Coyote vs. Acme follows a 100-year-old tradition of placing animated characters in our ‘real’ world

The latest Looney Tunes feature film, Coyote vs. Acme, sees Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme corporation after years of having his various plots and schemes to catch the Road Runner foiled thanks to their defective products.

Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Space Jam (1996), Coyote vs. Acme is a hybrid animation and live-action production, as animated characters interact with the human characters and non-animated worlds.

Films using a mixture of animated and live-action elements have been around since the earliest days of animated cinema.

An animation pioneer

During animation’s silent era, Max Fleischer (who would go on to found Fleischer Studios with his brother Dave, home of Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor) became known for pioneering the rotoscope technique.

This is a method where the animator traces live-action reference footage to create fluid and “realistic” looking animated movement.

He would use this technique in animated films, but he also advanced the use of live-action/animation hybrids in his Out of the Inkwell series (1918–21).

This series saw Fleischer (playing himself) drawing various scenarios featuring Koko the Clown. In each short film, Koko and Fleischer would find themselves in some kind of tussle over the direction the cartoon was taking.

The real spectacle came from the interaction between the live-action Fleischer and his cartoon creation.

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Clever editing techniques would blend the live-action and animated materials.

Fleischers’ hand could be seen drawing – and erasing – Koko.

And the climax of these cartoons often saw the animated Koko “escaping” from the drawing board and wreaking havoc in the real world, achieved by animation cels being photographed over still images of the studio or New York.

Disney magic

Walt Disney also experimented with live-action/animation hybrids in his early years.

Before Oswald the Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, Disney and Ub Iwerks released a series of shorts known collectively as the Alice Comedies (1923–27).

The first, Alice’s Wonderland, sees Alice (played by Virginia Davis), a young (real) girl visiting Disney’s animation studio and watching Walt and his team create some cartoons.

Dreaming of her visit later that night, Alice is transported to “Cartoon Land” and interacts with the characters there. This was achieved by filming Davis on simple, empty background first. The animation was crafted later around her movements, with the animation and live-action sequences likely “double-printed” to bring them together.

This process proved time consuming, and the later Alice films featured less and less interaction between the live actor and animated characters.

Disney Studios would go on to use combination animation and live-action sequences in various feature films decades later, including in Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Pete’s Dragon (1977). The blending of animation and live-action emphasised the fantastical elements of these stories.

The famous Jolly Holiday sequence in Mary Poppins was accomplished using the Sodium Vapour Process where actors were filmed against a backdrop lit by sodium vapour lights, allowing them to be separated easily from the background, which was then replaced with the animated characters and backgrounds.

This was technique was replaced as blue screen, and later green screen, as technology improved.

Making the techniques modern

While technology has advanced considerably, many of the underlying principles in films like Coyote vs. Acme remain the same as those being used 100 years ago.

The goal is to achieve as seamless an interaction between the animated and non-animated characters as possible. This helps the animated characters take on a quality of “realness” for the viewer – it feels like these interactions could be taking place right in front of us.

In Coyote vs. Acme, sequences were carefully story-boarded first in order to work out how the animated characters would interact with the physical space and human actors.

When it came to filming, a scale puppet of Wile E. Coyote was crafted and operated so that the human cast had something to act with. The final versions of the animated characters were then digitally incorporated into the completed film using a mix of 2D and digital animation techniques.

While we are never expected to think of these characters as anything but animated, their integration into the non-animated world is seamless. Will Forte and Wile E. Coyote really could be having a conversation in the same space.

The charm of seeing a beloved 2D animated character leave their cartoon world and enter the real world continues to offer a source a delight for audiences of all ages.

Ruth Richards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.