ANIMATING MIME EXERCISES

I'm not working right now so I spent part of my day yesterday animating on my ipad mini and reading notes I took on a book about mime. I'm not thinking about becoming a mime...I just wondered if they might know some things that animators could use.  Anyway, it occurred to me that I might combine the two things by animating a couple of standard mime exercises on the ipad. I could do it rough, with stick figures...it might not be much trouble.

Is it a good idea? Probably not. Even so I'll try one or two. If they don't work out there's always the "delete" button.

If anyone reading this has studied mime maybe you'll recognize this exercise:

Let your attention go to a particular part of the body. It's a soloist. Let that part do something people might like to watch, and keep the rest of the body relatively still.  Gradually let the body join in, in the role of a chorus or a counterpoint. 

Here's another one:

Posit that you have a safety zone, a circle about two feet in diameter. It might be a place of fun while the outside world is one of drudgery, or it could be a place of relaxation while the rest of the world is full of high tension. When you're in it you're safe, but you're allowed to stay in there only for a few seconds then you have to leave.

Interesting, eh?

BTW: The pictures illustrating the end of this post are all of pantomimists, which makes them mimes of a sort. Pure mime is more stylized than pantomime. It's like ballet in that it requires a beautiful silhouette and graceful, silent actions. Pantomime isn't as physically demanding but it's funnier and may allow an occasional spoken word.

Shown are Mr. Bean, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, and Red Skelton.

FUTURE FASHION

Fashion has been funny for at least four decades and it shows no sign of abating. The big trend in recent times is clothes that fit but don't don't fit.  Here the model wears a tailored version of the kind of felt costumes that puppets wore in TV shows like "Fireball XL-5." Maybe there's a hint of anime in it, too.

Stiff bras are funny and for that reason I predict their return. They'll keep their shape even when the girl reclines, with the result that girls will recline more often.

Nerds are everywhere nowadays and they've influenced fashion. Girls usually combine the nerd look with other things. This girl (above) starts with nerd but uses tattoos for a hipster accent and bare feet for a touch of hippy.

Here's (above) an interesting picture. It has nothing to do with what the girl is wearing, it's about the pose she's taken. She's deliberately emphasizing the line of her jaw and of the back of her neck, something only professional photographers used to do.

I'm guessing that came about because of the latest trends in bathroom design. Modern bathrooms have two large mirrors, one in front, and one in back. The result of that is that a greater number of people than ever before have an awareness of what they look like from the back and side.  That's bound to effect fashion and even the type of poses people strike in public.

   In my opinion the muscular look for women will soon go out of fashion, but that's probably just wishfull thinking.

FUNNY FASHION MODEL WALKS

 For the animators out there, I thought I'd put up some funny walk reference. In this case it's fashion models who fall on the runway. Sometimes the fall is the funny thing, more often it's the walk on wobbly feet that precedes the fall.



I feel sorry for these girls. I'll bet models who fall don't get asked back. Add to that the impossibly high heeled shoes, the rule against looking down, and the thin and slippery Mylar walkways. You can fall through those runways and it's just like falling into a manhole. Add to that all the trouble it takes just to get the gigs and a diet that consists of carrot sticks and coffee. Yikes!

[HAW! I told this to Mike and he disdainfully said something like, "Oh, those poor, poor supermodels who get outrageous sums of money because they have the rare skill of being able to walk and turn around. Gee, I sure feel so sorry for them!" Hmmmm. The man lacks the proper respect.]



Even without accidents model walks are really funny. They practice walking "fierce."



Here's an interesting video. The coach is on the right and the student is on the left. The student has all the moves down, but she lacks the casual elegance of the coach.  I wonder if that quality is teachable. Maybe you have to be born with it.

Somewhere in the videos a model talks about the way to do big strides in ultra high-heels. The trick is to avoid putting weight on the heel, to lift the leg high, and to have all parts of the shoe touch the ground at the same time. Wait a minute...that describes a march...only the march can't be allowed to look like a march. Disguising it takes a lot of practice.

Not only that, but a flat foot and a straight up body implies that the model's walk isn't a controlled fall like they describe in animation class. The forward leg has to use muscle power to drag the rest of the body forward, and somehow the model has to make this look effortless. Geez! It sounds like a tough life.

Right now funny model walks are the domain of a small number of skinny women, but you have to wonder if it'll become more general someday. The future may not value the casual look the way we do today.

HALLOWEEN MASKS 2014

It's HALLOWEEN season...well sort of...I'm getting an early start. Once again Theory Corner is poking around, trying to locate the best masks for its readers. I'll open with one you probably saw on the shelf last year. You'd have had to buy a whole costume to get it but the discount stores were selling them cheap.  

Here's (above) one I've only seen on the internet: a cartoony Indian mask...or is it a Flapper? I can't tell.

How about a TV game show mask (above)? Man, I'd LOVE to have one of these on my wall. 

I love old time paper masks. Some of the best ones came on the back of cereal boxes. 

This Halloween I'll try to make most of the masks I use. I might start with something a little like this (above).

 Wow! Everybody's had a teacher that looks like this (above). I love masks that make fun of ordinary, every day reality.

I'd sell my children into slavery to get a pair of rubber feet like this (above)! Er...if my kids are reading this...I'M JUST KIDDING! The buyer would have to throw in a game show mask to get me to consider it seriously.

Nice, very nice.

MORE DISNEYLAND WEIRDNESS

Here's some more Disneyland walkaround costumes. I'll start with Captain Hook from...I'm guessing...the early 1970s. Yikes!

The park seems to have had trouble with this character. In the photos I've seen they never seem to get it right. Here (above) the character has a boxy face and shark eyes. I admit that it's kinda' funny, but....he's not the animated Disney Hook. No way.

Here's (above) a Disney redo of the costume and this time it is Hook, but it's a different Hook. It looks like Cyril Richard from the Mary Martin live action Peter Pan. Richard made a great Hook but so did Hans Conried. Why would Disney abandon its own character in favor of someone else's interpretation? Strange...very strange.

So far as I know, the Hook costume likeness that came closest to the one in the animated film was a Halloween mask by the famous mask maker, Don Post. I have one of those (above), and it looks great.

Another character the studio had trouble with seems to have been Minnie Mouse. Here she is looking like a dog (above). She's standing beside Pluto who actually is a dog but who looks more like a chicken here.

Actually these costumes are probably the Ice Capades costumes that Walt borrowed for the opening of Disneyland. Poor Walt. He doesn't look very happy with what he's seeing.

Here's Mickey and Minnie from an earlier Disney era, before Disneyland. It was common for licensed dolls and costumes of the day to look horrific and amateurish. That's odd because because that period coincided with the Golden Age of American illustration.

HAW! These costumes (above) are from 1931 and probably weren't designed by the studio. They look like some kind of bondage outfit filtered through a Silent Hill sensibility.

This story has a happy ending, though. Eventually most of the costumes (above) were done right.

Well, actually it doesn't have a happy ending, because during the hippy period the costume (above) designs started to degenerate again. What happened?

Maybe somebody thought the old costumes were too scary for kids. I doubt that kids felt that way. I'll bet they loved them.

DISNEYLAND CHARACTER COSTUMES

It's hard to imagine what a truly weird place Disneyland used to be. For a short time after Disneyland opened, the park was full of costumed demons like the one above. I think that's because the park didn't have many walkaround costumes of its own and had to borrow hideous ones from the Ice Capades.

It was decided that a new costume look was needed and photos from the period show some of the experiments.

Here's (above) The Three Little pigs again. This time they're buck naked below the waist. It's something you never notice in cartoons, but somehow the costumes bring it out.

Wow! Here's (above) a Mickey from the next costume era, which favored a cartoony look. This time they got it right. My guess is that Ward Kimball had something to do with it, but I could be wrong. Mickey looks great here!

So does Minnie (above)!

In our time the lumpy corporate Mickey (above) dominates. I can't believe that anyone actually preferred this.

Back to the classic, cartoony look: Haw! I love this picture. It looks like a little girl has stopped to talk to one lone pig and doesn't notice that other demented pigs have come in and surrounded her. Finally the Big, Bad Wolf comes in. Uh-oh! It's too late to run away now.

To judge from old photos it used to be common to see both villains and nice guy characters wandering around the park. Good! That's the way it should be.

The cartoony Grumpy (above) used to wander around.

So did the cartoony Mad Hatter (above). Disney should bring all these walkaround costumes back into everyday use.

I'm not a fan of the plush toy look of some of the newest costumes, but I have to admit that I'd like a picture of myself with this Pluto. That face is just made for photos.

WRITTEN WHILE SLEEPY

Forgive me, I'm writing a blog when I'm very, very sleepy again, and I'm way too groggy to write anything thought out. I'll try to free associate and see what happens.

Well, I've been obsessively repeating the name of a library film I saw recently: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." Isn't that a beautiful combination of words? I think it's from an old jump rope song which goes:

Rich man, poor man,

Beggar-man, thief,

Tinker, tailor,

Indian chief.

...or something like that. English is such a beautiful language. Speaking it is like playing a Stradivarius. What do you think of the sound of this poem (below) by Auden?




The reader's voice (above) is a little indistinct but she makes up for it by striking exactly the right emotional tone. I wish I could hear her read more.

I'm currently writing a long-format story outline and the sound of words has been on my mind. I don't have a very good ear for the sound of words, at least not when I'm writing my own. I try to make up for it by having something interesting to say, but that doesn't always work. How can you hear Auden's poem and come away thinking that the sound of words doesn't matter?

Lately I've been thinking about what subjects are easiest to write good dialogue for. So far I have: arguments, bragging, threats, enumeration and love scenes. Absolutely nothing in the world is easier to write than an argument, but you have to be careful lest it devolve, Monty Python-like, into simple contradiction. I hate dialogue like:

HENRY: "Pass the potatoes."

BILL: "Whaddaya you want the potatoes for? They're fattening."

HENRY: "What do you care why I want them? Gimme the potatoes!"

BILL: "I'm just saying."

HENRY: "I'm gonna count to ten."

You could have the characters talk like that all day, but in the end what have you got? Just simple contradiction. But that kind of dialogue is seductive 'cause it's easy to write and easy to act. Even John Patrick Shanley (the writer of "Moonstuck") uses it. He did it in "Beggars at the House of Plenty."

A long time ago I saw a couple of Ibsen plays and was unable to understand why he was so popular with actors. Maybe now I get it. For one thing he writes scenes that highlight the performance. For another he writes dialogue where the speaker frequently seems to change his mind or have revelations in mid-sentense. I guess actors like the unpredictability and emotional fireworks. I'm a comedy guy so that technique isn't very useful to me, but...you never know.

Okay, that's it.