Wednesday, October 16, 2013

THE ART OF STORYBOARDING

Here's (above) a pairing of two Simpsons clips from two different episodes. I'm putting them up because they cut together so well. See what you think.

It starts with the interior of Homer's garage. He drives his car in and hits one of the shelf supports.

He gets out of the car unaware that a heavy power tool is sliding down toward him.


BONK! It hits him on the head!


After a beat (above) he continues walking, looking like a zombie.


Inside the house he walks matter of factly into the bedroom...


...gets into bed...


...and immediately falls asleep.


A moment later his alarm rings. He turns it off thinking it's morning.


He gets out of bed to go to work, and begins to walk O.S.


Now we're in the living room, on the second clip. Without warning a door opens and Homer comes in, causing skateboarding Bart to smash into the door.



Homer takes out an invitation to a barbecue, and hands it to his daughter. Squashed Bart is behind the door. 

I could go on, but there's no more space. Do you see why I like this transition? He's still effected by the hit on the head. When we see him leave the bedroom we expect to see him making breakfast in preparation for going to work. We think that's the gag, that he didn't get any sleep. Instead we see him in a happy but still ditsy state announcing to his daughter a cock-eyed invitation to a barbecue. It's so unexpected. 

I love board gags that lead the audience to expect one gag, then hits them with another.  

Neat, huh?

[BTW: Some of my offline friends disagreed with me and said they couldn't see anything of value in the post above. Haw! De gustibus non disputibus (There's no disputing taste)!] 

6 comments:

Joshua Marchant (Scrawnycartoons) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephen Worth said...

I'm afraid this one flew over my head.

ardy said...

Eddie, your experiment is a hallowed ritual here on the internet. Loads of amateur and wannabe artists mash clips of cartoons together in original sequences to create a new joke, usually a more absurd one or a non-sequitur.

On youtube, they call them YouTube poops. Most of them are terrible, obviously, and nowhere near as concise or clever as your joke. They tend to be really sloppy, obnoxiously random for randomness sake, juvenile and annoying. Some of them have brilliant moments that really catch me off guard and make me laugh. I wish I could link you an example but I can't find anything good. Searching for them is an absolute crap-shoot. There are so many of them because of how easy and fun they are to make.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Ardy: YouTube poops!? They have a name?
Yeah, I see them all the time. Most are really annoying but, as you said, there's a good one every once in a while.

Unknown said...

I love it but it would just need a few more drawings to really work. A close up of Bart all squished and stuff could do the trick after Homer's done talking to Lisa.

Aaronphilby said...

I love the Simpsons.