Monday, April 08, 2013

RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT ANIMATION WALKS

Sometimes a funny story begins with a doodle of a funny character. You like how the character looks and you just have to see what would happen if you gave him a walk.  In the act of doing the walk you see unexpected things that you like, and they redefine the character. When you have a funny character who can do a funny walk you almost can't help but think of funny situations that would justify that walk. Before you know it you have a funny story.


I don't know what this woman (above) was doing in real life, but the pose suggests a  funny walk where the girl leans way back and walks with her hands on her hips.

NOTE: I wrongly omitted the label that would have identified the source of the really interesting photo above. It's from a site called "photocase.com," and the photographer's username is "erdbeersuehtig." I'll put that info back in.


Leaned back torsos are more common in runs...I guess people are more able to accept the  unrealistic weight distribution that way. 

I like this guy's attitude. He runs with his arms close to his side. He takes big strides but looks up in the air, as if he's on an idealistic quest of some sort.
   

Almost any character's going to look good on top of long, red legs like these (above). Doesn't seeing this just make you want to draw?

Let me digress to make the point that tall people are underrepresented in animation. When they're used at all, they're just dim-witted sidekicks for some short guy. Maybe tall people will rebel and then we'll have lots of tall heroes with short, dullard sidekicks. Of course we'd have to have vertical TV sets.


This pose (above) suggests a character who doesn't look where he's running. Open manholes, curbs, and tree trunks are all problems for this man, but he's in too much of a hurry to do anything about it.



Can you really buy a funny walk clock like this (above)? Where do I sign up?


Above, another collage doodle. How would you describe a walk like this?

Here's (above) a walking vehicle. I like the foreground foot in the photo because it seems to imply that the foot comes down in discreet, floppy stages. First the heel, then the arch area, then the pad beneath the toes, then...one by one...the toes, ending with the big toe.



Sometimes an idea for a walk might begin with an idea for an unusual shoe (above).
This man's shoe (above) makes me imagine a guy lying on his back on the sidewalk with his legs doing the walking and dragging the man behind, The man might read a newspaper while his legs do all the work. Or maybe he  has a laptop on his chest and he's catching up on the latest post on uncleeddiestheorycorner@blogspot.com.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can make the "Silly Walk Clock" yourself... here's how: http://sillywalkclock.blogspot.se/

Unknown said...

It seems like the Fleischers excelled at walk cycles during the early Popeye shorts up until they moved their studio down to Florida. Then after Dave Tendlar's "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp," the series took an overall dip in quality and veered away from focusing on comedy and gag oriented plot lines to trying to outwit Disney to a certain extent. The very first Popeye color classic they had made "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor" had been nominated for an Academy Award but lost to Disney's "The Country Mouse." The animation quality in the later Popeye cartoons, like from 1940-1941 is inconsistent and it wasn't until Seymour Kneitel had redesigned Popeye's outfit and gave him that navy uniform that the series started to pick up again and gradually became more Warner Bros. like on an aggregate basis. During this time, I think they were also busy trying to make Color Classics, Screen Songs, Mr. Bug Goes to Town, and the Superman shorts. Famous Studios had continued the reinvigoration process of the Popeye shorts until the late 1940s or so before they started to get trapped into formula. This is what I concluded from watching probably over 100 Popeye shorts in order during the past week.

Guys like Jim Tyer seemed to have more animation freedom when a guy like Izzy Sparber was overseeing a production of a specific short though there were many produced under Seymour Kneitel that I like as well before he started getting obsessed with cutting costs. Kneitel seemed like a really talented animator and a director since he directed the majority of the Popeye shorts produced by the Fleischers in New York, along with Willard Bowsky and Dave Tendlar. I sort of think of him like an East Coast version of Hanna-Barbera.

Thank God some smart artists over at Termite Terrace continued the tradition of including funny walk cycles into their cartoons. What do you think of what I said, Eddie? Would you agree and what else would you add?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Anonymous: Wow and Double Wow!!!!! Thanks a million for the great link!!!!!

Roberto: Very interesting!! You seem to know more about the history of the Fleischers than I do, so I'll just accept what you said. No doubt, the Popeyes contained some terrific walks.

I'll just add that the best walks are often given to secondary characters or villains, and that brings up a point that's worth making...that secondary characters sometimes need to be allowed to dominate a story. Let's face it, we watch Star Wars to see Darth Vader.

About the Tex Avery site...I have it bookmarked and will read it as soon as I can.


Invisibules said...

I think it's a safe bet that you hadn't seen the famous Monty Python "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w

Anonymous said...

Hello! Interesting post, but you should respect the copyright of the photos you embed in your blog!
The funny walking girl for example is a photo you (hopefully) purchased on photocase.com from my profile and as far as I can reproduce it you did NOT buy the extended licence which would allow you NOT to indicate the source (photocase) and the photographer's username (erdbeersüchtig).
I therefore urge you to either buy an upgrade to the "extended licence" of the photo or to embed a link to source and author as explainded above. If you need further information, here is the link to the terms of use and downloaders licence agreement of photocase.com: http://www.photocase.com/terms-of-use?doc=dla
Kind regards from Eva aka erdbeersüchtig!

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Eva: Yikes! Sorry about the omission. I'll add the information you requested.

Nice picture, by the way!

Anonymous said...

Thank you and happy New Year!