ED SULLIVAN: A REALLY BIG SHEW

That's Ed Sullivan (above), the TV variety show host who first introduced The Beatles to American TV. Um, well actually it's George T., a Sullivan impersonator. I couldn't find a good picture of Ed, so this'll have to do.

Anyway, I'm a big Ed Sullivan fan. Poor Ed was the world's stiffest man. It's as if he had rigor mortis while still alive. Amazingly, he was able to use that to his advantage...on him it actually looked good!



Sullivan was the king of awkward. He never knew what to do with his arms. He was always folding and unfolding them and, when he got tired of that, he'd pull on his face or stand with his hands on his waist like Superman.

How do you like the impersonation Jerry does here (above)? The coat hanger shoulders, the "really bigs," the hands-glued-to-the-side when he walks...it's all there. How do you like the way Jerry plugs the sponsor's products?




Here (above) Jackie Mason further refines the Sullivan walk. The film begins badly, so you might want to skip the first 10 seconds. The sound's bad too, but don't let that deter you from watching. This is a brilliant parody.



Okay, one more impersonation (above), this time by Paul Terry. Do you see how the jacket rides up when he puts his hands on his waist? That's because the arm holes are cut low, so all the shoulder padding is pushed up when he lifts his arms. My "Wrinkle Jacket" does that. I did a whole YouTube video about it.

GIRL EXPRESSIONS

Most female expressions are the same as men's (above). Nothing mysterious here, just the same expressions of joy and sadness that men have, only on a smoother, sexier, more easy to read surface.

But hold on...there's some expressions that don't get on charts like this. We all know that some expressions are unique to women, so unique in fact, that men have difficulty understanding them. Let's take a look at a few.........

 Okay, this expression for example....what the heck does it mean? My best guess is that it's saying, "I don't know whether I'm attracted to you or not, but here's a low intensity sexy look to keep you interested while I make up my mind."

Or this one (above). Is that a neutral expression? Is she irritated? Is she murderous? Is she daydreaming? She doesn't seem ecstatically happy, but that's about the best I can say.

What is this woman (above) saying? I feel silly for asking since she's obviously striking a model's pose and not trying to convey a real emotion...yet there is something else going on there, I just can't figure it out.

 Here's a girl (above) who's shocked by something unpleasant that she's just seen. The basic emotion is easy to read...what makes it noteworthy is that a secondary emotion seems seems to be overlayed on it. Taken all together she seems to be saying, "Oh, my God! My neighbor's been chopped up with an axe...and, er... doesn't my horrified expression look pretty?"

Man, you gotta feel sorry for women. They're what Norman Mailer called "prisoners of sex." They're doomed to be constant spectators on their own exterior lives. It's nice to be a guy, where you can tune out that self-awareness sometimes, and just relax.

How about this picture of a friend taken when she was a teenager? It's charming and doubly interesting when you realize that no man except Robert Pattinson would ever strike a pose like that. It's a girl thing. There's nothing wrong with that; actually I like the idea that girls have their own expressions. It's just interesting that expressions can be gender specific.

By the way, some girls have their own dialects too. In the late twenties and early thirties it was what we would call today, "Telephone Operator." Today it's "Valley Girl." Girls have their own textiles, color palettes, glasses, bottled water, cigarettes, recipes, candy, philosophy, books, cable channels, movies...even their own pencils and pens.....even their own science. It's a different culture.

MY OWN ANIMATION STYLE? [REVISED]

You must think I'm nuts for reposting these two videos so soon after I'd posted them before. I'm doing it because I really do have something new to say about them. They've pointed me in a new direction and I'm so happy about it that I can barely contain myself.

What I see in them is a personal style of acting that's been simmering in my head for a long time. I'm picturing how this live action style would look in animation. If I could draw it the way I act it out, then I'd have a style that would be completely my own. Isn't that what every artist prays for...a unique style?



To see what I see in this video (above) imagine the roles of the little girl and the stern schoolmaster combined in one person. I picture a little girl who obsessively acts out what other people say to her, so there's lots of opportunities for back and forth acting in the same person. I love the idea of writing for the acting, something that few animation writers do.  If you want to see what I mean, watch the video from 4:10 to 6:05.

On a different but related topic, I wonder why animation took the path it did, where animators learn general skills then apply those skills in whatever way their employer directs them. That's a good plan for most animation, but does it all have to be done that way?

Why can't I have a character that I animate particularly well, and shop him (or variants of him) around to the studios for use in their own projects? The studio would own the variant of my character that I do for them, but I could animate other variants for other studios. It's as if Clark Gable were a free agent who played many roles for many bosses, but was always recognizably Clark Gable. Does that make sense? Am I explaining it right?

I told this to John and he thought the idea was completely hair-brained, just the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. In his view having an independent artist come in would undermine the director's vision and make it difficult for other animators and designers to get on the same track. Maybe, but in my view John's putting too much emphasis on the independence of the animator. Clark Gable still took direction wherever he went, and so would my hypothetical artist.  Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this way of working to John because the way he does things made him the funniest animation director of his time. Why mess with something that works?

Mike Barrier stirred up a big controversy when he suggested something similar to what I'm saying here. You should have seen the letters he got! People were outraged. Me...I think there's something in it.

PRETTY FACES

Everybody loves a beautiful face, but be honest...don't you love pretty faces (above) more?

Pretty isn't quite as mathematically perfect as beautiful, and it may be a bit nerdy, but it's more likely to include friendliness and character. 

Beautiful is for magazine covers and the movies. Pretty is accessible. It's what you find in the real world if you're lucky.

Some women (above) straddle the line between pretty and beautiful. That's okay, I'll accept them as honorary pretty types. 

Pretty entitles the possessor to giggle and be fun to be with.

Of course pretty women can have flaws just like anyone else. I'll bet the pretty girl above has a depressive disorder.

Here's (above) a pretty woman that strikes me as positively dangerous. Men would be well advised to walk the other way, but it would take an exceptional man to do that.

THE GREAT GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

Weeell....if you weren't at Steve Worth's last night, TOO TOO BAD! You missed a chance to meet ace Twilight Zone writer, George Clayton Johnson (that's Steve on left and  George on the right, above). For readers who are unfamiliar with George, here's a yeoman introduction cribbed from Steve' blog, Animation Resources:

Mr. Johnson was one of the principal writers on Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone”, writing both stories and screenplays for such legendary episodes as “The Four of Us Are Dying”, “Kick the Can”, “A Game of Pool”, and “Nothing in the Dark”. He also was the writer of the first regular episode of Star Trek to air, “The Man Trap” and the feature films “Logan’s Run” (he co-wrote the novel the film was based on) and “Oceans 11″. He was part of a group of Southern California science fiction writers that included Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Charles Beaumont. He collaborated with Ray Bradbury on the story for “Icarus Montgolfier Wright”, an Academy Award nominated animated film produced by Format Films.

I came to the event with a bunch of questions for George, foremost of which was this: how does a dramatic writer fill in the details of a story without being boring? In George's Twilight Zone episode "A Game of Pool," the whole extended middle was a pool game. Now how do you make a thing like that interesting? 


The answer isn't obvious. I'd just seen the episode and there wasn't a single second where the film was less than fascinating, even though there were no fights, shouting matches, power outages or third characters. How did George keep the interest level so high? You're going to die when you hear what he said.

The answer in paraphrase was...personality...character friction...two appealing ideas in conflict...the gradual unveiling of an overriding great thought...and. of course, suspense about the outcome of the game and how the story's going to end.


Fine, I reply, but what kind of character conflict could possibly keep our interest for so long? One man's a seasoned pro and the other's a talented usurper. So what? What can you do with that, that hasn't been done a million times before?


George's answer was that I hadn't done my homework. I should have paid more attention to the human relationships on display in the street. It's not enough to characterize people as pro or usurper, or shy or extroverted. You have to try to understand why they're that way. Their outward actions are a manifestation of their inner ideas about the world. Exactly what are those ideas? What happens when those ideas are challenged? It's not anger, it's something more interesting. 

Holy Cow! When all those things come into play, the task of filling up the middle of the story seems like fun. In fact, the middle now becomes the most interesting part. Thanks, George! I'll never look at that problem the same way again!


BTW: are these theories relevant to animated comedy? Mmmmmm...maybe not exactly. Cartoon comedy has its own rules. But they're still very, very interesting, you have to admit.

AAAAAARGH!!!!!!!

Gee, I couldn't finish this post (above) about date rape before it was time to rush off to Steve's place to meet...in person...a wonderful screenwriter, George Clayton Johnson. It was a terrific night! I'll tell you all about it after I get some sleep, I'm just too... sleepy......to..........write..................

ACTING SEEN FROM THE BACK (EXPANDED VERSION)

Thinking about the opening back shot in "Miracle on 34th Street" (see the previous post) got me thinking about the subject of back shots in general. I'm a big fan of back shots (actually back acting, not just isolated poses) in live action, but you don't see them much in animation. That's a shame. Back shots are funny. Where would "The people of Walmart" site be without back shots like the one above?



I understand why animation people avoid them.  You can't easily study yourself in a mirror when you're drawing the back. You could draw somebody else's back, but they're not likely to act the scene right. I guess you could act it out yourself in front of a digital camera and play it back.

 I wonder how the dancers in the video above did it. How did they know how their dance would look to us? That's a nice dance, isn't it? 'Very effective from behind.

I can't find any ready-made clips of good animated back acting, which is what I meant to discuss. I can't even find any good live action reference for it, apart from Chaplin. I'll return to this subject later when I have better visuals.

Back acting is different than front acting. It's not just a question of making good silhouettes...back acting is more about timing and context. You have to make the audience delight in imagining what the face they can't see is thinking and doing.

Oh well, I have plenty of back-of-the-head reference. I'll talk about that. For me, back of the head means big ears (above), whether the person has them in front or not.

For the purpose of drawing, the small-eared girl in the upper right (above) should look like the girl in the lower left when she turns her head.

I call your attention to the wispy little neck hairs in the picture. I thought only guys had neck hair! I wonder if girls shave it. Maybe they just let it grow. Imagine what a girl would look like if she cut off all her normal hair but kept her long neck wisps. 

A good back of the head (above) is a thing of beauty, even on a guy. The two dots aren't mine.




I love over-the-shoulder shots, especially when the actor facing front has an extended acting scene. Laying bare your emotions to an impassive lump of hair and tweed in the foreground strikes me as funny. I tried it out in this video from a couple of years ago.

BTW, The best acting moments here come close to what I would have put into similar scenes if I'd been an animator working on an animated film. I really need to assemble a small reel of rough animation showing how I would animate characters using my own style of acting.