“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.” — Chuck Jones (1912–2002)
Like most kids I grew up with Looney Tunes animations. I was different to most though as I used to watch them religiously and pretty much nothing else. I used to rent the same videos from the local store every weekend. They had about 10 different collections of the classic Looney Tunes and also a couple of the old Disney shorts collections, the ones where Goofy would learn how to play baseball or drive etc. Luckily I always knew what I wanted to do when I would “grow-up”. Even at the age of three I remember clearly telling my parents that I wanted to be an animator, or as I probably said it “I want to be an anamanimator!”
These videos were my early college years. I studied them and learnt all about timing and posing. They have influenced my life immensely on how my mind works in understanding comic timing and storytelling. Like any collection you end up having your favourites. When I would get a video on the Friday evening, for the hundredth time, I would immediately fast-forward it to get my fix of my favourite ones. I remember realizing a name would consistently appear before these particular cartoons, Charles M. Jones or later simply Chuck Jones. In the documentary about Chuck Jones, “Extremes and Inbetweens – A Life in Animation”, they interview many of the great animators and entertainers of today. Be it John Lasseter or Steven Spielberg they all say the same thing, Chuck Jones cartoons were the best!
DVD cover for “Extremes and Inbetweens – A Life in Animation”
Chuck Jones created many characters but the three most popular creations are Pepe LePew, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. He also redesigned Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck perfecting their personalities. Chuck Jones’s short, “One Froggy Evening” starring Michigan J. Frog is regarded by most people in animation as their favourite ever cartoon. Incredibly this debuted back on the 31st of December, 1955 and this was the only time this character was in a cartoon up until 1995 when he starred in the follow-up “Another Froggy Evening”. Even though the character has had little exposure in cartoons it is amazing how everyone remembers this character so vividly and it’s only testament to the perfect story that Chuck created.
The main thing with Chuck Jones style is that he could sell a gag with one pose. He said in his younger days he would do a lot of very strong poses that would get a laugh but later he paired these down to have one hugely powerful pose and get an even bigger reaction.
Wile E. Coyote
“In timing a film, we used to assume that sneaks move slowly. This was great for animators—thirty-six to forty-eight drawings for a single step—but it was sheer hell for the pace of the picture. So the rapid tiptoe was invented.”
This ‘inventiveness’ was brought out through the tight schedules and tighter budgets but was overall beneficial for the cartoons and comedy in general. Chuck said that if Wile E. Coyote had to run from far away in the distance to just in front of the camera it would be too time consuming and boring to see him do this realistically. So rather than animating all of the run cycle and scaling it to match perspective he thought that it would be better if the character firstly does a pronounced anticipation pose for the run, then have a zip cloud of smoke for the inbetween (with obligatory swoosh noise!) and then end with the character in front of the camera stopping with a little shudder, like flicking a ruler.
Though all of this would take less than 20 drawing, the effect was perfect and pure entertainment. I have tried to implement his ideas into every animation I have done. Be it the character turning and double blinking to the camera. Or the falling scene where the characters head stays in shot with a grimace look on their face while the neck and body stretches off screen. This is obviously much easier in 2D but I look forward to the future of computer animation where the rigs are freer and a character’s expression can be contorted into any shape as easy as would be drawing it. Only then can we try and create something that is as majestic as a Chuck Jones cartoon!
So until next time … Stay Animated!
