An 'Animated' Supreme CourtWant to see video of U.S. Supreme Court arguments? Everyone does, but nobody can because cameras are not permitted in the courtroom. But now there is an alternative—on Twitter.
SCOTUS-Toons, cartoon animations by computer science undergrad Daniel Lee Meeks, are beginning to catch the attention of appellate lawyers and other SCOTUS fans, such as veteran advocates
Robert Loeb of
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, and
Daniel Geyser of
Stris & Maher.
Meeks said he started last summer playing with ways to use the computer to automatically generate animations from audio files. "Basically it was just opening and closing a cartoon character’s mouth based on how loud the audio is," he said. That's a screen shot, above, of SCOTUS-Toons argument clip.
Looking for something to animate, Meeks recalled how in 2012 he tried to find video of the oral arguments in the Affordable Care Act challenge—National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. He found only audio. Later, HBO's John Oliver aired his
“Puppy Justices” video that people started editing into complete oral argument videos.
"I wished something like Puppy Justices or SCOTUS-Toons had been around when I wanted to 'see' the NFIB v. Sebelius arguments," Meeks said. "Even though Puppy Justices seemed like more of a joke, I thought if taken a little bit seriously, something like them was not a bad idea since they were the only way to 'see' what happened in the Supreme Court."
Meeks said he researched the feasibility of creating hour-long videos from the SCOTUS audio itself. The audio and transcripts from the Supreme Court website and time code data from the Oyez website, he said, made it easy enough to try to make a video for every oral argument this term.
Over last summer, Meeks created a computer program that he used to animate videos for three Supreme Court cases. He created cartoon avatars for the justices and the lawyers arguing each case. He said it takes a few hours to create a video from scratch with his program.
"I did not expect anyone to watch any of the SCOTUS-Toons videos, other than a few of the most high profile cases," said Meeks. "But over the last couple of weeks, a few of the lawyers that argued before the Supreme Court have started finding the SCOTUS-Toons videos of their cases and have been tweeting them and people have started watching them—all the way to the end."
One of those lawyers was Orrick's Loeb, who recently
tweeted his admiration.
"My reaction was astonishment and amazement that someone would take the time to produce something so zany for all of the court’s cases this term," Loeb said. "I think some of the depictions are pretty good, others less so. Maybe some of the justices will not like their avatars and this will motivate them to allow real video. I doubt it, but hope springs eternal."
Meeks said he hopes to work in the creative side of computer science—animation or gaming. In the meantime, he plans to continue SCOTUS-Toons next term and create some videos this summer of landmark Supreme Court arguments.
"Obergefell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage) and Miranda v. Arizona (Fifth Amendment) have already been requested by someone and I personally want to make a video for NFIB v. Sebelius," he said.
And the computer program he uses to make the cartoons needs some tweaking, he said.
"Many of the people that watched my videos are more observant than I thought they would be," Meeks said. "One person has pointed out that the clock in the background showed the wrong time. I was not even aware what time the clock showed and I drew it."
Comments
Post a Comment