UPDATE: DreamWorks Animation set its first live-action combo

UPDATE – DreamWorks has checked in and corrected the earlier report from this morning. There will actually be NO live-action element to the story. CG animation will be used for the human world while hand-drawn animation will be used for the shadow world. So imagine ROGER RABBIT if the live-action world were CG animation and I think you have an idea of what they’re going for. Either way, still sounds pretty cool to me…

While Disney and Robert Zemeckis continue to tease a new ROGER RABBIT, DreamWorks is moving ahead on their first live-action/animated blend, a 2013 film titled ME AND MY SHADOW. Like ROGER RABBIT before it, the film will combine an animated character, in this case a shadow who’s sick of being stuck to the world’s most boring human, with a live-action universe.

Mark Dindal (CHICKEN LITTLE) is directing the film for the studio and while the animation department is already working on those aspects of the film, the rest of the film has yet to be cast. The film will be shot as a 3D movie as are all of DreamWorks Animation films.

Perhaps even more ambitious is that the film will combine both traditional hand-drawn animation with modern CG animation. The shadow world, a naturally flat environment as you might expect, will be rendered with traditional 2D animation and when the shadows enter the human world, they will be rendered with CG 3D animation.

DreamWorks hasn’t worked in hand-drawn animation since 2001’s SPIRIT: THE STALLION OF THE CIMARRON and one crew member said the project will be “super-challenging but very cool.” So far it sounds like both.