In addition to its spellbinding narrative and magnetic performances, Amazon’s Undone breaks the mold in an interesting way with its animation style. The series is the first of its kind to use rotoscoping technology, which refers to tracing over a recording of a live-action performance frame by frame. ComicBook.com got a chance to talk to series star Rosa Salazar and co-creators Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg at this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con, where we asked how the decision to rotoscope the show came about.
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“We saw this brilliant director, animator named Hisko Hulsing from the Netherlands.” Purdy revealed in our interview, which you can check out above. “We found his material online, and we were blown away with how realistic and grounded it is. How mature. And we thought, well that’s actually perfect for this show, because we want the world to feel as real as possible. But we want the kind of elasticity of animation. Where it doesn’t feel like you’re going live-action to CGI or special effects. It feels like it’s all of the same world. But that plays into her questioning of reality. There’s no separation, in terms of her experience.”
“So, it made perfect sense and, fortunately, he really responded to the material, as well. And it turned out to be a great collaboration, and he suggested rotoscoping.” Purdy added. “‘Cause he had done it on a project with this producer, Tommy Pallotta, who did Scanner Darkly and Waking Life with Richard Linklater. And we all got together and talked about how this would work and what the process would be, and it seemed like the perfect fit for the material. ‘Cause then we get all these beautiful micro-expressions and emotions from Rosa that we get to capture and feel. She just pierces through the animation and you can feel all that rawness and all that vulnerability that she brings to her performance, which is incredible.”
The series stars Salazar as Alma, a disaffected young woman who learns she has a unique relationship with reality after getting into a car accident. The series also stars Bob Odenkirk, Constance Marie, Angelique Cabral, Daveed Diggs, and Siddharth Dhananjay.
The first season of Undone debuts on Amazon Prime on Friday, September 13th.
