Raketu - George Liquor - Lip Synch Can Be Fun

I guess you all know I am trying to revolutionize both entertainment and advertising at the same time with these Raketu things I've been working on, huh?

Well here's some stuff I was doing with George. I keep trying new ways to combine traditional cartooning with Flash.

I did my pencil layouts of all George's key poses on paper.

pencil layouts:

I already knew in my head how George was feeling about this new-fangled commie technology.


George is suspicious and afraid of anything new - as all decent Americans should be, but the one factor that might sway him is an opportunity to save a buck.

That always speaks to him as a good middle-American trying to live the American dream.
Since Raketu practically eliminates long distance and pesky charges for extra minutes, I knew I could convince George to give it a try.

So I knew all his basic emotions and changes and I drew them the old way with these pencil sketches.

Then I went over to the great Mike Pataki's house. By the way, Mike has been very sick and has had a horrible year. He's recovering and should be fine but still has a knee operation coming up.

He's a tough sonovabitch but he has a heart just like cowboys and you and I.

I bet he'd really appreciate some kind wishes from all you George Liquor fans out there. George wouldn't be the man he is, if not for Michael's great acting and pure unspoiled soul.



Tell him how much you love him in the comments, ok?

Here's the soundtrack of Mike reading George's lines:

After we recorded him, we brought the voice track into Flash, and I decided I would try to animate all the mouth positions on the Cyntiq with a stylus. It would save paper and scanning and importing.

pencil layouts without mouths:





Marc went into Flash and cut out the one mouth position from each pose and plopped them onto another layer where I would animate the rest of the mouths.

mouths drawn in flash:

Animating lip synch in Flash is a great improvement over the old way. I can actually scroll through the voice track on the timeline and see every frame of every phonetic sound.

This way I could draw each mouth the way it sounded it to me. This is a new and very fun experiment for me.

The sounds in my ears projected images of funny mouth shapes into my brain and then I copied them straight into the computer right on each frame that was making the sound.






Now this cartoon, being Flash and a webtoon and not a huge budget, has to be what they call "limited animation" - a somewhat derisive term to many folks-like Eddie.

But that's because so few cartoon studios ever used limited animation in a fun way.

My theory is: Just because you don't have as many drawings in limited animation as you do in full animation, doesn't mean that those few drawings can't be funny.

Almost all cartoon animation has lip synch-mouth positions, but the mouth positions are usually stock preplanned and boring drawings. Even in "full-animation".

WHY?????

Here's a real dandy!
(That mouth looks like it's only good for one thing)

Drawing funny (or specific) mouth shapes doesn't take any longer than drawing boring mouth shapes.

I can't stand the idea of "stock" anything! Every time you sit down to do a new drawing you oughta make it NEW! Isn't what we do called "creativity"? Create something every single time you sit down to make something in a cartoon. Or give your paycheck back!

I'd go nuts if I had to just do the same poses over and over again for years. How do comic strip artists and Disney animators do it?



Oh, and these mouth shapes weren't made up arbitrarily just to be funny. (although that'd be better than pure boring too) I wanted them to match the inflections in Mike's voice.

Like I've said many times, the creative opportunities in every cartoon should never be finished until the whole cartoon is finished. Everything you touch should have entertainment value.

Well, that's my wacky theory anyway. I like to have fun all through the process of making a cartoon, not just at the story stage like the execs and those dopes that call themselves "writers" want.

Raketu is great. Greg, Martina and Oliver encourage me to make their spots fun-as long as they sell the product!

That's a logical trade off to me. I want to do a thousand of these, so when I give you a heads-up, then go to the Raketu site and see all the cartoon ads I did for them.

I'll let you know when they go up!

I'll keep posting more behind the scenes crap like this in the next few days. Thanks for giving a hoot!


SAY HI TO MIKE PATAKI AND TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM AND HIS BITCH! (T)

Dudley says hi too:

Appeal 1-starting with cuteness as the 1st element

Scribner

Blair

LET'S GET AWAY FROM THE SHEER UGLINESS OF CARTOON WRITERS TO SOMETHING INFINITELY MORE PLEASANT....CUTENESS!

Disney

HERE'S WHAT FRANK AND OLLIE HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT:
From The Illusion Of Life

#12 APPEAL
A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience's interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

Hess

I agree with all the 12 principles of animation that Frank and Ollie present in The Illusion Of Life. I believe them even more than they do. Their number 12 principle is "Appeal". I might put that as number 1.

Benedict

The main element that separates a cartoon from other forms of art is its simple appeal. It is all the tastiest parts of visuals paired down to the essential elements that bring instant pleasure.

Natwick

Bowsky?

Without appeal to draw you into the cartoon, you might not find out what else the cartoon has to offer. (I know the philosophy is different now, but that was what cartoons meant when they were invented-visual fun. The fun parts without the boring and ugly details of life.)

Ruth

But what exactly is appeal? It's a hard concept to define. It starts with cuteness as its basic atom. Cuteness in a simplistic definition is usually "attributes of children and young animals". Big heads, big eyes. Smooth soft finish. The attraction to those proportions is genetically programmed in us. We have to learn more about ugly old men before we decide to like them, but most of us automatically like puppies, kittens and kids....and once upon a time....REAL cartoons.

Clampett

Not everyone can draw cute or appealing though, even if they know the basic technical formula. Some people just have a knack for it. These cartoonists make the best designers.

Rice

Curmudgeon

I like to add a pinch of retardation to my cute drawings sometimes to make fun of appeal.

Mickey Mouse is sort of the standard for simple cuteness, although not every animator draws him cute. Freddie Moore sure does.

LITTLE WHIRLWIND

Disney made cartoons for Moms and infants.

Buy the color Mickey DVD if you have little kids or cartoon historians running around the house and you want to calm them down!



Here's a cartoon from 1947 that stars Mickey, yet Mickey is not very cute in it. The differences between cute and nasty Mickey are very subtle. Mickey is actually a really hard character to draw. If you get any feature off just a couple micro increments, the cuteness disappears.

MICKEY DOWN UNDER

Pluto's Party

In the 50s Freddie Moore came back to Mickey and gave him an updated more modern angular design. He also restored his cute appeal.





Strangely, they didn't bother to update Pluto. They left him as bland and unappealing as ever.

PLUTO'S CHRISTMAS

Moore took the fifties design a little further. I love the way Mickey looks in this cartoon. Note how the backgrounds don't match the updated modernistic style of Mickey. Someone was not paying attention.





WACKY CAN BE CUTE AND APPEALING TOO
Of all the Warners directors Clampett had the cutest most eye catching appealing style.

It's ironic since you don't usually equate crazy edgy stuff with being cute, but that's what made Clampett's edginess so engaging. It's like a bunch of cute innocent looking characters getting away with the nasty stuff we all think about. A great combination!

Clampett aimed his cartoons at the general public. Little kids love them because they are cute and funny and really energetic.

Older kids like 'em 'cause they are twisted, edgy and surreal.




Clampett inspired Virgil Ross to draw in a cartoony and appealing style.

Scribner had the cutest most natural, unaffected style of all the animators at Warners-while at the same time being the most exaggerated animator. My biggest drawing inspiration!
Clampett got McKimson to do the most appealing drawings of his career.Adults like them because they address their most important concerns.


A cartoon drawing should have appeal, but appeal sure isn't an easy ingredient to describe or define.

It starts with 'cuteness". But the word "cute" has lost its meaning.

McKimson not cute or "appealing"

Mckimson was a great animator and really good director, but his cartoons had a less innocent, not at all "cute" style to them. It was more of a cynical middle aged man cartoon style. He drew everyone kinda dumpy and pissed off, like most of my (male) friends!All his characters had tiny pig-like eyes and big fat jowls.Here's Jordan arguing with Ralph. McKimson made cartoons for Dads. They love this stuff! Me too.

Funny as Hell but not cute...

Sometimes Scribner could get away with doing cute stuff for McKimson. Scribner was the king of combining cute with sick.
Look at the giant pupils! An instant cute symbol.

Chuck Jones Faux Cute Style

Jones purposely cultivated a cute style. He developed a caricature of cuteness.

His early cartoons aimed at little kids and Moms.

His "middle period" was a lot funnier as he aimed at more general audiences. His style got less cute, more handsome I guess-a grown up cartoon style. It's still great drawing, though.


At the end of his Warners career he reverted to very cute, only this time aimed at critics, rather than kids.

Eventually he turned even the stock WB characters all into cutesy characters.

Friz not very appealing

Not Appealing

In the next installment of Appeal, I'll talk about how to draw gross and "pretend-ugly" stuff in an appealing way! Don Martin and Basil Wolverton will assist.