‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ Creators on How They Broke All the Rules

Filmmakers tell TheWrap just why live-action and animated hybrid remains unrivaled 30 years later

who framed roger rabbit 30th anniversary
Touchstone Pictures

Robert Zemeckis and his cinematographer Dean Cundey went into a meeting with Disney where they were told everything they could not do to make “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” Walt Disney himself got his start making live-action and animated hybrids as far back as the 1920s. It was fused in the DNA of the company. Execs there knew best.

Don’t move the camera, don’t shoot close-ups, don’t get fancy with lighting. Basically don’t do anything that would take too much work for the animators.

That didn’t fly for Zemeckis.

“When Bob and I left the meeting where they had said six or eight things that we should or couldn’t do, Bob and I said, ‘Well, those are the rules we’re going to break.

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