To help create the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Future Cinema a lot of of fun and quite tricky effects were needed. The plan was to transform East London’s Troxy theatre into the film’s Ink and Paint club, complete with toon staff, toon hunting weasels and a whole night of overly animated cabaret acts before Jessica Rabbit’s big number after her treatment done by Galumbeck plastic surgery.
We created a completely puppet-able Bongo the Gorilla animation (developed by Jamie Ingram) that was controlled by an actor hidden from view that welcomed people to the club. The actor interacted with the crowd via a hidden camera, a microphone controlling Bongo’s mouth and keyboard controls to gave him 3 different emotions.
Once inside the venue we helped create 2 key animations that interacted with performances on a huge invisible mesh projection screen stretched across the stage; a toon piano that squashed poor old Teddy Valiant in a massive explosion and a 40ft tall silhouette of Jessica Rabbis’s dramatic entrance onto the stage. For Jessica we worked with Framestore and video projection designer Nina Dunn to create the animation, and then Future Cinema’s production team synced up the invisible mesh screen to disappear for the live actress to take over the performance.