Excellent Thoughts

I wanted to point out a must-see documentary. I found it from Carlos Baena's site, all the links (and bonus notes!) check them out here: http://www.carlosbaena.com/resource/anim_funnybusiness.html

Also, here are the notes:

1) Great comedians don't just talk, but use visual humor as well. Using their body as a tool:

a. There is comedy potential in every body part.
b. Clothes play a big part (too small or too big).
c. Character can look funny.
d. (My addition) The body can interact with other props to create humor (or alone).

2) Funny Things: Three Basic Principles:

a. Objects behave in an unexpected way
b. Objects go to or appear in an unexpected place.
c. Objects shown the wrong size.

- Combining these three principles may not make the business more funny.
- Jokes depend on sudden shocks and strange transformations that under-mind the laws of our existence.

3) Slapstick and Violence (the earliest and perhaps most crude form):

a. The more realistic, the funnier the gag.
b. The more dignified the victim, the funnier the gag.
c. Shock of violence must be separate from the reality of pain.
d. Use of overstatement or understatement create this comedy.

4) Magic & Surrealism (the comedian uses the Illusionist's tricks):

a. Appearing and Disappearing - gags are funnier if the character disappears.
b. Transformation - must absurd as well as astonishing
c. Speeding things up (or slowing down)
d. Comedy rooting in fear
e. Strange images

5) Imitiation & Parody (a step up, but not the highest form of comedy):

a. Exaggeration creates a parody
b. Representing authority creates satire.
c. Using other's story's or material can create comedy, but the effect lessens with the popularity of the others' material.

6) Mime & Body Language (Moving into character and situational comedy):

a. Create an interesting character.
b. Can be simply in the shading of a facial expression.
c. Not about doing funny things but doing normal things in a funny way: with personality.
d. new attitudes make the old joke new.

1. Dim (stupid) - knows less than the audience - has a bewildered innocence.
2. Aggressive - lack of consideration for others.
3. Crude - comedy of social embarrassment or vulgarity.
4. Etc.

e. Only if you identify with an attitude will you laugh.
f. Charlie Chaplin is one of the most skilled at this type of comedy, but doesn't always get the laugh (while he does draw smiles and emotions).

(We have to make our jokes and characters timeless, though some will argue that Chaplin was timeless)

7) Qualities that transcend time: The character of the physical comedian.

a. Like us but different - an alien on the other side of the mirror.
b. Innocence - born yesterday

Battles with normal objects
Constantly makes mistakes
Tenacity - keeps doing things when others would've given up.

c. Socially Inept - either doesn't understand conventions or doesn't know how to follow them.
d. Drunkenness is an alternative to childishness
e. Hard to form normal relationships
f. Constant hostility from all quarters
g. The comedian can't die or get seriously hurt.

8) The opposite of all rules are true: ALL rules can be broken.

Some New Years Cheer...or Cheese, really.

Just because I snickered.

A Christmas Carol, 2008

Merry ones, kiddos. Hope y'all like my meddling with the classics.

AFI Top 100 #93...The French Connection

I'm torn about the French Connection.

It's got some amazing sequences - Gene Hackman following a drug dealer on the subway, Gene Hackman chasing a sniper on the subway, and Gene Hackman busting up a bar for information.

There's zero character development. Gene is an angry, workaholic cop throughout the whole movie, and never changes. After he's taken off the force, he continues to do police work as if nothing happened.

The ending is horribly unsatisfying. You've been warned.

The best parts are the camera work and the editing. The tracking shots are awesome, and they dont use a lot of our newfangled rigs either.

Bottom line...worth watching, but not mind blowing.

AFI Top 100 #93...and an a film lesson learned.

Quick Updates

Just got a couple of big pieces of news related to the project I'm currently working on. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say publicly, so we'll leave it at everything is good news.

I started following my 350th blog via Google Reader. It's a strange mix of friends, news, science, art, film making, and movies...but hey, the more fuel for the brain the better, right?

Speaking of which, check out this article by Carlos Baena on the serious side of humor. http://www.carlosbaena.com/2008/12/funny-business-laughing-matters.html

More Devil's Advocate

If I told you that I had an investment opportunity that guaranteed $11 for ever $1.50 spent, would you take it?

If the opportunity was gourmet ice cream, and the profit margin increased by using a cream substitute, would you still take it?

When Hoodwinked! hit theaters in 2005, I was eager to bash it for its obvious lack of quality character animation, lighting, and FX. Today, after watching it and comparing it to some modern big budget counterparts I wonder if it was such a crime.

On a story level, what's so bad about it? It's a comedic twist on a well know fairy tale that features pop culture spoofs, talking animals, and a few forgettable musical numbers. There's some kung fu fighting, a ridiculous villain, and all the lame animal puns in the world.

Voiced by a variety of well known actors, it could easily be a movie made by any of the big animation houses.

Let's put it this way - if we're calling Hoodwinked! a bad movie, we're calling most animated movies bad. The main difference being wasting thousands and thousands of man hours on checking arcs, doing occlusion passes, and modeling fingernails when the problems are much more basic than that.

To be fair, Hoodwinked! actually has more inventive storytelling than most animated movies because it flashes back four times to see the same story from different viewpoints. It's not huge, but it's different.

It's hard to tell someone how they should invest $300,000,000. Making a big budget animated feature is a huge risk. Figuring out how to make it a great movie, or even a good merchandise mover is something few groups of people are doing.

Here is what one of the directors has to say.

Try this story. A few people get together and band around a movie idea. Despite not having a big budget, they believe in their product and stick with it for years. When the movie was released, it cost a fraction of what it's competitors cost, but it make back it's money ten fold and was embraced by a crowd that loved it for what it was, and forgave it for what it was not.

Little Miss Sunshine? Juno? A David Lynch film about decay and death in maternity wards?

It was Hoodwinked!.

There's a dirty little secret I'll let you in on. We're scared of Hoodwinked! because we're scared of taking the same chance and failing. We're scared because if our animation and lighting are rejected by our peers, it'll brand us as inferior artists. We're scared because without out safety net of overpriced executives and marketing strategists, if it fails artistically, we'll have no one to blame.

Personally, I take it as the same challenge artists like Ralph Bakshi, Werner Herzog, and Dick Dale put out to artists: Finish what you start, own what you create, be proud of what you've done.

Watching the Good, and the Bad

I wanted to touch some more on shooting. Since I've been working on pre-vis recently, I've been trying to pay more attention to how films and TV shows are shot.

Three bits of TV have jumped out recently.

Fringe, a sci-fi TV show has some fantastic camera work. Inventive compositions, attention to continuity and screen direction and telling the story with the camera work.

I can't emphasize this enough. Every pan, every dolly, every cut should be there to enhance the story. Fringe isn't perfect, but it's the most inventive and accurate show I've seen.

The biggest loser has got to be Heroes. I know you've watched it, so go ahead and admit it. I'm not sure if this season is worse than previous seasons, but this season has been chock full of poor lighting, sloppy cuts, unnecessary dutched cameras, and the most mistakes in screen direction and continuity I've seen in a major TV show.

Granted, many popular TV shows have their own camera setups - Lost, Seinfeld, Law and Order, House all have standard, if not formulaic shot patterns. For example, Lost will always have lots of running through the jungle shots, Jerry's apartment will always have the same line of action, and House will always throw back pills to a musical montage.

I like these setups because they allow the directors to maintain a pacing scheme through a serialized storyline. Viewers can easily jump in, and regular viewers are eased into a well-worn rhythm.

It is a double edged sword. Movies like Baraka and The Fall work their tails off to create specific moments, transitions, cuts, and juxta positions to drive their points home. Blade Runner has some of the best extreme close ups (a single eye, with a wide shot reflected in it) and memorable extreme wide shots (the spinners flying in front of the "pyramids") that will replay over and over in your head.

Surprisingly, I saw all of these elements come together in a recent episode of Superjail! Specifically, Episode 8: Dream Machine. While it features some amazingly rudimentary drawing, the cutting, shot choice, and psychedelic storytelling kept me wondering what was going to happen next. Highly recommended.

Recent Admirations: Ken Harris

There's nothing wrong with a little hero obsession, right?

I have been listening to the Richard Williams Splinecast more than I care to admit. Two things jump out at me.

The first part is also in Richard Williams' book, The Animator's Survival Kit. He relates Milt Kahl explaining that in order to animate Shere Khan's walk, Milt planned the contacts first, then the median positions, then the downs, and finally the ups. This is typically how I plan a walk - the contacts, then the pass, then the downs and ups.

The second part, that seems more cryptic to me, is Richard discussing how Ken Harris "knew where to put everything". Granted, this is probably after planning the scene thoroughly, and after 25 years of animating professionally, but this was before there were books like Illusion of Life, or schools like Cal Arts. Before computers and video cameras gave near instant feedback, back when animation was still being refined.

So how did Ken Harris know where to put these guys? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMfbl19dcVw

In this interview Ken reveals that he did a series of structured tests as well as extra animation - 400 - 500 feet (4.5 - 5.5 minutes) a year. That's a LOT of animation, as 30 feet was a normal weekly output. Nothing like doing an extra four months work a year, eh?

Ken Harris, like Milt and Richard and all the other animators putting in nights and weekends out of love of the craft are a real inspiration.

AFI Top 100 #96, 21, 19...and an a film lesson learned.

I'm flying through the movies now, trying to get one in whenever I can. Completely my film education is a great feeling, and each film gives me new ideas on how to approach things.

#96 - Do the Right Thing has amazing direction and a powerful message. It takes place largely on one block, but the movie is just filled with business. Every character is clearly defined and always has something to do or say.

There is a great slow pan where characters are speaking rhetorically, but inadvertently answering each other. Another great shot is of the three middle aged men sitting on the street corner next to a red wall. It's such a bright color of red, and they are so lethargic.

Perhaps one of the most famous shots is of the character Mookie delivering a pizza. As he walks down the street greeting people, you get a sense of how the neighborhood pecking order works.

My only complaint is that the main character incites a racially-charged riot and never suffers any consequences for it. As a film, its a bit confusing as to if Spike Lee is directing a cautionary tale or promoting violence, although I have no doubt in my mind that Spike Lee does not condone violence of any kind.

I love this movie because it sucks you in so fast and never lets you go. Compelling stuff.

#21 - Chinatown has some fantastically brutal moments in the film. It's not quite on the Scorsese level of violence, but it does not pull punches. Jack Nicholson isn't quite convincing as a private eye, but he does his best with crazy characters.

The best parts of the movie are completely believable. Each situation gets an extra level of love that makes the extraordinary convincing. The plot is complicated, but it takes its time and never feels convoluted.

My standout sequences are the chase in the orange groves, the rest home, the trips to the dam, and the office with all the land sales records. Like a Bourne movie, we get a chance to see how the character creatively solves problems to achieve his goals.

#16 - Sunset Boulevard is amazing. It's efficient with its film real estate, setting up the back story as quickly as possible. As soon as the basics are laid down, every ten minutes is a bomb going off in your lap. Each bomb peels back a layer of a story you thought you knew until you can't take any more. By the end of the movie, I was screaming at my TV hoping the hero would see the writing on the wall and run. By the time the leading lady delivers her famous line, you're a puddle of emotion.

It wasn't the movie I thought it would be, but it's amazing. It's inspired films like the Black Dahlia and Hollywoodland, and probably Chinatown and L.A. Confidential as well. I'll always have a soft spot for Noir, and Sunset Boulevard is one of the grand daddies of them all.