story

Primitive comic structure

by

Thomas Edison was one of the pioneers of moving pictures, and “Fred Ott’s Sneeze” is his oldest surviving movie. Made in 1889, it is considered to be a comic film. Just watching a man sneeze was thought to be entertaining. At this point, films were extremely short, measured in seconds, this one lasts as long as a sneeze.

Gerald Mast, in his book The Comic Mind, identifies this as a piece of “comic business”.

He contrasts that film with “L’Arroseur arrosee” from 1895, which I posted previously.

A gardener goes about his business of watering plants with a hose. A boy sneaks up behind him, steps on the hose, and the water ceases to flow. The gardener stares at the hose to find the source of the trouble, the boy removes his foot, and the gardener receives a faceful of water. The gardener then discovers the source of the prank, chases the boy, catches him, spanks him, and the film ends.

… The extreme simplicity of the compound makes it very easy to analyze it’s chemistry. The elements of the film are four: (1) a comic protagonist who wants to perform a task. (2) a comic antagonist interferes with that performance. (3) a comic object begins as a tool and ends as a weapon. (4) the protagonist makes a comic discovery of the problem and takes action on the basis of that discovery.

Think about it this way, if a character slips on a banana peel, it can be funny. That’s like Fred Ott’s sneeze. But if a monkey intentionally threw the banana peel, then laughed at the man who falls, and the man then man gets angry and throws the banana peel at the monkey who gets hit in the face, you have a basic story. These two films represent the very first steps toward comic stories. Mast continues:

As simple as this initial film jest was, it contained elements that could be combined and expanded into much more complex films. The protagonist: Who is he? What does he want to accomplish? What is at stake? Why? The antagonist: What is the basis of his antagonism? What does that antagonism imply? How does he go about it? The comic object: How familiar is it? What is it’s usual function? How many are there? What metamorphosis does it undergo? To what unfamiliar uses is it put? The comic discovery: How does it come about? What does it in turn produce? What would happen without it?

Eating: The elements of comedy for animators

by

EatingTitle

I am happy to present my latest video.  Eating is all about the subject of food in comedy.  Great comedy is about common things that all people understand, and food is the most common subject of all.  It has been explored by comedians for centuries, if not millennia.  This video is filled with examples of how comedians have used the various elements of food, such as cooking, table manners and simply being hungry to create laughs.

One topic I didn’t include in the video is the idea of “signature” food.  That is, characters who have specific foods associated with them, such as:

Popeye – spinach

Wimpy – hamburgers

Wallace – cheese

Cookie Monster – cookies

With a lot more research, I could see a part two video that would include “food out of control”  The Three Stooges and Little Rascals, for instance, have had created crazy food in the kitchen.  I fondly recall a scene from The Beverly Hillbillies where Ellie May cooked up some popovers that literally breathed as though they were alive.  I avoided pie fights, as they are well known and practically a topic to themselves.

I would very much appreciate any feedback and suggestions about this topic!  Please comment.

Book review, FUNNY!: Twenty-Five Years of Laughter from the Pixar Story Room

by

 

Cover

While most of the animation world is clamoring for Andreas Deja’s new book, The Nine Old Men, I have been waiting to get my copy of FUNNY!: Twenty-Five Years of Laughter from the Pixar Story Room.  This hardcover book is a nice collection of gags drawn by Pixar story artists for all of their feature films up through and including The Good Dinosaur.   A few of the drawings are the original concepts that made it into the films, but most are not.  Huge numbers of ideas are generated in the making of feature animated films, and the vast majority of them are tossed to make room for those that work the best.  Still, many of the rejects are quite funny as well, and I find them all very interesting.  I particularly liked this unused gag by Matthew Luhn from Monsters Inc.  It is a slightly twisted reminder of a famous scene from Lady and the Tramp.

pixar-pasta-small

There is quite a range in the quality of the drawings. Some are pleasantly rendered, and others are crude doodles.  What matters is whether it gets the idea across.   One of the real insights in the book are the drawings that include content outside what is typically acceptable in a Disney-Pixar film. Meaning, not everything is “G” rated.  Such ideas show they will push their boundaries.  Imposing too much self censoring is not conducive to creative thinking.

The book doesn’t name an individual author, since the bulk of it is a collection of drawings created by numerous artists.  It has a foreword by John Lasseter, and an introduction by Jason Katz, who is one of the Pixar story artists who has been with the company since the first Toy Story.  It has a few paragraphs explaining some of their working process.  For my purposes, I would love to have had much more of that.  Here is one quote from Teddy Newton I found informative:

The secret to a great story gag has less to do with it’s novelty and more to do with the truth it possesses.  The me, the funniest moments in The Incredibles are not the outrageous bits of spectacle, but the banal moments we recognize from our own lives.

Ultimately, the book is more entertaining than educational.  It is not a large coffee table book, and I went through in about an hour.  If you are a big Pixar fan, or an aspiring story artist, I would say it is worth the reasonable price.

 

Rita Street’s guide to developing animated comedy for kids

by

Rita Street is a successful producer of television animation.  She is currently executive producer on the Cartoon Network show Hero: 108.  Now, she has used her substantial experience in pitching and selling TV animation to create a free e-book:

A Cartoon Girl’s Secret Guide to Developing Kids’ Comedy Series that Sell!

RitaStreet

If you are seriously interested in creating an animated comedy series for kids, and pitching it to a network, you should spend a little time to read this very informative book.  It contains excellent, practical advice on developing ideas, and preparing log lines and sales bibles to show to executives.  I like to emphasize that comedy is a business.   You NEED to go after an audience.  To create a television series, that means going through the networks.  It is a very challenging industry, and Rita’s book offers sound advice.

More importantly, Rita clearly loves animation. She appreciates comedy and has some good suggestions on the topic.  It’s totally worth the time it takes to read.

%d bloggers like this: