For the science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, see A Scanner Darkly.
A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 American adult animated science fiction thriller film written and directed by Richard Linklater, based on the 1977 novel by Philip K. Dick. The film tells the story of identity and deception in a near-future dystopia constantly under intrusive high-tech police surveillance in the midst of a drug addiction epidemic.
The film was shot digitally and then animated using interpolated rotoscope, an animation technique in which animators trace over the original footage frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films, giving the finished result a distinctive animated look. Principal photography began on May 17, 2004, and lasted six weeks.
The film features performances by Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are among the executive producers. A Scanner Darkly had a limited release on July 7, 2006, and a wider release on July 28, 2006, by Warner Independent Pictures. The film was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival, and was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form in 2007. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for its performances and animation, but performed poorly at the box office.
Plot In the near future, the United States has lost the war on drugs. Substance D, a powerful drug that causes bizarre hallucinations, has swept the country. Approximately 20 percent of the population is addicted. The government has developed an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and a network of undercover officers and informants.
Bob Arctor is an undercover agent, assigned to immerse himself in the drug's underworld and infiltrate the supply chain. Arctor has a vision of being in his house with a wife and two children in Anaheim, California; today he has two drug-addicted, layabout housemates: Luckman and Barris. The three spend time taking D and having complex, possibly paranoiac examinations of their experiences. At the police station, Arctor maintains privacy by wearing a "scramble suit" that constantly changes every aspect of his appearance and voice; he is known only by the code name "Fred". Arctor's senior officer, "Hank", and all undercover officers wear scramble suits, protecting their identities even from each other.
Since going undercover, Arctor has become addicted to Substance D, which he buys from Donna, whom Arctor hopes to purchase large enough quantities of D from so that she is forced to introduce him to her supplier. They have a tense, at times caring romantic relationship but she rebuffs his physical advances. At work, "Hank" orders "Fred" to increase surveillance on Arctor and his associates. Arctor's house is at the center of his investigation, since this is where Donna and the other addicts spend time. Arctor is inexpertly negotiating a double life and his use of D is damaging his brain. Barris is informing on Arctor to "Hank", arguing that Arctor is a terrorist, whilst also angling to be hired as a cop. Barris unknowingly conveys this information in the presence of Arctor, who is hidden behind his scramble suit.
"Hank" reveals to "Fred" that he has long known that he is Arctor, who seems surprised, and repeats his name in a disoriented, unfamiliar tone. "Hank" informs him that the real purpose of the surveillance is to catch Barris and that the police were deliberately increasing Barris' paranoia until he attempted to cover his tracks. "Hank" reprimands Arctor for becoming addicted to Substance D and warns him that he will be disciplined. "Hank" explains how seriously brain-damaged Arctor has become from D and "Hank" "phones" Donna, asking her to come pick up Arctor and take him to New-Path, a corporation that runs rehabilitation clinics. "Hank" leaves and in private removes his scramble suit, revealing Donna. At the New-Path clinic, Arctor and other D addicts show serious cognitive deficiencies.
"Donna", now known as Audrey, meets with Mike, a fellow police officer. They discuss how New-Path is secretly responsible for the manufacture and distribution of Substance D. Audrey expresses her growing ethical aversion to their police work, in which they deliberately recruited Arctor—without his knowledge—to become addicted to D; his health sacrificed so that he might eventually enter a New-Path rehabilitation center unnoticed as an addict and collect incriminating evidence of New-Path's D farms. Audrey and Mike debate whether Arctor's mind will recover enough to grasp the situation. New-Path sends Arctor to a labor camp at an isolated farm, where he mindlessly repeats what others tell him. Tending to corn crops, Arctor discovers hidden rows of the blue flowers that produce D. He secretly hides one flower in his boot, to bring to his "friends" at his next holiday from the farm.
Cast
Production Development Originally, Richard Linklater toyed with adapting the Philip K. Dick novel Ubik but stopped early on because he was unable to obtain the rights and he "couldn't quite crack it". He began thinking about A Scanner Darkly, another dark novel, while talking to producer Tommy Pallotta during the making of Waking Life. Linklater liked A Scanner Darkly more than Ubik and felt that he could make a film out of it. According to Linklater, the challenge was to capture "the humor and exuberance of the book but not let go of the sad and tragic". Linklater was not interested in turning the book into a big-budget action thriller as had been done in the past because he felt that A Scanner Darkly was "about these guys and what they're all doing in their alternative world and what's going through their minds is really what keeps the story moving". He wanted to keep the budget under $10 million so that he could have more creative control, remain faithful to the book, and make it an animated film.
After completing School of Rock, Linklater told Pallotta that he wanted to make A Scanner Darkly next. It was important to him that Dick's estate approve his film. Pallotta wrote a personal appeal and pitched a faithful adaptation of the novel to Russ Galen, the Philip K. Dick estate's literary agent who shared it with the late author's two daughters (Laura Leslie and Isa Hackett) who own and operate their father's trust. Dick's daughters were not too keen on "a cartoon version" of A Scanner Darkly. After high-profile adaptations of Minority Report and Paycheck, they took a more proactive role in evaluating every film proposal, including unusual projects like Linklater's. They read Linklater's screenplay and then met with him to discuss their respective visions of A Scanner Darkly. They felt that it was one of their father's most personal stories and liked that Linklater was not going to treat the drug aspects lightly, that he wanted to set it in the near future and make it right away.
Casting For the dual roles of Arctor and Fred, Linklater thought of Keanu Reeves. However, Linklater figured that the actor would have been reluctant to make another science fiction film after making The Matrix trilogy. Robert Downey Jr. was attracted to the film when he heard Reeves was going to star and Linklater to direct. He thought that the script was the strangest one he had ever read. Linklater wrote the role of Freck with Rory Cochrane in mind. The actor was interested but did not want to recreate his role in Dazed and Confused. Both Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder agreed to appear in the film based on the script. Reeves and Ryder agreed to work for the Screen Actors Guild scale rate plus any back-end profits. As with Linklater's earlier Waking Life, controversial conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones has a small cameo.
Principal photography Linklater assembled the cast for two weeks of rehearsals in Austin, Texas before principal photography began in order to fine-tune the script. The result was a fusion of Linklater's writing, the novel and the actors' input. To prepare for their respective roles, Cochrane came up with his character five minutes before he got on the elevator to work; Downey Jr. memorized his dialogue by writing it all out in run-on sentences, studying them and then converting them to acronyms; and Reeves relied on the book, marking down each scene in the screenplay to the corresponding page.
Principal photography began on May 17, 2004, and lasted six weeks. Arctor's house was located on Eric Circle in Southeast Austin. The previous tenants had left a month prior to filming and left the place in such a state that production designer Bruce Curtis had to make few modifications so that it looked like a run-down home. The filmmakers had looked at 60 houses before settling on this one. Linklater shot a lot of exteriors in Anaheim, California and then composited them into the Austin footage in post-production. Since the live action footage was to be animated over later, makeup, lighting and visible equipment, like boom mics, were less of a concern. However, cinematographer Shane Kelly carefully composed shots and used a color palette with the animators in mind. Sometimes, they would show up to tell Kelly what they needed. Because the movie was being shot digitally and then animated, occasionally actors forgot they would later be animated as they worked through a scene. Robert Downey Jr. noted that he completely forgot the scene would later be animated as he worked through several takes in order to produce the smoke ring that would be featured in Barris' first closeup shot.
Extensive on-set footage of the filming of A Scanner Darkly was featured in a UK documentary about Richard Linklater directed by Irshad Ashraf and broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2004.
Animation After principal photography was finished, the film was transferred to QuickTime for an 18-month animation process: second order magnified contrast separation. A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope, which was previously used in Linklater's film Waking Life. Linklater discussed the ideas and inspiration behind his use of rotoscoping in Ashraf's documentary, linking it to his personal experiences of lucid dreaming. Rotoscoping in traditional cel animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation makes use of vector keyframes and interpolates the in-between frames automatically.
The animation phase was a trying process for Linklater who said, "I know how to make a movie, but I don't really know how to handle the animation." He had gone the animation route because he felt that there was very little animation targeted for adults.
Post-production problems Originally, the film was supposed to be released in September 2005. Most of the animators were hired locally with only a few of them having movie-making experience. Six weeks into the animation process, only a few animated sequences were close to being completed while Linklater was off making Bad News Bears. Sabiston had divided the animators into five teams and split the work amongst them. However, there was poor communication between the teams, and the uniform animation style that Linklater wanted was not being implemented. After almost two months some animators were still learning the software, and Linklater became frustrated with the lack of progress.