“Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage” (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) is one of five animated short films nominated for an Academy Award this year. From a purely artistic standpoint this animated short by French filmmaker Bastien Dubois is compelling to view. Colored pencil and watercolor drawings come to life, so that viewers feel like they’ve stepped into the pages of a traveler’s diary. Dubois undoubtedly achieved this using a rotoscoping technique in Adobe After Effects — a process of drawing masks, animating the path and then using the masks to define a matte.

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