Bob Sabiston

Bob Sabiston born 1967 is an American film art director computer programmer and creator of the Rotoshop software program for computer animation Sabiston began developing software as an undergraduate and then graduate researcher in the MIT Media Lab from 1986 to 1991 While at MIT and also after moving to Austin Texas in 1993 Sabiston used his 2D3D software to create several short films including Gods Little Monkey 1994 Beat Dedication 1988 and Grinning Evil Death 1990 Grinning Evil Death was widely seen on the first episode of MTVs Liquid Television show Gods Little Monkey won the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for 1994 In 1997 he developed his interpolating rotoscope program Rotoshop1 for an animation contest sponsored by MTV The software was used to produce a series of 25 30second 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 In 2000 Sabiston hired thirty graphic artists in the Austin areacitation needed to help makeRichard Linklaters film Waking Life2 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 film The Five Obstructions Both Grasshopper and The Five Obstructions were shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 In 2004 Sabiston was hired as Head of Animation for Richard Linklaters A Scanner Darkly 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 of handdrawn shapes and lines over video The software isproprietary and currently not available for use outside of Sabistons production company Flat Black Films Sabiston is also the creator of Inchworm Animation a paint and animation program for the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo 3DS It was released on April 25 2011 in North America and subsequently in Europe Australia and Japan3 Since 2008 Sabiston has developed several apps for iOS the 3d mindmapping app Headspace the modeling3dprinting app Voxel the videogame Retroid and a drawing keyboard Jot Keyboard In 2015 he released Lowlander a tribute to Richard Garriotts classic videogame Ultima II