Bob Sabiston (born 1967) is an American film
art director
Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...
,
computer programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming.
The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...
, and creator of the
Rotoshop
Rotoshop is a proprietary software, proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston.
Rotoshop uses an animation technique called motion interpolation, interpolated rotoscoping, which was used in Richard Linklater, Richard Linklater ...
software program for
computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating Film, moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation refers to moving images. Virtu ...
. Sabiston began developing software as an undergraduate and then graduate researcher in the
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...
from 1986 to 1991. While at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
, and also after moving to
Austin, Texas
Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...
, in 1993, Sabiston used his 2D/3D software to create several
short films
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...
, including ''God's Little Monkey'' (1994), "Beat Dedication" (1988), and "Grinning Evil Death" (1990). "Grinning Evil Death" was widely seen on the first episode of MTV's "
Liquid Television" show. "God's Little Monkey" won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for 1994.
In 1997, he developed his interpolating
rotoscope
Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, live-action film images were projected onto a glass panel and traced onto paper. This pr ...
program,
Rotoshop
Rotoshop is a proprietary software, proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston.
Rotoshop uses an animation technique called motion interpolation, interpolated rotoscoping, which was used in Richard Linklater, Richard Linklater ...
, for an animation contest sponsored by
MTV
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
. The software was used to produce a series of 25 30-second interstitials in New York, collectively entitled "Project Incognito." He moved back to Austin in 1998 and with the help of local artists made the short film "RoadHead." This was followed in 1999 by short "Snack and Drink" in collaboration with
Tommy Pallotta. "Snack and Drink" won several film festival awards and resides in the MOMA video collection. The shorts collection "Figures of Speech" followed in late 1999, for
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
. In 2000, Sabiston hired thirty
graphic art
A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional graphics, i.e. produced on a flat surface,[Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. In 2015, Linklater was included on the annual ''Time'' 100 li ...]
's film ''
Waking Life
''Waking Life'' is a 2001 American adult animated surrealist drama film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film explores a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of reality, dreams and lucid dreams, consciousness, ...
''.
After Waking Life Sabiston spent several years making more rotoscoped short films, including "Yard", "Earthlink Sucks", "Grasshopper". He directed a series of shorts for the PBS show "Life360". In 2003 he directed a short segment for the
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier (né Trier; born 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter.
Beginning in the late-1960s as a child actor working on Danish television series ''Secret Summer'', von Trier's career has spanned more than five decad ...
film ''
The Five Obstructions''. Both "Grasshopper" and "The Five Obstructions" were shown at the
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023.
The festival has acted ...
in 2004.
In 2004 Sabiston was hired as Head of Animation for Richard Linklater's ''
A Scanner Darkly
''A Scanner Darkly'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, published in 1977. The semi-autobiographical story is set in a dystopian Orange County, California, in the then-future of June 1994, and includes an extensive ...
''. He modified the software substantially for the film. Since 2005 he has also directed the "Talk to Chuck" campaign of animated advertisements for
Charles Schwab.
Sabiston developed Rotoshop as a means to make rotoscoping easier for artists by automating the
interpolation
In the mathematics, mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data points.
In engineering and science, one ...
of hand-drawn shapes and lines over video. The software is