Baby Bottleneck Sitting on Eggs - scene cuts and animator switches -1

This is full of ideas.It's a scene animated by Izzy Ellis who had a primitive drawing style that was very angular. It works perfectly here.
Look at the difference between the way Daffy is drawn compared to Porky. Porky is very rounded, constructed, old-fashioned, conservative and "on-model", as opposed to Daffy's almost abstract angular poses.
Was this an "idea" specifically and consciously thought up to draw our attention to Daffy? Or was it merely a lucky accident. Either way, it took Clampett to encourage both fresh ideas and lucky accidents, both of which occur non-stop in his cartoons.
Another "idea": There is no background. How weird is that? Where are they? By this time in the cartoon, you don't even care. The whole story is so preposterous that by now, you're ready to accept anything.
The story idea at this point: Daffy has to sit on an egg to hatch it out, but he doesn't want to. It's too undignified for him. Everything about that is wrong, but again by this time, you just accept it.


Another idea: When Daffy turns around, the inbetween is a black sillhouette. It's only on for 1 frame, so why bother? because every frame is worth creativity. Clampett has millions of ideas - from the big picture of the whole story concept, all the way down to individual frames. He is an idea machine.
There are all kinds of weird cuts through the scene too - for no apparent reason, and they should be jump-cuts. We should notice them, but for some reason we don't until we actually still frame the scene.





This is only the beginning of the scene too. In the next post, the scene does something extra strange. It keeps switching from animator to animator. Clampett does this a lot too - he breaks up individual scenes into different animators. Supposedly to cast individual types of gags and actions according to who he thinks will do them best. Talk about picky control! But it sure works.
http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/Clampett/46BabyBottleneck/DaffyIzzyEgg.mov

Eisenberg Principles - Tom and Jerry Cover Art

Speaking of high standards... Here's more art that the average Joe wouldn't think was easy to do.


This guy could sure draw. These old Eisenberg comics are great to study good principles from.
You can see his style change over the years - getting simpler and more angular - like animated cartoons did from the 40s to the 50s.
But his basics remain the same despite the superficial stylistic changes.
Everything is well constructed and clearly staged - using negative spaces, line of action and all the rest of the useful stuff.

These have it all!

Bonus:

Mel Crawford cover - another guy with a unique style, but all the basics underneath.

Don Martin - In a Department Store 4

I love the gravity of this situation






more to come...


next: An Age Of Extreme Conservatism - pt 1

Don Martin - In a Department Store pt 3

Don Martin uses techniques similar to Tex Avery's.

1) Extremely clear simple staging, focused on the gags.
2) One idea is presented at a time.
3) He sets up each main idea clearly first, then builds on the gag, making it more and more ridiculous.





The gags are crazy, but the control over the audience is completely logical. Very common sense conservative execution.
Don Martin, like Avery, knows what he wants you to look at and laugh at. He doesn't leave his pictures, ideas or continuity to chance.

I've seen many storyboards and comics that stage stories randomly, cutting to new angles for every panel, filling every panel with detail and clutter and never focusing on anything important to the story, character, atmosphere or gag. Clear staging and storytelling is indeed a rare ability. Not every artist can do it.

When you see it done well, it seems so simple that you almost think the artist is cheating. Certainly executives feel cheated when good storytellers give them clear simple logical storytelling. They feel that they paid for their elaborate clutter and confusion and deserve to get it.

Don Martin - In a Department Store pt 2

Don Martin's staging and continuity is very clear and direct. He doesn't change everything in every picture. He'll use the same angle for many panels and just focus your attention on what's important.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/staging-4-one-action-at-time.html




More of this sequence later...


Basic Elements of Humor:

STUPIDITY
Everyone loves stupidity. Even stupid people laugh at stupid jokes. It's because we all think everyone else is stupid except us. Stupid and ignorant jokes are probably the most universal form of entertainment.

PAIN
Almost all men love pain - as long as it's someone else's pain. Not al women think pain is funny for some reason.

FUNNY LOOKING THINGS
You can have pain and stupidity in other mediums. Cartoons should be drawn funny. Do Martin's drawings are always funny. They would be funny as still images even if you didn't know the context.

I don't understand cartoons that don't try to make each image funny.


ABSURDITY
Cartoons can do absurdity better than any other medium. Don Martin is a genius at it.


http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/03/don-martin-in-department-store-pt-1.html

BTW, people are still sending me their studies of comic book covers, but most of you are tracing the covers instead of drawing them. Drawing them will make you try to control the concepts. Tracing is cheating. If you wanna trace one just to figure it out - and then draw one freehand, that might make sense.

Don't Forget!

Last chance to grab yourself Kali's sketchbook for sale on ebay.

Staging 4 - one action at a time

Stage One Idea or Action at a time - let it settle in

This is a really important point to me. I always tell my artists to not combine a pile of ideas into 1 drawing, because none of them will sink in with the audience.

Use a logical progression of ideas and present them one at a time so that people can follow what is happening.

This is true for all film and stage and even dance. Everything should be staged around central events and ideas that develop themselves with variations as they go. Even Busby Berkely led you along from one crazy visual idea to another in a logical progression - but that's for another analysis.

I wish I had some good digital copies of Tex Avery cartoons. He followed this concept as if it was law. He turned the one idea at a time thing into a formal art that is beautiful and funny even without the gags.
Here's a dialogue scene showing Ernie's thought process and sequence of emotions in a scene from "Cans Without Labels":

Lots of negative spaces both inside and outside the silhouette to help you see what I want you to see.
Most of the focus of each of these poses is the facial expression. The hands are either out of the way, or will add a supporting gesture to what he is thinking or feeling.

"Twins" sneak in...