Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/309120
35 MAY-JUN 14 / CINEMONTAGE they're all like that now." Schmidt was already signed to another film when Zemeckis offered him Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). "I liked the script but didn't have a clue how we were going to do it," he confesses. "But I was on board to work with Bob again, knowing he had the confidence in me. I think we both felt we'd be learning as we went along." Schmidt edited the animated voices, watching an empty void in the shots. "For the first take, they'd have a rubber rabbit moved through the frame," he says. "I had burned that into my imagination." The rubber Roger Rabbit is still at London's Elstree Studios today. "We came back to Universal to edit as quickly as we could, then fly to London and give those sequences to the animators," he continues. "Then we'd fly back to Amblin, edit some more, then get on a plane — four or five times." Meanwhile, the compositing was done by ILM in Marin County. "It was a logistical nightmare." The animation was so expensive that Schmidt had to get the edit right the first time. "It was almost like cutting negative," he remembers. "I asked if I could have an extra eight frames on every shot, just in case. They said, 'Absolutely not!'" A total of 326 animators worked on the film, with over one million drawings produced, for 82,080 frames of animation. "We didn't have time to step back and question it. We just kept our fingers crossed that it was gonna work," he adds. "Bob had done a fantastic job directing it. And [Oscar- winning animator] Richard Williams' work was wonderful." Schmidt says that he and Zemeckis were so close to the movie that they didn't always know what they had. "It was magical to see the animation gradually come to life," he says. "Before Back to the Future, I'd never done special effects. We had 30 effects shots then, and thought that was overwhelming. How are we ever going to do this? Roger Rabbit had over 1,000 effects shots! "We were cutting until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and sleeping on the dubbing stage." Budgeted at $70 million, Roger Rabbit was the most expensive movie of the 1980s. The film won four Oscars out of seven nominations: Film Editing, Sound Effects Arthur Schmidt receiving his first Oscar for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Photo by Long Photography/AMPAS A scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Photo courtesy Universal Pictures/Photofest Arthur Schmidt at his home in Sherman Oaks, California in November 2013. CineMontage_May-Jun_14-3a.indd 35 4/15/14 3:27 PM