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Animation exercise: A bad death scene
I am always looking out for fun animation exercises. Very few student animation demo reels actually make me laugh. There are too many fight scenes or parkour shots that can demonstrate skill but are rarely entertaining.
Here is a new challenge. Animate a bad actor doing a death scene. It’s all about overacting, so it’s perfect for exaggerated animation. I have collected several video examples for inspiration. All but one of these use guns as the weapon, but other methods of death could work just as well. Poisoning would have its own special contortions. Multiple arrow strikes could inspire other ideas.
We’ll start with what might be the best bad death scene. There so many things wrong with this. The crazy expressions, the bad framing, the cheap and badly timed effects. The guy gets shot several times and drags it out way too long. The final look to the camera. If you’re not entertained by this, quit now and go do something else.
I am going to focus here on live actors as inspiration, but there is, of course, one very famous example of an overacted death scene in cartoons. At about 39 seconds, note his left hand as he weakly covers his cough, then the delicate finger action, before it hits the ground with a heavy slap. From A Wild Hare (1940)
As you can see, the death scene can involve being cradled by the killer while last words are spoken. Jim Carrey followed up with this in The Mask.
This one is short and sweet. It’s funny for the one expression the guy has before falling out of frame. Extra points for the ninja star.
This SNL short gets laughs with common tropes found in murder scenes. Repetition makes it ever more ridiculous, with variations thrown in for good effect. They almost underact the moment of getting shot, like it’s more shock than pain.
Overacted death scenes appear to be quite popular in Indian film making. Here are three great examples.
The video I opened with is so popular, it is has spawned parodies. This one brings a different energy and shows how much room there is to play with this exercise.
Basil Wolverton’s Vaudeville connection
A sample of Wolverton’s work:
I recently purchased “The Wolverton Bible” through Amazon. I have always enjoyed Wolverton’s illustration. The book includes an introduction by Grant Geissman, and I found this fun fact:
Before becoming a cartoonist, Wolverton had actually started out as a young Vaudeville performer in theaters in Oregon and Washington. “Eventually I heard or read,” recalled Wolverton, “that a two bit actor earns even less than a two bit cartoonist”
The introduction goes on to say the Wolverton was a devout Christian and took the job of illustrating the Bible very seriously.
On this excellent site, I learned this fun trivia fact about him.
Other sources of income were provided by his job as a journalist/cartoonist for the Portland News. One of his most exciting assignments was visiting the set of the film ‘The General’ and meeting Buster Keaton in person.
Wolverton’s work has a very sculpted quality about it, and it begs to be animated. I found this really well-done claymation based on his designs.
For a nice bio of Basil, with illustrations, I recommend THIS PAGE
Joe Penner – Elmer Fudd
I have been re-reading The Great Cartoon Directors by Jeff Lenberg, and in the section on Tex Avery he discusses the origins of Elmer Fudd. Elmer’s first incarnation was as “Egghead” and he was apparently inspired by a popular comic actor named Joe Penner. Here is a short piece of Joe Penner, that has a bonus of Betty Grable and some animation.
Lip sync comedy act
Here is another idea for an animation exercise. If you want to do a lip sync scene, you could of course do a standard dialog piece, or you could do this very cartoony alternative.
Long before he was a star, Jerry Lewis got his start in entertainment doing a
One way to make it more interesting is to rapidly change the music. This next clip, from the movie Money from Home, begins with a Cyrano de Bergerac situation. Dean Martin is hiding around the corner providing a voice for Jerry to serenade his girlfriend. But things go awry when a dog chases him off and the woman starts playing the radio. Jerry has to struggle to keep up with the continuous changes in what he is hearing.
Lip sync doesn’t necessarily have to be to words. In one of his most famous clips, Jerry pantomimes to an instrumental piece.
A much older Jerry Lewis has a part in the feature film Funny Bones (which is a movie I highly recommend). I suspect it may be party based on Jerry’s life. In the movie, Lee Evans plays a character very much like the younger Jerry. He does this “radio” act, which includes spoken words and sound effects as well. You can begin to see how an actor might interpret something differently than another actor.
The next video takes his type of performance a step further. It’s half comedy lip
Reader Jonathan Cowles has reminded me of Andy Kaufman’s recreation of this act. Back in the day, Jerry Lewis would have to step off stage to change the record. Andy just had the phonograph right there on stage with him. The animation bonus here is Andy is singing the theme song from Mighty Mouse.
Obtaining a clip of music to work with is the challenge. It would be great if the 11 second club considered doing this. Maybe you are a student at a college that has sound design courses, and one of those students might be able to throw something together for you.