would still make it watchable, whereas Mary Poppins would have very little ever happening if you did the same to that. I prefer this way of combining live action and animation, because I think it has much more life to it in the animated scenes, and the animation and live action works a lot better together, but Who Frames Roger Rabbit is a close second, and the interaction between characters and actors is very well done.