I am a huge fan of the TV show The Amazing World of Gumball. I think it is the best show since Ren & Stimpy. Here is Ben Bocquelet’s test to pitch the show. Gumball has a huge cast of characters, done in a variety of techniques. This quick film finds a way to introduce a bunch of them in a high energy style.
Month: January 2013
Animated Characters as Actors
The title of this post might make it sound like this is another “animators are actors with pencils” speech, but it’s about casting characters into roles other than who they were to begin with.
Recently I was reading an essay by Peter Kramer on Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith. Part of his approach was through the idea of “Comedian Comedy”. This is any show where the comedian’s personal style is more important than the character he is playing. Mr. Kramer paraphrases Frank Krutnik:
Comedian comedy is characterized precisely by a fundamental mismatch between the identity of the performer…and the role he assumes within the fiction.
Actors like Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, and Jack Black bring their own distinct personalities to every comic part they play. Audiences come to see the actor do his special thing, rather than understand the nature of the character he’s cast to play. It is a special place in performance. Krutnik writes:
The comedian is marked within the text as having a privileged status compared to the other characters/actors: he is less fictionally integrated and has a relatively disruptive function in relation to the fictional world.
While this is rare in animation, it does happen. I am thinking of Mickey Mouse in a few of his classic shorts, like Gulliver Mickey or The Brave Little Tailor. He played Bob Cratchit in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, along with Scrooge McDuck an the rest of the Disney gang. Mickey’s casting as Bob Cratchit seems a natural direction for him, rather than a mismatch. A more disruptive example would be Daffy Duck playing Robin Hood. He’s clearly not heroic figure to begin with, but that’s part of parody. Cartoon characters are great for parody of classic work. At this point, Star Wars is a classic work, and hats of to Seth MacFarlane for putting his Family Guy cast into it. Please comment if you can recall any other examples.
To be able to do move beyond their origins, characters cannot be too extreme, too specialized. A toy spaceman, a talking car, a one eyed monster, or a superhero are made to fit into unique contexts. It’s easier to create a “Teenage mutant ninja turtle” than a “funny mouse.”
The World of Commedia Dell’arte
Here is an excellent set of youtube videos to educate you on commedia dell’arte. In this first video, she refers to the British TV show, Fawlty Towers, which helps to understand the characters.
This next video describes how the commedia traditions carry on to Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. She also mentions The Lion King.
This “character shape” video is great for animators, who often need ideas for creating specific characters walks. The “rich old man” is a character in Commedia, and the instructor mentions Mr. Burns, the Simpson character.
What I like about this next video is the approach to scenes. Have the character enter with a strong emotion already in place. And have them leave changed. When teaching animation, I get students describing their character as “just standing there, then something happens.” That doesn’t grab the viewer and bring them in at all.
This next video was included in my sub-verbal characters post.
Acting Tips from the Commedia Dell ‘Arte.
Two years ago I put these links in separate posts, but have combined them here. These are some useful articles written by Adam Gertsacov about acting in the commedia dell’arte. They are not long, and are fun reads. I think they represent an approach to acting which is more appropriate for cartoon characters. Most “Acting for Animators” lessons come from actors who are trained in modern dramatic performance. Commedia performance is much different from that. It’s much more energetic and straightforward. “Method” acting is great for serious roles, but I’m talking cartoons here.
Here is a great quote from the first article:
If you were walking by and saw two commedia actors working on a scene– you shouldn’t think it was part of the everyday street life. You’d stop and take a look, and maybe call the cops about two weirdos acting kind of crazy.
Commedia Acting Tip: The Ghost of Chekhov.
Checkhov of course was a playwright, and his characters are deep and complex. Cartoons are not.
Adam uses the term “appetite” instead of “motivation.” I think the word appetite is way better for describing what drives a character. It’s more visceral, more from the gut.
Commedia Acting Tip: It’s All About the Appetite.
I can recall watching animators shoot reference video, and doing the same thing over and over with each take. Before shooting reference, read this article:
Commedia Acting Tip: Try It Italian Style.
The title of this post alone should make you want to read the article. “Animate the Inanimate” It is about acting with a static mask. Most animated characters have mobile faces, but focusing on the performance without the face moving is one way to strengthen the overall effect.
Commedia Acting Tip: Animate the Inanimate..
And here is a nice video with some commedia acting lessons.
Character and Context
Animated characters need worlds to live in, and probably enjoy the widest variety of settings found on film. But these places can be more than simple “environment”. Creating animated worlds is not just art direction, it begins in the concept stage for the project. Earlier I posted about manual labor vs. Office work. The idea was to consider the visual potential of what context your characters were working in. Do they sit and stare at a screen, like animators do? Or are they moving and building things? Some stories are all about dramatic interaction between characters, but others are heavily influenced by where it begins.
I can identify three basic kinds of worlds for animated characters to live in. Some might overlap or fall in between these. I would be very happy to get feedback on these, or suggestions for something I haven’t considered.
1. The first could be called generic. Generic is a place that is the simple environment. It could be a city, a village, a forest. While that may sound dull, do not think such a context is automatically weak. For instance, the Simpsons live in the city of Springfield. Springfield is a parody of average America. The beauty of Springfield is it can be adapted to practically any story the writers want to tell. It’s flexible, and that is one reason for the longevity of the series. South Park is also a random place, but their stories are mostly concerned with current events and parody of modern culture. Most superhero stories take place in generic worlds. And, the generic environment is the home of fairy tales and myths. Such stories are so grounded in human nature, they can easily be adjusted to any location, and society, at any time in history.
2. The second context I am calling the “enhancing” environment. These places tend to be more fantastic or extreme. The design is crafted to enhance the story. It is the most common kind found in animated films. Blue Sky’s Robots comes to mind. The art directors created altered versions of reality. It could also be natural environments, but the environments play a significant part the story, so it’s more than generic. I am thinking of A Bug’s Life, and Finding Nemo. I would put the Road Runner and Coyote in this category. In each episode, the desert landscape is customized to suit the action.
3. The third type of context is the one I find most interesting. It is a world that IS a character. The world is not just designed for the story to happen in, but is an influential element in how the story starts and develops. An easy example would be Wall-E. The condition of the earth is the reason for the little robots entire existence. Another good one is Rango. The situation in the town of Dirt pulls the character of Rango into their story. The screenplay for Rango borrows from the live action feature “Chinatown”, which is a classic example of a tightly plotted drama. The Usavich Rabbits begin their series in a Soviet prison, where they live contained in their cels. The guards are literally one with the cel door. Rather than the characters feeling layered on top of a background like a cel animated film, these characters feel integrated with the world, and possibly in contention with the world itself.
But context goes further than place. The next layer to consider is the society. The word “milieu” can be used to describe a place, or the social setting of a story. In the way a physical environment can be designed especially for a story, so can the inhabitants.
In many early silent comedies, all of society is caricatured. Nearly everyone, except the star and maybe his or her love interest, is in a bad mood. There are controlling fathers, jealous husbands, neighborhood thugs, bullying waiters, baton wielding policeman, angry bosses, scolding wives, disapproving churchmen, dangerous animals, and misbehaving children. They are quite dramatic, and create a world tension for the comedian to work in. If everyone were nice, it would be quite boring. It helped if the characters were already primed for a fight. These films were short and had to get the action quickly.
Physical comedians have always stood on the fringes of society, where they can mock the status quo. Charlie Chaplin grew up poor in class conscious England, and his comedy is all about class. It often takes place in poor neighborhoods or with him entering places of wealth. The Marx Brothers also invaded high society, and brought chaos to their careful order.
The Little Rascals were poor, and mostly on their own. Adult society had little intervention. They used castaway objects to create worlds to play in. Their junkyard playgrounds and hand built vehicles were a large part of their fun.
Jacques Tati movies are often commentaries about the modernization of France, and how charming old Paris was being replaced by a cold modern metropolis. Many of his gags are designed around architecture, transportation, homes and workplaces.
Many of Buster Keaton’s films were built around giant props. Props so large, he could live inside them. The Navigator took place on an empty ocean liner. Steamboat Bill Jr. Was built around a steam powered river boat. The General was the name of a locomotive. Buster liked large collections of things that move. In Go West he worked a herd of cows. In Seven Chances it was a mob of hundreds of women dressed in wedding gowns. In the short film Cops he catches a bomb tossed by an anarchist, while he is in the middle of a parade of policemen.
Some comedians and teams had an interesting ability to plunk down in whatever situation the writers wanted them to be in. The Three Stooges, for instance, could be tramp outcasts, married with decent homes, working class shlubs, or prison inmates. Ren and Stimpy could be cast in any situation John K found useful. They could be living on the street like an actual dog and cat, or be sharing a house like a couple. And how many comedians have suddenly found themselves “in the army?” The military services are situations with their own rules that the stars have to create comedy with.
The Star Trek TV shows, while being in space, were really about the unusual civilizations the Federation astronauts encountered. Pixar’s Cars is an example of a generic space, and generic, possibly cliche, characters becoming fun when totally recast as vehicles. Stand by for “Planes” following the same formula.
I would love to get comments on these ideas, so I can continue to develop them.