Movies - A Scanner Darkly

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	Movies - A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 film by Richard Linklater starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Rory Cochrane. It is based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are among the executive producers. The film was written and directed by Richard Linklater in Austin, Texas. It is scheduled for release on July 7, 2006.

Plot summary

In the near future ("Seven years from now," according to the trailer), America has lost the war on drugs. Undercover cop Fred (Keanu Reeves) is addicted to Substance D, a drug which causes addicts to develop a split personality. In this case, Fred is also Bob, a drug dealer. With the help of his department, Fred sets up a sting operation to catch himself.

Characters and cast

Keanu Reeves
as Fred/Bob Arctor
Rory Cochrane
as Freck
Robert Downey Jr.
as Barris
Woody Harrelson
as Luckman
Winona Ryder
as Donna

Rotoscoping

A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally, rotoscoped, then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscoping, which was previously used in Linklater's film Waking Life
. Rotoscoping in traditional cel animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of 1970s filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation, however, makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames automatically. To add a further distinctive element to his visual style for the movie, Linklater chose to hire graphic novel artists to illustrate the film instead of animators. The use of non-animators and the difficulty of wrangling Rotoshop were factors that lengthened the film's production process well past its initial September 2005 release date target.

Trivia

Though several popular films based on Philip K. Dick's writing have been released since the first (1982's Blade Runner
), A Scanner Darkly is the first American-made since Blade Runner to be based on one of Dick's full novels instead of a short story. 1992 saw the release of Confessions d'un Barjo based on the novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist.
A long-running rumor suggested that Radiohead were composing the score for this film. While Warner Independent Pictures
initially denied their involvement, the studio recently confirmed to publication Entertainment Weekly that Radiohead would in fact be providing original music and the score for the film.

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