Sunday, September 27, 2015

Why Chuck Jones is basically a god

This Video is by Tony Zhou of everything frame of painting. It goes over the different techniques Chuck Jones used throughout his Animation Career at Looney Tunes, and why this makes him such a great director. The first technique Chuck used is a two part joke system with Assumptions, and then something completely unexpected happening. This is used constantly throughout Looney Tunes, Like for instance Roadrunner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote has and elaborate trap that ultimately blows up in his face.
The next technique that Chuck Jones used was putting an emphasis on character. The main thing that he used to break down character was aspiration. For instance Daffy wants glory, Pepe le pew wants love and Wile wants the roadrunner. It doesn't matter how simple the desire is, in fact the simpler the more intriguing the character is. Another point piggybacking off this one is how the character moves. It's important to understand how your character thinks and how they will move to show that. You should be able to understand the character by the way they move. And when we understand our characters more, we are self can make assumptions about the character that will make jokes even funnier.
But with all this, there is a problem. You can fall into a formula and the cartoons can get old fast. But Chuck Jones had a solution to this, which he used the make his cartoons better which is Discipline. This is where he challenged himself to set limitations to the cartoons to see if he could overcome it with his creativity. Such as giving characters no mouths, faces, or even no dialogue. A good example of this would be Bugs Bunny. Bugs is only a smartass jerk when his is provoked. He is still a good character but won't take crap unless he has too. Another technique Chuck used was using the smallest facial changes to get laughs. In his earlier work he would go all out with crazy faces. But this technique works really well too in getting laughs. And the last point made is how Chuck said you need to study real life to get better work, because understanding of the real world can make animations so much better. He also encouraged reading because that's another way to bring new ideas to the head.
I really enjoyed this video as I have been a fan of Every Frame of Painting for while now. I really respect Tony a lot and his vast knowledge for how Films make you feel things and really the true art of film making. I think his analysis of Chuck Jones is perfect and would make Chuck himself proud. I also recommenced his videos on Jackie Chan, Edgar Wright and Akira Kurosawa as well.

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