COMEDIC FIGURE DRAWING / TECHNIQUES I'D LIKE TO TRY

For comedy drawing sessions I usually prefer draped models.  Sorry, I don't know who drew this. 

I don't think oddball contortions are the best use for a comedic model.

I prefer funny poses. There's always something about them that you'd never have figured out if you were just winging it. In this case (above), the angle of the feet. I like the clothing wrinkles, too. 

Maybe if someone held her feet up you could get something like this (above).

I like ignorant poses. 

As an experiment I'd like to try poses that are influenced by movies and animated cartoons I've seen. Somewhere out there, there's bound to be comedic male models who can do exaggerated public speaking poses like the ones Daffy Duck's doing here (above and below). 

The padded shoulders and gloves magnify Daffy's gestures so I'd try that on the real life model.

For a text, maybe fragments of one of Billy Sunday's prohibition sermons. Or maybe a poem. What do you think of this Walt Whitman parody (below)? 

AFTER WALT WHITMAN
by Richard Grant White

I happify myself.
I am considerable of a man.  I am some.  You are also some.  We
   are all considerable;  all are some. 
Put all of you and all of me together,  and agitate our particles by
   rubbing us up into eternal mash,  and we should still be some.
No more than some, but no less. 
O ensemble!  O quelque-chose!  O women!


Yes, women!
They look at me and my eyes start out of my head.
Women watch for me;  they do.  Yes, sir!
They rush upon me;  seven women laying hold of one man. 
O turnips!  O cucumber!  O beets, parsnips, carrots, O sass!

Geez, I'd kill to get a female model who could do poses like the one above.  The big butt is no problem. That's just pillows or towels stuffed into stretch pants. The hard thing would be to find a wig like the one above. Maybe a long wet rag might do the trick. Students can always make up the details of the long, funny hair, even if the real model's hair is short.

They can make the hands bigger than life, too.

Here's a pose that would require students to draw with a dark, "Sharpie"-type line...or, even better, a thick-and-thin capable brush pen. Charcoal or some other grey medium would be a great addition.

The idea isn't to copy the Olive Oyl reference slavishly but to make a funny, graphically stark and cartoony caricature of the live model.

HOW I MET MY WIFE

Folks are always are always asking how my wife and I met. Well, it was in New York City. I was an idealistic young animator, wandering the streets, lost in thought.

 I wasn't paying much attention to what was around me...

...or "who" was around me. I didn't notice the girl up ahead who'd stopped to light up a cigarette.

I stopped to light up myself, not realizing that I was muttering out loud.

EDDIE: "I could start the walk with an antic but it'll be funnier if the guy just goes into it...but then it'll look like I don't know what I'm doing."

DAISY: "What a dilemma!"

EDDIE: "Huh? Oh, sorry! I have an animation problem, but you wouldn't know anything about that."

DAISY: "Well, Mr. bigshot, it so happens that I DO know something about animation. I take it that you are familiar with the famous Chick Jones? He was the best director, you know."

EDDIE: "Chick Jones!? You mean CHUCK Jones? Yeah, he was great, but the real genius at that studio was Bob Clampett. Geez, when they directed at the same time Jones couldn't hold a candle..."

DAISY: "Well, there's an animation exhibit down the street. If you play your cards right I will permit you to take me there and show me this Bill Crumpet of yours.

THE NEXT DAY: AT THE MUSEUM OF COMIC ART:

EDDIE (VO): "Well, whaddaya think?"

DAISY: "I don't get it. That's what you like? Feet?"

EDDIE (VO): "That's from a storyboard done at Spumco, the best modern animation studio. It's a very funny drawing."

DAISY: "Hmmm...I'm learning something about you."

EDDIE: "Huh? About me?"

DAISY: "And what is this?"

EDDIE (VO): "That's a Chuck Jones character: Sniffles the Mouse."

DAISY (VO): "And this?  This is your Bill Crumpet?"

EDDIE (VO): "CLAMPETT,  Bob CLAMPETT! Yeah, that's from one of his cartoons. It's a lot funnier than Sniffles, I think."

DAISY: "Mmmm...I like Sniffles better."

EDDIE: "Well, maybe that's 'cause you're a girl. I mean, guys and girls like different things."

DAISY: "Oh, so now you don't like that I'm a girl?"

  

**************

Well, that's how it went down...well, er...sort of. In a way. Most of these pictures are from a film called "5 to 7."

ECONOMY OF MOTION (PART 2)

This is a post about economy of movement, the idea that all screen movement should have a specific purpose, and that superfluous movement should be avoided. By way of a negative example, here's (above) a speaker whose gestures are overwrought and distracting. Actually, it's kinda funny if you only watch for a minute or two. Repeating the same exaggerated gesture over and over is a good way to convey nervousness.



Here's an example (above) of the opposite: Madeline Kahn delivers her monologue beautifully when she's stiff as a board with only slight movement of the body. Most of the acting is in the face. I love face acting.

Here's an example (above and below) that combines minimalism with maximalism. The gestures are flamboyant at the same time they're pose-to-pose. It works great! Geez, I remember the first time I saw this. I nearly fell out of my chair.

Economy of motion is a powerful technique. John used it in Ren and Stimpy with  devastating effect. Even so, the wrong person might take it too far. I'm thinking of the acting class where the student lost points because he gestured with his hand when he spoke the line: "Why don't you sit down and take a load off your feet?" Purists would say that he should have indicated the chair with a simple nod of the head.

Haw! Minimalists hate hands. Actors are sometimes told to think of their hands as mittens without individual fingers. The theory is that splaying the fingers would call too much attention to them.

A purist would never get up out of a chair the way many people do, by leaning forward and pushing up off the knees. A purist gets up by simply...standing. It takes a bit of practice but purists like it because doing it smooth like that makes the act unobtrusive. After all, for them the dialogue is the important thing. The body is just a delivery system.

Even better (for the minimalists) is if the stander puts his hands in his pockets as he rises. That gets the despised hands out of the way. When the stand is completed the actor immediately begins to walk...no dawdling! No hand gestures!

So what's the Theory Corner take on all this? I love doing things with hands so minimizing them is probably not in the cards for me, but it's a fascinating idea, especialy when applied to secondary characters. I'm dying to have some excuse to play with it.

BTW: I knock motion theorists here but some of them are about putting interesting motion into an act, rather than taking it out. I'll write about them in a seperate post.

WHY DID CRITICS UNDERRATE CLAMPETT?

INT. FAST FOOD RESTAURANT:

MILT: "Hey, Eddie...you want to hear my latest thoughts on Clampett?"

EDDIE (VO): "More Clampett theories!!! Go ahead. I'm all ears!"

 MILT: "Well, Clampett gets a lot of attention these days and it's easy to forget that at one time he was denied the press that other 40s Warner directors got. Have you ever wondered how that came about?

EDDIE (VO): "Yeah, all the time. At one time Chuck and Friz got a lot of the credit, even though Bob was obviously the better filmmaker. Chuck outlived Bob and was pretty articulate about why he did what he did. I guess it pays to be eloquent."

MILT: "Well maybe, but I think it went deeper than that."

MILT: "The main reason was that Chuck and Friz relied on rules and formulas that were already described in books and magazine articles by the mid 30s. They were ready made for historians and critics to reference. Bob was more visceral and innovative. There were no ready-made words to describe what he was getting at."

EDDIE (VO): "Wow! True enough! In a Jones cartoon the bad guy always deserved what he got and Bugs administered the punishment. That's fine, but it got repetitive. After a while you found yourself yearning for a Clampett cartoon where Bugs just bothered the heck out of a poor, innocent patsy like Elmer. It just felt right." 

MILT: "Exactly. Bugs was shaking people out of their complacency. That's just classic comedy."

EDDIE (VO): "Haw! Try to explain that to Chuck and Friz, or to a critic who's obsessed with formulas."

MILT: "I sum it up this way: rules are fine in their place, but let's face it......"

MILT: "Rules are for beginners!"

************

P.S. In summing up Milt's ideas I sometimes resorted to a fictional paraphrase. If I goofed up, I hope he'll correct me in the comments section.

P.P.S. When I told a friend that I'd be doing a photo story about Milt he asked if I was going to add a wig and mustache. I indignantly replied that Milt is a good friend and that I would never stoop to such a cheap trick. 

HOW "COAL BLACK" COULD HAVE CHANGED ANIMATION

I'll start by stating the obvious, that Clampett's "Coal Black" was the best cartoon that Warners ever made. If you think about it, it also had the best soundtrack of any Warner cartoon. It weaved a lot of different black themes into a European orchestral matrix. It did so more successfully than Gershwin was able to do in "Porgy and Bess," and it told a story and wasn't just a sort of rock video. Thanks to Bob and Stalling and the gifted black musicians they worked with, the soundtrack holds together as a street smart, satisfying whole. It fit the jazz/swing sensibility like a glove.

Of course the voices are part of that matrix. They drive the film along as surely as the music does. According to Wikipedia those voices included Beulah Dandridge (above) as the voice of the Wicked Queen (did she also do the throaty "Prince and the gal, what a sickinin' sight" dialogue?)....

...Vivian Dandridge (above) as the voice of Coal Black....

.

...and comedian and singer Leo Watson (above) as the voice of Prince Chawmin'....a great cast!

Now I have a question for you....what would have happened if Clampett hadn't left Warners in 1946?  What if he and his unit, including Scribner and McKimson, had been able to stay together for a few more years? What if they had done more "Coal Black"-type cartoons? And here's an interesting question...what if they had given the whole Coal Black treatment to 40s nascent Rock 'n Rollers like Louis Jordan and his band? 

Do you see what I'm getting at? What if Clampett's Warner style had allied itself to early Rock 'n Roll? It could have happened, and if it had...why, the whole medium of animation might have taken a different turn. Rock and Roll ripped through the era like a tornado and animation and cartooning might have hitched a ride with it. Animation and cartooning would have had a contemporary feel, and we would have been spared all the stupid animated films where we learn a life lesson at the end. 

Imagine...animation that's street smart, that's for the whole family, not just kids, and that's genuinely entertaining with no condescension...the mind boggles.  

Of course I'm dreaming. It could never really have happened. Soon after Clampett left Warners the film industry changed. The courts ruled that studios couldn't own theaters, the theaters deleted shorts in favor of double features, the Baby Boom took hold and people stayed home with their kids and watched TV...there was no money to do expensive shorts, and after a time, no venue.  

Bob made a big sacrifice to do Coal Black. He had to do one, maybe even two cheater cartoons to pay for that film, and I imagine that couldn't have gone down well with the Warners management.  He took risks to give us something new and exciting, but the world yawned and went in a different direction. Man, life is hard on creative people. 

Here's a link to Coal Black. YouTube wouldn't let me embed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXFSsKFrCgY