For many years my focus has been on visual and physical comedy, like that found in old silent movies. But recently I learned a good lesson about the value of voice in a character.
One evening I went to the Circus Center in San Francisco, to watch a performance of students in their Clown Conservatory. It is interesting to watch novice comedians, because it is such a contrast to professionals. The pros have done their acts perhaps thousands of times. They have everything down, and proceed with a natural ease. The students are clearly working hard. In that regard, none of the students stood out. But one of them did snag my attention. It was because of her voice. Her voice was a little funny. I hardly recall what she said, but the unusual quality along with her delivery and timing helped to separate her from the group.
Here is a little piece of trivia I tell my students who are choosing a clip of dialog to animate to: the word “personality” comes from “persona”. The root words are “per” which means through and “sona” which means sound. Personality comes through the sound of the character.
For animators involved in dialog exercises, like 10/11 second club stuff, I would recommend putting some serious thought into the voices, perhaps even more than what is being said. Many dialog exercises use clips from movies, featuring regular actors with regular voices. It would be worth finding some voices with real character. We all have to admit that Mel Blanc was a major contributor to the success of Looney Tunes.
I found this great audio interview with Rowan Atkinson, where he explains the difference in his two most successful characters, Mr. Bean and Blackadder. He also describes the genesis of Mr. Bean, which includes his inspiration by Jacques Tati. This serves me well in partially explaining what this blog is about.
Blackadder is comedy created by writers. Mr. Bean is comedy created by a performer. Animation is performance. If you want to write jokes, become a writer. This blog is dedicated to performers.
An additional interview where he discussed Bean and Blackadder has embedding disabled, but is available on youtube here:
I teach animation at the Academy of Art University, and one common mistake I see students make is this. The scene opens with a person in a relaxed standing position. Then they start “acting” with some arm gestures. It’s as though they are waiting for the director to say “action!”
I tell them the audience is gathering an impression from the very first frame, and it’s great if the character is already clearly in some state of thought or action. If you are just doing a single shot, imagine there was a scene before, and we are cutting on action to your scene.
That little tip leads me to a larger topic. That of how a character enters a scene. A great entrance will immediate capture an audiences attention. Charlie Chaplin worked at making interesting entrances. Here, the actor Rowan Atkinson explains why:
Chaplin so took over a picture, he seemed to always be center screen, or entering or exiting in some eyecatching manner. Entrances and exits are a special aspect of physical comedy, worthy of great thought, but Chaplin also did this for a different reason: editing. Sennett would often edit out any material he didn’t care for, and this angered Charlie. But Sennett had to leave in the entrances and exits. By embedding good stuff in those moments, Chaplin was assured of quality screen time.
Sennett was editing out what he didn’t care for, and audiences will do the same, essentially forgetting those moments. So Chaplin used that knowledge to make sure his time on stage was as effective as possible. He could make a great entrance, then slow down a little maintain the integrity of the performance.
Of course we don’t have to do great entrances to keep from being thrown on the cutting room floor. But it is a way of not being boring. It’s a way to get the audience immediately excited.
While comedians and animated characters can put a lot of energy into entrances normal actors also want to know why they are entering a space. Here is a 4 minute video about entrances and exits from a writers point of view. As a film maker, you are the director, and this is worth watching.
Now back to energetic characters trying to grab the spotlight. In the TV series Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer made a trademark of barging into Jerry’s apartment without knocking. Here is a montage of Kramer’s entrances.
Entrances are more than just coming in through a door. Any time a film begins, the first scene is essentially the entrance. One way of making this entertaining is a camera reveal of the situation. In some of Popeye’s earliest shorts, we would first see him in close up, bobbing up and down like a sailor, with the rain pouring down. He would be in a heroic pose:
As the camera pulls back, we see the real situation.
The Three Stooges had some great entrances. Here is one of my favorites from “No Census, No Feeling” which starts at :24. While it looks like stuntmen were used, they matched the action over the cut very nicely.
One group that has taken entrances very seriously are professional wrestlers. They are all showmen. A youtube search for “entrances” will show numerous compilations of them. I was impressed with this particular fighter’s entrances, which are very theatrical.
It’s great to have a serious, in depth interview with creators of animated comedy. Seth MacFarlane shows some of this childhood artwork, and student film from RISD. Unfortunately, the poster had to cut out the clips from TV. Still a fun interview.
