Book Review: Keeping Quiet: Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound.

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What a pleasure it has been to read Julian Dutton’s recent book Keeping Quiet:Visual Comedy in the Age of Sound.  It truly feels like it was written by a fan of the art, not an academic or historian.  In addition to being an occasional creator, I am an insatiable consumer, and dedicated student, of physical comedy of all kinds.  I can tell the author loves the art of non-verbal comedy just as much as I do. In his introduction, he includes a tip of the hat to animation as a medium that had never turned it’s back on visual comedy. Mr. Dutton not only knows his history, he is an award winning screenwriter and actor.  I very much enjoyed his 6 episode show Pompidou, created with actor Matt Lucas, which is available in the US on Netflix.  Keeping Quiet is available through Amazon in the US HERE. And in the UK HERE.

There have been many many books written about the great comedies of the silent film era.  And there have been a few books written about specific comedians from after that time, such Jacques Tati and Ernie Kovacs.  But this is the only book I am aware of that provides a good general coverage of filmed physical comedy since the coming of sound.  It is about the art and how it adapted and differentiated itself from the other talkies.

The book has two areas of focus.  First, those comedians who achieved international fame, such as Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, and Peter Sellers.  And second, English comedians who are familiar to Mr. Dutton and many of his readers.  While visual comedy had it’s golden age in the United States during the silent film era, the English have shown a much greater respect for the art in the many years since the introduction of sound.  Witness, for example, the wordless animated programs such as Shaun the Sheep, and Mr. Bean: The Animated Series.  I am fortunate to be familiar with some of the artists he refers to, such as Norman Wisdom and Eric Sykes.  And for those I hadn’t seen, I am now provided with a descriptive list for future viewing.  I was, however, hoping to learn a little bit about one of my favorite English comedians, Will Hay.  Hay’s film Where’s that Fire? includes scenes that rival Laurel and Hardy.

As I am always on the lookout for potential quotes that animators might appreciate, here is the first one I want to share:

“The essential schtick of Laurel and Hardy was slapstick and pantomime, to be sure, but slapstick and pantomime with character.  Their routines and jokes are not imposed from without, but emanate from the personalities themselves.”

Mr Dutton also includes a quote about Laurel and Hardy milking a routine.  That is an idea I did not put into my book, and may include in a potential revision.  Live actors can improvise and build on their comedy.  A scene can be extended significantly if the actors are inspired, even to the point of creating entire films around a simple idea.  Laurel and Hardy’s gags have been described as “open-ended,” meaning they can get on a roll, and keep building it.  Where live actors can sometimes go overboard, and overmilk a routine, animators are often not allowed to extend them much at all.  Modern studios generally restrict gags in favor of plot.  But great character comedy should be free to take a break from the plot and go for the laughs.

One thing I have been thinking about lately is the presence of onlookers, or bystanders, in comedy.  Offhand, I can’t think of an animated shot that included someone not engaged in the story who reacts to what is going on.  There probably are some, but not many.  I am hopeful that Zootopia might include this idea.  In live film, it’s considerably more common.  In referring to Eric Sykes, Dutton writes this:

“Another Tati-esque element employed by Sykes is his use of the placid observer.  Tati would often place an onlooker on the edge or at the back of the frame: not only to highlight the comedy but also to punch home and magnify its truthfulness – look, the gag is actually happening in the real world and hasn’t merely been made up for the cinema or television viewer.”

Mr. Dutton and I agree on how to understand visual comedy through its history.  That is what both of our books are about.  So I will finish with this quote from his book:

“If there is one theme in this book it is that all the great visual comics belong, as it were, to the same family, so similarities of style and trope are inevitable.”

And that is a good thing.  Audiences like fresh ideas and surprises, of course, but in comedy they also like familiarity.  Striking the balance is one of the challenges.  If I were to make a list of recommended books about comedy for animators to read, Keeping Quiet would certainly be high on the list.

10 Types of Comedic Entrances

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I have a previous post about character entrances, but I have put a lot more thought into it.  The result is my first Comedy for Animators video.  10 types of comedic entrances looks at various funny ways characters can enter a scene.  I have found at least two examples from both animation and live action films to demonstrate each one.

The term “entrances” covers a few things.  It can be a character walking into a scene.  It can be the very first scene where a character is shown to already be.  It can be a scene about a character entering another place.  A character can be revealed when something in the scene changes.  Basically, it is the shot where you, or someone in the story, first sees the character and the effect it has in the telling of the story.

The ten different types of comedic entrances are:

1:  The big entrance.  This is an attention grabbing entrance.  It should emphasize the character’s style and have an effect on the other characters in the scene.

2. The downtempo entrance.  If the character has a low energy style, you may want to create a story that begins with a high energy. By clashing with the situation, the character will stand out as unusual. A low energy character in a low energy place would be inherently uninteresting from a physical comedy point of view.

3.  The surprise entrance.  The character is hidden in some unexpected place.

4.  The misleading entrance.  The character enters the scene in some way that leads the audience to make assumptions.  Then the reality proves to be very different.  Such characters usually go on to prove they are not what they seem to be.

5.  Bad timing.  The character enters at a really bad moment.  Prior to the character entering, the situation is set up for them to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

6.  Exit as entrance.  We first see a character as they are being kicked out of some other place.  Often, they are literally flying out the door

7.  The disguised entrance.  The character enters the scene in some disguise that is comical in itself.

8.  The subverted entrance.  This is a scene about a character entering, but the entrance does not go as planned.  It can be seen from the entering character’s point of view.

9.  The strange, surreal doorway.  A character simply walks into the scene, but it is through some very strange doorway.

10.  The forced entrance.  The character is forcibly brought into the scene or story.

And there you have it.  If anyone can identify a type of entrance that I have overlooked, I would be very happy to hear about it in the comments.

John Gilkey at Pixar

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In the end credits of most movies there will be a batch of names under “Thank you” or “Special thanks.”  These are people who performed some service too small, or too unusual, to get their own job title.  The producers still want to acknowledge them in some way.

At the end of Pixar’s Ratatouille, the special thanks group includes the name John Gilkey.

Who is John Gilkey?  Here is a video of him in action:

John Gilkey is a clown.  Wait… a physical comedian and actor.  That video is from Cirque du Soleil’s touring show Quidam.  That was where I first saw him perform.  Note how much noise he makes on his entrance.  You have to look at him.

I have seen him in Cirque’s Quidam, Dralion, and Varekai, and on some small stages in San Francisco.  He is one of the best comedians in modern circus, and the sort of performer animators should be watching.  As a fan, I happened to stop by his website, JohnGilkey.com and I noticed he had a tailer from Ratatouille on his page of videos.  I contacted him to ask what that was all about, and it turns out he was invited to Pixar to work up ideas and act out reference for the artists.  He also consulted on the Pixar short La Luna. That is exactly the kind of thing I like to hear.  If anyone from Pixar would like to talk about this, I would be very interested in learning more.

Here is a 2-part radio interview with him, where he discusses his career and mentions the Pixar experience.  He was invited by the story department because they were having difficulty visualizing the kind of physical comedy they were hoping to achieve.  I suggest you listen to the entire interview to hear all that he has to say.  He has a sage bit of advice about learning to be funny.

Hat comedy: Buster Keaton

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In the history of physical comedy, there is a special place for the use of hats.  Hats are a very convenient costume prop to work with, as they are so available and easily located. During the heyday of silent films, it was common for people, both men and women, to put a much higher value on headwear than we do today.   Hats were an expensive part of the outfit, and having a fashionable hat meant you were a respectable member of society. Because of that value and symbolism, the hat became a target for comedians.  When an character’s hat was lost or damaged, the audience knew he would take it seriously. Wearing the hat wrong, or wearing the wrong hat, can simply make the actor look funny.  To demonstrate their skill, comedians could also perform simple tricks by manipulating their hats in entertaining ways.

Hats are underused in animation.  Character designers, as well as animators, may not understand the value of the hat.  In what might be the first in a series of posts about hats, I’ll begin with Buster Keaton.  Keaton’s signature look included what was known as a “pork-pie hat.”  He would sometimes throw in a short gag using it as a prop.  Below are a handful of examples.  Notice how Keaton almost never looks at it.  These are quick gags, and he doesn’t make a big deal over the “business” of it unless it’s part of a larger sequence built around the hat, or hats, as you’ll see later on.

In this scene, a bullet knocks off his hat. Where another comedian might pick it up, put his finger through the bullet hole, and pull a funny face, Buster hardly lets it affect him.

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Here is the same gag, but in a more mundane situation.

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He didn’t always catch his hat.  In The Navigator he lost several hats to gusts of wind.  It became a running gag.

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In comic strips, when a character is surprised, he can have a big reaction that includes his hat popping off his head.  This is known as a “hat take.”   Here, Keaton uses a gimmick to simulate that.  Since he limited his facial expression so much, it did provide a bigger effect.

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It was unusual for Keaton to use wacky effects like that.  He sometimes snuck in surreal effects, such as this moment where arrives at work, slaps his cane again the wall and somehow makes it stick. Then he simply hangs his hat on the handle.

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Most of the time, he preferred to display his skill, as in this simple gag.

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Keaton didn’t always wear a pork pie hat.  If the time period of the story called for it, he could go with a different fashion.  In Our Hospitality, set before the US Civil War, he wore a very large top hat.  So large, it caused problems in the little carriage he was riding in. He has just met a pretty girl, and doesn’t want to look foolish.  The hat isn’t cooperating.

When he gives up and goes to the pork-pie hat, it’s a nod to the audience that he can’t escape being Buster Keaton.  In Steamboat Bill Jr. the hat makes a brief appearance in an entire scene is built around Buster trying on all kinds of hats.  He is a stylish young man, and his father is a serious old steamboat captain.  They haven’t seen each other for years, and this scene serves the purpose of illustrating how they relate to each other.  They each have very different opinions about the function of a hat.  This is also an example of the “Keaton circle.”  He goes through a whole bunch of motion, and eventually winds up back where he started.

A Christmas video from me

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This film was completed about 14 years ago.  It started a few years before that when I was working at Duck Soup Produckions, now just called DUCK. The owners proposed doing a short CG film, and solicited concepts.  In about two days I created a storyboard for a film about a snowman who gets abducted by half-witted aliens who mistake it for an earthling. They believed it was held immobile by their “freeze ray.”  We began work on it between commercial projects.  After a few years of that, we hadn’t even gotten into animation, and I got an offer to go work at Industrial Light & Magic.  I handed over the directing to Lane Nakamura, and two years later he phoned me up and told me it was done.  However, they did change the ending considerably, and I wasn’t happy about that.  Still, it achieved some success, showing in the Siggraph Electronic Theater, and was on the long list for Oscar nomination.  I got a story credit. I designed the aliens, the snowman, and the spaceship interior.

I’ll be enjoying my holiday, and I hope you do too!

The Snowman from Jonathan Lyons on Vimeo.