Music

Invisible Instruments

by

I just read about Jerry Lewis performing a musical scene in the Tashlin film “Cinderfella”. It’s him alone in a kitchen miming to an instrumental track.

I was going to post just that video, when I noticed this next video by Rowan Atkinson. He’s doing his popular “invisible drum kit” act.

Hopefully you can see the amount of character that is put into the performance, making it about the performer, and not the music. For contrast, here is a real drummer mimicking his art for a mildly entertaining music video.

So that made me think about invisible instruments, which of course lead to air guitar. I found this short montage of the top three performers at the 2011 World Air Guitar Championships. I appreciate how some of them inject some character into the act, rather than just pretending to shred. Of these three, the third person was the winner. I liked the first two better, but what do I know about this.

Jerry Lewis with music

by

This is real sweet clip of Jerry Lewis from The Errand Boy.  Clearly it was plugged into the movie just for fun.  It does nothing to move the story forward, and I like that, because it’s all about character.  He has lot’s of strong expressions and hand poses.

It is powerful, brassy music which motivates Jerry to imitate a strong brassy character.  It’s also very interesting how certain instruments get interpreted into certain actions.  A Youtube commenter identifies the music as “Blues in Hoss’ Flat” performed by Count Basie.

This might make a great animation exercise, animating a character to interpret a musical track. Unless it comes out like this.

While I appreciate the fact that Family Guy is paying homage to Jerry, the limited animation gives us just a fraction of the fun.
Before animating, shoot reference, and judge the reference harshly.

There are much worse versions on youtube. The comparison is valuable to understand what Jerry is doing. He is a master.

If you are enjoying these posts, please link to Comedy for Animators. Thanks!

This song makes everything funny

by

Or maybe not.

The song is “Yakety Sax” and is most famous from it’s use by Benny Hill.

Youtube users have done exhaustive testing of the theory that it makes everything funny. I watched quite a few.

“Saving Private Ryan” with “Yakety Sax” is not funny.

It has to be scenes with a chase or at least lots of running. This one turns the music off when cutting away from the running. Which makes it funnier when it comes back.

And it has to be sped up. Playing it over normal or slow motion won’t work.

%d bloggers like this: