MILT GROSS AND RUBE GOLDBERG

Two of my favorite cartoonists were Milt Gross and Rube Goldberg. Milt Gross often gave top flight poses to all the players in the frame, both the aggressors and the reactors. 

Rube Goldberg staged everybody in the same shot too, but frequently gave the best poses to the reactors, as in the in the strip above.

Okay, he sometimes gave the aggressor (above) the best poses, but you you see what I'm getting at.

I've been influenced by Goldberg so in photo stories, like the kind I do on this blog, I usually give the emphasis to the listener.

 Here's excerpts from a photo story I did in June, 2009. The girl (played by me) is surprised when her stupid ex-boyfriend (off screen) approaches her in a restaurant. I'll leave out the dialogue.

 She humors him, hoping he'll go away.

 But he doesn't.

He says that, now that he knows she hangs out at this restaurant, he'll hang out there too.

 Yes sir, they'll be inseparable from now on.

 The boyfriend bids goodbye for now...

 ...but adds that he'll be back.

 Well, it goes on. You can link to the whole thing on the side bar. The story's called "The Ex-boyfriend."

The odd thing is that, despite my affection for reactive acting, the animation I worked on usually put the emphasis on the speaker.

That's because I like to work with aggressive characters. They're appealing. The audience naturally wants to see what they're doing, and so do I. Even so, I had a lot of Goldbergian fun working on the reactive scenes and I wish I could have done more of them.

BTW: the last two pictures above aren't mine.

BEFORE AND AFTER ROOM MAKEOVERS

As you probably know,  I'll be moving in a few months and I've done some research into "staging." In case you don't know the term, in the housing biz that's another word for "where you put the furniture." Some of the best staging advice I've found came from before-and-after comparisons that I found on the net.  Take a look at these examples and see what you think.

By the way, Most of the interior decoration shown here isn't to my taste. I'm just isolating the elements that interest me and ignoring the rest.

 Wow! Compare the "Before" and "After" photos above. What a difference moulding makes! The architect made the ceiling too high but the moulding saves it.

 Boy, leather furniture (above) looks great in wood-paneled man caves but it doesn't work in suburban living rooms. It attracts too much attention.  Fabric covered furniture does a better job of fitting in.

This comparison (above) also underlines another truth, that hardwood floors should never be stained too dark.

Let me digress for a moment to address another issue: does white fabric covering on sofas and chairs really work? It certainly does here (above) but then again this was designed by a professional to look good in photography. Could ordinary people pull this off?  Is white too girly for manly men? Is it practical?  It'll show every spill, won't it?  I don't know what to think.

 I have lots of books that'll require shelves, so I won't need decorative, elephantine cabinets like the one above.  I do like the table in front of the stone wall on the "after" side,  and the two black table lamps look great. Ditto the window curtains. Ditto the hanging light. The desk design in the after photo doesn't work IMHO.

This is an interesting photo because the elements I singled out...the black table, the two lamps, the curtains and the hanging light... are all items which wouldn't impress me much if I saw them out of context in a store. Professional decorators seem to have an eye for what works well in combination.

A SECOND LOOK AT A GREAT CARTOON

I like "Jolly Rounders" so much that I can't help adding to what I wrote last time. It's wonderful to have a blog like Theory Corner where things like this can be discussed in detail. 

Anyway, I like the textured barebones background and the midlevel line of the wall boards. Some artists avoid midlevel anything because it divides the composition into two and gives it an ignorant, unschooled look. For me that's precisely why the technique is useful. Sometimes you want an ignorant look. 

I also like the way the artist puts the irritable wife on the left and gives the open doorway equal emphasis. No doubt this is to make a space for the kids when they come in later, but it serves another purpose. Given that the woman is touchy and has a short fuse it's funny to think she's near a doorway where any doofus could walk in and bother her. 

  

We cut to the outside and her ridiculously huge number of comically eager clones. I like the open front door which reminds us that there's a touchy, irritable person inside.

The kids react to something O.S. and run inside. 

The little clones run in and announce that Dad's outside and he has a "bimbo" (that's what the title card calls her) with him. Mom tosses the broom and heads for the door.

Uh-oh. Whatever fools are out there now have the total attention of a Type A character.

There's Dad outside, beckoning to his "bimbo." This is a technique I often use myself. The bimbo is an outrageous character and a character that funny shouldn't be in the scene when you first see them. They have to make an entrance to underline their importance. The act of beckoning functions as a kind of fanfare.

And here she is! I LOVE this hippo. Her design and very stiff but charming acting style is a masterful example of skilled ignorance. I also like having the empty space on the left where the angry wife will stand when she comes out. You could argue that leaving an awkward space there is unnecessary but...and this is important...if it's funny then it IS necessary. You could handle mom's entrance with cuts and pans and that might be good cinema, but it's not funny.

I have more thoughts about the staging in this cartoon but I'll have to save them for the time when I have the whole cartoon infront of me, and not just a tiny fragment.

FUNNY LIGHTING AND STAGING

This (above) is a dumb composition, isn't it? I mean that as a compliment.  It's for a comedy so the art director wisely violated the normal rules of composition. The picture's too symmetrical,  too much attention is paid to the tablecloth, and the three doors are distracting...but so what? It's funny.

I LOVE ignorant staging!

You don't always need funny sets to make live background elements funny. It's about how you shoot them and light them. 

Here's (above) two ways to shoot a cup, the normal way and the funny, ignorant way. The cup on the left looks fine, but you'd call it dignified, rather than funny. In the world of cups it's a solid citizen, a device that earns its way by being useful to humans, a cup whose mother is proud of it...but it's not funny.

The cup on the right however, the one in the wide shot, is lonely and insecure, and maybe something of a klutz. He's probably always spilling things on humans. How do we know? Because the world he inhabits is so awkward. The ocean of empty space around the cup, the funky table, the lip of the table and the awkward area underneath...it all says that this silly cup hasn't got the brains to sit closer to the camera.  He's funny.   

BTW, I'm glad the art director didn't show too much detail in the cup background. Too much detail would have hinted at a larger story, and taken our attention away from the simple ignorance of the situation.

Study the deliberately ignorant and theatrical staging (above) in silent comedies. It just shouts, "This is a funny picture!"

Too many people assume that sets were made this way (above) because the films were made in a primitive time, when nobody understood composition. That's not true. Old timers understood composition at least as well as we do now.  They simply thought this way of doing things was funnier..

Even the lighting (above) was ignorant in those days. Lots of film people knew how to light properly, but comedians favored frontal lighting, which flattened out the face and gave it a cartoony, graphic look.

Stan Laurel insisted on in it in the early films he did with Hardy. 

Later he allowed very light shadows on one side. Other actors in their films were allowed to have deeper shadows, but not the two stars.

Still later, they were forced to use the same stark lighting that dramatic actors used. By then, producers were insisting that comedy people conform to dramatic rules.

By luck or intentional skill, early TV used the kind of flat lighting that we saw in some silent comedies. It made everything more funny. 

Lighting wasn't the only thing that was funny in early TV. The sets were funny too.  You can see the influence of old silent comedy staging.   

Me, I think that ignorant composition is bliss.

BTW: Mike's the biggest Laurel and Hardy fan that I know, and he wrote the following comment: 

"When Laurel & Hardy - whom I revere - left Hal Roach Studios in 1940 to move to 20th Century Fox in '41, they seem to age 20 years overnight. This was the direct result of the new studio's intrusive and insensitive meddling with the team.

Fox, who seem to have been as determined to ruin Laurel & Hardy as Paramount was to ruin Popeye (and MGM was to ruin Keaton, Our Gang and the Marx Brothers), insisted on uniformly realistic makeup and lighting in all their films. It didn't matter if it was a drama, musical or slapstick comedy - an approach about as individual as a cookie cutter.

Laurel instinctively knew the team needed stylization to be believable in the special world they created and inhabited. Besides keeping them young - and preserving the comic illusion that they were overgrown children - the subtle clown-white makeup the team had been using since their silent film days also kept them slightly cartoony, and that much more removed from harsh reality. Stylized sound effects, lively music and flat lighting accomplished the same feat, exactly what the team needed, and had had at Roach.

Of course, the front office couldn't resist tampering with the scripts as well, and their literal, assembly line, sausage factory approach was exactly opposite to what L&H had been used to up until that time. These are just some of the reasons why the boys are still delightful to watch in Saps as Sea, their last film shot at Roach in 1940 - and already old and tiresome in Great Guns, their first one made at Fox only one year.

Unfortunately, corporate interference with creative artists is just as destructive now as it was then. In the words of Scotty Beckett: 'They'll never learn...' "

FILM LESSONS FROM BUSTER KEATON

Here's an interesting book, especially if you live in L.A. and are a Keaton fan like I am. The book takes frame grabs from the films and puts them side by side with shots of the same backgrounds, made today. If you're like me, and thinking about shooting some outdoor footage yourself, you might be able to take away some interesting lessons from this book.

Here the composition in the frame grab (above, left) favors the people and not the building, and it's clearly funnier that way. Next time I'm shooting real people against a beautiful building, I'll remember this. The modern picture also seems too contrasty, and the cars are a distraction.

I can't stand walking down sun-drenched streets with no protection. I'm always glad for trees and awnings (above). Even so, the mansions have much more comedic impact in the treeless pictures at the top. There the starkness of the mansions is a potent symbol for power and wealth.

More mansion shots. The one on the top is so stark and sunny! I guess when you're filming in the real world you have to seek out the backgrounds that will look good on film, no matter hot and oppressive it is to film there.

I like the way the mansion reads like a simple shape in the top photo...the perfect backdrop for comedy.


Comparing the building photos in the upper left with the one on the lower right: boy, the lower one certainly seems tacky and overly contrasty. The awnings on the old buildings are also sorely missed. If your home or business doesn't have awnings, what are you waiting for? All buildings look better with awnings!

I love trees (above), but on filmed comedies they make the scene too busy.

What wretch tore down the buildings above?

By the way, this shot reminds me that a slightly high camera takes in more of the sidewalk and makes characters read better. A good idea is to shoot on an overcast day, which greys everything down, and wear a dark suit yourself.

I think The Stooges also used this corner (above) in one of their films. It's funniest when shot frontally and symmetrically like it is here.



Darkening the bottom (above) makes the building less funny.


Another case (above) where darkening the building takes the humor out. No doubt the crime in modern cities makes knee-high windows impractical. That's too bad. I love windows like that.

Above, one of the nice old buildings that used to abound in Los Angeles, and which Keaton used in one of his films. I want to know who tore these down, and if those people are still alive, so I can boot them in the pants. Note the beautiful awnings.