Learn Comedy and Character from Chuck Jones' Animation
Chuck Jones' discipline and detail for animated filmmaking and timeless comedy.
Still from: Every Frame A Painting's Video Essay (Looney Tunes, Courtesy of Warner Bros. Animation)
Chuck Jones - The Evolution of an Artist | Every Frame A Painting
Date: 2015
Type: Video, Essay
Topic: Directing, Animation, Storytelling, Writing
Length: 8 minutes
Source: YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpXle4NqWI
Animation is easier and harder than live-action filmmaking, because animation allows you to make anything possible, as soon as you start. But at the same time, without limits and definitions, you can lose your character, meaning, and the intended effect of what you want to say in this visual form. The same thing holds true for real-life storytelling, when you're not sure what to do-- think of limitations and how you can either use them or go beyond them. Take the challenge and work around it. You'll become a better artist in the process. The key to mastering a work, is doing the work and refining it as you continue to move forward and make things.
Tony Szhou, of the YouTube channel, Every Fame A Painting, talks about this notion in regards to renowned, Looney Tunes' cartoon director, Chuck Jones' and his artistry and skill. Tony covers, with archival footage of Jones' work and interviews about said work:
• The Premise of Good Joke-telling
• Developing Character when you start with nothing
• How Making Limits Makes You Better
• The Basis of all Quality Humor: Human Behavior + Logic
• The KEY to Inspiration
Watching this, offers you a behind-the-scenes to the cartoons you loved, or maybe, you have just found. Whether you're interested in the animation genre or not, the talking points here are critical to any character, comedy, and visual storytelling as a whole. Plus, expanding your mind to new perspectives and disciplines makes you a more knowledgeable artist-- and person.
That fact is what I think, Chuck Jones' would be happy about. Watch the video to truly understand why.
I'll close this post with a quote by the director himself,
“The rules are simple. Take your work, but never yourself, seriously. Pour in the love and whatever skill you have, and it will come out.”
Keep creating.