Hi my name is Tony and this is Every Frame a Painting.
If you grew up like I did, you probably watched a lot of Looney Tunes.
And if you paid attention to the credits
then you recognize this name.
-"My full name is Charles Martin Jones."
-"This is not where I really belong."
-"I belong behind the camera."
Chuck Jones is one of the all-time masters of visual comedy.
Between 1938 and 1962 he directed
more than 200 cartoons for Warner Bros.
Ten films a year, six minutes per film.
What's astonishing is that they hold up more than 50 years later.
And among them are some of the greatest short films ever made.
But none of this happened overnight. It was a long process.
So today, let’s take a look...
at how a good artist became a great one.
-"All right. Let’s get this picture started!"
-"No! No!"
The most famous aspect of any Chuck Jones cartoon
(and the parts you probably remember) are the jokes
written by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce.
Nearly every gag here follows a classic two-part structure.
The first part…
leads you to make an assumption. The second part...
proves it wrong.
That’s it. Assumption:
Reality.
And in the early cartoons, the jokes are fantastic
and they happen one after the other.
But here’s the truth: the gags are only the surface level.
What really sets these films apart
is the amount of work that was put into character.
And that process took a long time.
-"All characters are a process of learning."
-"It’s hard for people to understand who watch actors...
-"...to realize that, actors come with an ability. They’ve played other parts."
-"Hello."
-"When you bring in a drawing, all you have is a drawing."
-"And you have to put in the character."
Consider the case of Daffy Duck.
When he first started out…
Daffy was more or less insane.
-"Gosh what a screwy duck."
But over the course of 15 years, he changed
from being the one who laughs to being the butt of the joke.
This Daffy is less crazy but it’s easier to understand what he wants.
He wants money.
He wants to be a star.
In short, he wants glory.
-"This looks like a job for...
-"...The Masked Avenger!"
In fact, all of Chuck Jones' characters have very clearly defined wants.
This one wants a home.
This one wants to daydream.
And this one just wants somebody to love.
-"Ah my little darling. It is love at first sight, is it not?"
Notice that every desire here is very simple.
And the simpler the desire, the more vivid the character.
Once you know what the character wants
you can figure out the next question:
How does this particular individual move?
-"Every action is dictated by what goes on inside of you."
-"You have to be able to think the way the character thinks."
-"If you can’t tell what’s happening by the way the character moves..."
-"...you’re not animating."
-"I am a snake and you have charmed me, no?"
-"It helps to have the dialogue..."
-"...but the dialogue is not the thing that makes it work."
-"The story should tell itself by the way it moves."
So let’s say you know what the character wants
and you know how they move to get it.
What about the jokes?
What happens to the assumption…
and the reality?
Well, now the assumption includes the personality of the character.
For instance, we know that Daffy will always pick a fight
because it’s part of his desire for glory.
-"Take over."
Likewise, we know the Coyote’s device will fail
so Jones can play this gag offscreen
which ends up making it funnier.
But there is a danger to this approach.
If you just focus on great jokes with the same well-defined characters
you can easily get trapped in a formula.
-"Sometimes I feel very sorry for the Coyote."
-"Sometimes I wish he’d catch him."
-"If he caught him there wouldn’t be any more Road Runner."
-"You wouldn’t like that, would you?"
So to avoid this problem, Jones did something.
This is one of the defining aspects of his work.
It’s a word that he uses and that other people use about him.
-"Beep Beep!"
-"It also stands out as an example of the kind of discipline..."
-"...Chuck Jones liked to set for himself."
-"This is the vital factor in all comedy or all drama."
-"What are your disciplines?"
Discipline. The challenges and restrictions you set for yourself.
Like designing a character with no mouth.
Or no face.
Or using no dialogue except for this.
-"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal."
Because animation lets you do anything
you have to think about what you won't do.
And in Jones’ case, there were lots of rules
about the world, the characters and their behavior.
For instance, Bugs Bunny never picked a fight.
Somebody had to do this…
-"Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!"
...and only then would he fight back.
-"Kill the wabbit?"
-"Bugs Bunny is not just an insane rabbit."
-"Somebody’s always trying to get him. And he’s retaliating."
-"He has to be provoked. And we learned that."
-"It was very important that he be provoked."
-"Because otherwise, he’d be a bully."
-"Of course you realize this means war."
A similar restriction happened to how the characters expressed themselves.
Early on, they tended to go through a quick barrage of facial expressions.
But over time, these grew less and less.
-"Particularly in the later films Chuck became very fond..."
-"...of using the smallest possible gestures..."
-"...facial gestures to get laughs."
-"Chuck’s facial expressions were the best in the business..."
-"...Because he was a minimalist."
-"All humor grows from two things."
-"All humor, I believe, comes from human behavior and logic."
-"If it’s not logical it’s not gonna be funny...
-"...And if it doesn’t come from human behavior..."
-"...how the hell do you know it’s funny?"
Think of it this way: this is human behavior.
-"Ha ha! Now!"
That was logic.
And the logic is something you improve at over time.
But what about human behavior?
How do you improve at understanding that?
The truth is, there’s only one way.
And it’s not by watching films.
-"When you talk to Chuck, he is always encouraging you..."
-...to go to the source: to study real life, to study art..."
-"...and apply that to your animation. It’s not just drawing funny faces."
Jones believed it wasn’t enough to just watch movies.
You had to have interests outside of film.
You had to study real life.
Most of all, he encouraged this:
-"Reading. Read Everything."
-"It doesn’t do you much good to draw..."
-"...unless you have something to draw..."
-"...and the only place you can get anything to draw..."
-"...is from out of that head."
-"And the only way that you can exercise the mind..."
-"...is by bringing new ideas to it..."
-"...So it’ll be surprised."
-"And say 'God I didn’t know that.'"
-"That’s the greatest thing in the world..."
-"...that 'Gee I didn’t know that.' And there you are, you know?"
There you are. It’s not just about gags.
Not just about characters.
Not just about discipline.
It’s about studying the real world and learning something new.
Then putting that back into the work.
In other words, inspiration.
And the great thing about this kind of inspiration?
-"You can find it anyplace. You can find it anyplace."