"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is a collaboration between Disney and Steven Speilberg, the live direction was done by Robert Zemeckis, and Richard Williams directed the animation. The $45 million dollar production of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was one of Steven Spielberg's most risky films due to its extreme cost. It was almost cancelled since it went so far past it's original budget of $27.5 million. The hours worth of animation alone cost $250,000 a minute, done by the best animators.
The hybrid live-action/animation concept was tried in earlier films such as "Mary Poppins", and "Song of the South". The technique that was used in Roger solved the prior problems and gave the visuals more credibility.
Since so much animation and special effects would be added, the film was shot with a specially built VistaVision large frame film camera. The enormous size of these cameras, which where never tested prior to the shoot, where extremely difficult to use since the sets where built ten feet of the ground. Underneath, as many as 15 puppeteers would manipulate the live props with robotic arms.
Before anything was filmed every scene in the film first had to be plotted, shot by shot, so that they knew where the live actors would be, and where the animated characters would be in relation to the actors and props. The first step then was shooting the live action. Then animators then outlined the characters on a Photostat blowup of the action frames. The drawing was then filled and polished, then hand painted on an animation cel, then shot back on it's own frame. The final steps where adding light and shadow elements for added realism, and special effects.
There where 326 animators for 82,080 frames with a completion rate of 10 feet per week. Also there where 1,035 optical illusions which at the time equaled the amount of effects seen in 10 feature films. The sequins on Jessica's dress during the nightclub scene where created by filtering light through a plastic bad scratched with steel wool.
