ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS
The purpose of the animated cartoon being to amuse, the experienced
animator makes it his aim to get, as the saying goes in the trade, a
laugh in every foot of film. The animated cartoon is allied in its
kind to an extravagant farce or a lively comedy of the spoken stage.
Although strongly limned character and that there be something moving
all the time seem to be the two important ingredients of a film of
this type, it is not to be forgotten that plot is an essential in the
work.
Naturally, a scenario, or skeletonized plan of the story, is
written out first. The full details of the action and business,
from the beginning to the very end, are not worked out as they are
in a manuscript for a stage play. It is simply that some sort of a
framework, on which to build the story, is first required.
In the early days of the art a film with a string of incidents only,
but with plenty of movement in the animated figures, would find
a ready market and an appreciative audience. At the present time
not only must the pictorial properties be well rendered imageries
of nature but the story must be artistic in form. This signifies
that the idea of plot, and all its attendant concomitants, should
be present. The usual requirements of a dramatic story are now
sought for in an animated cartoon. The plot must be the orderly
establishment of parts leading up to some main point, or the working
to a climax and a subsequent untangling of it all.
[Illustration: PLENTY OF MOVEMENT IS DEMANDED IN SCREEN PICTURES.]
If the artist does write the first sketch of the play himself, he at
least will elaborate it and add various bits of dramatic business.
This is all very well if he understands and knows what he is
about, but if, on the other hand, he has not the dramatic idea, his
additions are quite likely to confuse the story.
Whether a film is for the purpose of amusement or to educate, the
plan should show that the attainment of something is being striven
for. In an educational film this is brought about by an adherence to
pedagogical principles. If it is a comic story, due regard must be
paid to dramatic construction.
It is obvious that if a humorous scenario has but two characters
this will simplify the telling, and the idea of their antagonisms,
obstacles, and embarrassing difficulties are easily told. The clash
and the struggle between the two can be expressed in many simple
ways, the story carried on, curiosity stimulated, and an expectant
feeling engendered as to what will happen. The final episode is apt
to be some calamitous fall with the whole picture area perhaps filled
with a graphic representation of an explosion, to be followed by an
after-climax, when the smoke has cleared away, of the victim rubbing
his head.
To be sure, an animated cartoon needs a good many more incidents
than one calamitous occurrence. It is indispensable, for the sake
of an uninterrupted animation, that it should have a succession of
distressing mishaps, growing in violence. This idea of a cumulative
chain of actions, increasing in force and resultant misfortune, is
peculiarly adapted to animated drawings.
The animator, if he is a good draftsman, can manage his little
picture people much easier than the theatrical manager does the
members of his company. A great danger, nevertheless, is that the
animator, with this facility of doing whatever he pleases with his
characters, may overdo the matter. He must be careful that he does
not create too much business for his actors, and so retard the
sequence of those episodes proper to the plot.
The very best type of animated cartoon tells the story from the very
first incidents and throughout its whole continuance to the crisis,
and the ending by pantomimic acting only. This means that there is
no dialogue lettered on the drawings themselves. Symbolical signs,
like exclamation-marks, sound-suggesting letters, or the like, are
naturally proper and happy additions to drawings; but as little
dialogue as possible should be used in drawings. They break the
continuity of the animation, for one thing. Although it is true that
balloons with their wording make an easy way for the animator to have
the automatic counter register “footage” (a consideration appealing
to the business sense of the artist), it is only when there is a good
jest brought out that lettering on the drawings themselves can be
forgiven.
[Illustration: THE PLAINT OF INANIMATE THINGS CAN BE RENDERED
EFFECTIVELY ON THE SCREEN.]
In the early period of the development of animated comic drawings,
not even subtitles were interspersed throughout a film. The entire
story was told by pantomime. Nowadays it is becoming the fashion
to use subtitles, and have them to introduce incidentals, mark
a change of scene, or bring in a witty remark. Wording brought
into a cartoon film this way is often felicitous and technically
legitimate. But dialogue, as has been stated, should be kept out of
the drawings themselves, not only for the sake of artistic form,
but for commercial reasons. (Films intended for exportation to
countries where English is not spoken are much more valuable if they
are without lettering in the pictorial parts. With all wording on
separate titles, it is very easy to change them and have them joined
to the film proper.)
The above statement with its frank allusion to a matter of business
seems to be getting away from our subject; but it is not, as it
calls to our attention the principal quality of a comic screen
drawing—namely, pantomime—and it emphasizes, too, the universality of
pantomime. An animated cartoon clever in gesturing is understood by
all races.
It is to be remembered that pantomime is a matter of interpretation,
both on the stage by an actor and by the artist when he essays to
represent it pictorially. If it were an actual copying of nature, it
only would be as interesting as a normal photograph; and that is not
very interesting. As in all interpretative arts there is a slight
betrayal of the mechanical means, or processes, so in pantomime there
is a suggestion of the mechanistic. Let us recall the rhythmical and
toy-like movements of the actors whom we have seen playing in some
whimsical dumb show.
How often do the clowns pretend in their foolery that they are
automatons, or that they can move only by mechanistic motions.
They find need, too, in their ludicrous acting, for mechanical
properties—slap sticks, absurd objects, or toys.
It is very certain that there are some forms of motion productive of
laughter that do not imitate actions natural to the human organism,
but seem to acquire their power of risibility from their resemblance
to mechanical motion. This is on the order of the notion that Bergson
has elaborated upon in his treatise in explanation of the comic. He
states, in substance, as one law of the ludicrous, that the human
body appears laughable when its movements give a similitude of a
machine in operation. There is no question of the correctness of this
view as a matter of mere exterior observation. Rather it seems to us
that machine-like movements in organic bodies amuse us because of
the rhythmic, orderly, or periodic occurrences of these movements in
themselves, and not to any matter of comparison.
In a boisterous low comedy it is always incumbent upon the victim of
a blow to reel around like a top before he falls. It never fails to
bring laughter. An effect like this is easy to produce in animated
cartoons. There is no need to consider physiological impossibilities
of the human organism, the artist can make his characters spin as
much as he pleases.
In a screen picture two boys will be seen fighting; at first they
will parry a few blows, then suddenly begin to whirl around so that
nothing is visible but a confused mass and an occasional detail like
an arm or leg. It will be exactly like a revolving pinwheel. This
is made on the film by having a drawing representing the boys as
clinched and turning it around as if it were a pinwheel.
In a panorama screen effect it seems to be sufficiently realistic,
for laughter purposes, to have the legs and arms of the individual in
a hurry give a blurred impression, in some degree, like that of the
spokes of a rapidly turning wheel.
[Illustration:
The pinwheel effect of the two boys that have come to blows is
produced by turning around to four different positions a drawing
representing the boys fighting.]
It is an indisputable fact that the human mind finds fascination in
any movement resembling a rotary one. Witness the interest that a
novel mechanism or an automatic toy creates in a shop-window. Such
interest is still further stimulated if there is an added item of
anything of the human, or something definite accomplished in the
operations.
We require, it seems, if we are really alive, not occasional, but
constant, stimuli of some sort. When we become weary of toil—which
in itself is often an unwelcome and imposed form of stimulus—we
seek stimuli in recreation. Or if we haven’t energy enough for the
self-stimulation of sports, or the like activity, we look for it
outside of ourselves.
Perhaps it is music, exciting us metronomically; or a play where our
emotions are agitated—rhythmically or in dissonance; maybe it is a
circus or the music-hall, where color and sound vibrations stimulate
us. Everywhere it will be some form of measured time, movement, or
rotation, whether the theme be comic or serious.
Idlers will stop to gaze at a machine in motion where there is
building going on, or they will stop to peer into the windows of
a busy factory. There is something in all this that shows that the
human mind craves the periodicity of stimulation.
Perhaps one of the reasons why those crudely executed white on
black animated cartoons—alluded to in a preceding chapter—are so
laugh-provoking is that they represent the characters performing
their antics more or less mechanically. A windmill effect, a
twirling, a spinning, and a merry-go-round movement are of striking
import in animated cartoons. They never fail to cause laughter when
depicted in some such fashion or other.
Sometimes in a pursuit in a comic picture there is an introduction of
a chase around a house or around a tree. The gyration about the house
is particularly productive of laughter. The slight interruption while
the figure passes back of the house gives occasion for the necessary
pause in this comic business.
The author recalls a film of real people and scenes that exemplified
the potency of a mechanical turning and the value of a pause for
laugh-provoking purposes. The scene represented a tiny bungalow that
was blown from its foundation by the force of the storm and made
to revolve as if it were pivoted in the centre. The droll character
of the play saved himself from being blown away by clinging to one
corner of the porch. The laughter of the audience although continuous
came in waves of different strength. The twirling house itself caused
laughter, but it increased when the ludicrous figure clinging to the
porch came into view, and it decreased when he disappeared while he
was being twirled around the far side of the house.
Possibly one of the reasons why this performance was so successful
was because this movement allowed for the physiological necessity
of a rest on the part of the spectators. The emotional excitement
would have been fatiguing to the breaking point had the incitement to
laughter been continuous. The humorous proceeding operated so that
any individual member of the audience was not compelled to shake or
be agitated by laughter all the time, but could slacken up and rest
rhythmically.
[Illustration: A cycle of drawings, like those above, used in turn
and repeated for a time will give the screen illusion of a man
spinning like a top.]
The need of a rhythmic slowing-up, or pause, to allow for a respite
for the emotions and the convulsed physical organism is well
illustrated in the following incident often introduced into animated
scenes. A little figure is observed running up hill and down dale.
The manner of his performance is like this: he runs up the first hill
and disappears; there is a moment or so when the scene is empty and
during which he is supposed to be running down the far side of the
hill. Soon he is discovered running up the second hill, at the top of
which he again disappears for a time to run down its far side. In
another moment he is scrambling up the next hill and down the other
side again. This continues until he is lost as a tiny black spot near
the horizon.
[Illustration: A blurred impression like that of the spokes of a
turning wheel is regarded as funny in comic picturing.]
This disjointed hill-climbing causes hilarious laughter and, as
in the case cited above, comes in waves. The rise and fall of the
laughter waves can be distinguished as the little figure runs up the
hills and down the valleys.
A pause is a necessary element in any continued comic situation. It
is, in fact, proper to any series intended to arouse the emotion of
laughter. And in some respects a pause corresponds to the negative
moment of flexion—adverting our thoughts for a moment to physical
activity—while the outburst of laughter corresponds to the positivity
of extension.
A bit of striking animation is that of having a continuous stream
of individuals pouring out of a building, or a procession of funny
animals coming out of a receptacle from which we did not expect such
a parade. These episodes of movement do resemble a parade—a species
of regularly recurring stimulation.
[Illustration: FROM “THE ‘BAB’ BALLADS.”]
The psychological questions in regard to these effects is related
certainly to the matter of the delight of the human mind in a
stirring up by repetition. Undoubtedly the same liking or pleasure
in these little bits of screen animation bear a resemblance to
the delight experienced in watching a parade. What is there in
a spectacle of this sort that tickles our senses? Is it the
regularness of the step-keeping, the hypnotic music of the band, or
the show of varied uniforms? Perhaps the principles of unity and
variety—two essentials of any art work—enter into the matter. The
variety in the uniforms of the different sections satisfies the eye,
and the unity of the marching pleases the mind.
[Illustration: Pictures of this sort can be presented on the screen
more vividly than in this simple graphic sketch.]
Keeping step is an artificial recurrence of movement. It pleases,
of course, but when this motion is rendered strongly mechanistic
it takes on immediately an element of the comic. In some of the
little figures drolly drawn by Bab (W. S. Gilbert, of “Pinafore” and
“Mikado” fame), this is well expressed. A little picture of his,
for instance, shows three tiny men stepping out like mechanically
operated toys.
[Illustration: HATS.]
[Illustration: (Cartoon man chasing hat) ]
One of the most primitive of practical jokes is that of throwing
a stone at a hat on some one’s head. And its most aggravated form
as a joke is that in which the hat is of a stovepipe pattern. In
a humorous stage play, merely to show an individual with a stone
in his hand while a sprucely dressed one wearing a high hat is
passing is motive enough to cause laughter. The graphic artist
copies this situation by representing a stone in the air nearing the
hat. Action lines, as they are called, indicate that the missile is
flying through the air. In both of these cases—in reality and in
the picture—mere anticipation is enough to awaken the risibilities.
The animator, of course, can gratify both the spectator’s joy of
anticipation and the mischievous delight of seeing the consummation
of the action.
[Illustration: Radiating “dent” lines give emphasis to this bludgeon
blow.]
Many professional entertainers have built their reputation on some
dramatic business with hats. Either they wear some odd head-gear
or else it will be in their manner of wearing a hat or a trick in
doffing it. If a hat is too small, it is sure to create laughter; and
if too large, it is a certainty that there will be mocking hilarity.
And even if it is of the right size, it need only to be perched on
the head at an angle to be considered ludicrous.
[Illustration: A chase around some object is a never-failing
laugh-provoking incident in an animated cartoon.]
The spirited screen actors, too, of the animator’s pencil are shown
going through all sorts of strange doings with their hats.
ANIMATED EDUCATIONAL FILMS AND THE FUTURE