Diet Coke commercial

To ensure that ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit‘ found an audience, Disney undertook marketing cross-promotions with Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.  Disney shared the $500,000 in television commercial production costs.  The marketing value of the Diet Coke campaign was estimated to be $10 million. The live-action for the Diet Coke commercial was filmed …

Roger Rabbit Sequel/CGI Test

  The tremendous difficulty of the special effects was on everybody’s mind whenever a sequel was discussed.  By the early 1990s, computer-generated special effect imagery was becoming commonplace in Hollywood films.  Michael Eisner ordered a test of CGI effects for a potential Roger Rabbit sequel.  A CGI test was conducted …

Richard Williams Animation – 13 Soho Square

Richard Williams Animation was located at 13 Soho Square.  Williams built a powerful reputation in British animation, using the proceeds of television and movie theater commercials and animated film titles to fund his personal animation projects.  He was on a journey of mastery and invited animation luminaries such as Art Babbitt …

1986 Test-of-Concept – part 2

A second portion of the proof-of-concept test involved Jessica.  It utilized the technique of tonal and shadow mattes that had been developed by Chris Knott for commercials at Richard Williams Animation. The test-of-concept with Roger Rabbit was presented on the 2003 2-disc Vista Series DVD release of ‘Who framed Roger …

1986 Test-of-Concept – part 1

  Both Bob Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg had been aware of Disney’s Roger Rabbit project in its early stages, but the first formal meeting between Disney and Amblin was in October 1985.  The Amblin team of Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, and Steven Spielberg were Executive Producers.  Robert Watts was chosen …

Gag Drawings 2 – Tom Sito

  see previous post:  https://pullingarabbitoutofahat.com/animation-the-forum/gag-drawings-chr…ife-at-the-forum/   There was a wonderful camaraderie amongst the crew at The Forum in London, although for much of the production the press was ‘on’ and they rarely left their floor during the workday.  The animators were on the 5th floor of The Forum building – …