When I was a kid I went thru a
phase where I slept with about 10 or 12 puppets and stuffed animals.
There was barely room for me to squeeze in,what with getting them to
stop arguing and playing ,so we all could get to sleep.My Dad
must have known I was a srange kid,but he didn't discourage it, after
all he had started it with his "goofy" bedtime stories, with farmers
chasing critters with shot guns who always got away laughing.
Fortunately for my back I finally reclaimed the bed, but it was
probably good early training for the work I would do, juggling a bunch
of strange beings in situations of there own making. People always talk
of drawing on your own experience,but mostly it's something else,
they draw on you to
bring them to life. Like
Chuck Jones said, he didn't draw Bugs Bunny, he drew pictures of Bugs Bunny. In other words these things -
cartoon characters that is, actually exist out there somewhere in the
ether.They must be pookahs or something, (like Jimmy Stewart's friend
the 6 ft. Harvey), but when we humans channel them aright, they give us
fine entertainment.
In all my varied work in animation, I've often considered storyboarding
the most satisfying, because there in your hands you're shaping all
cinematic aspects of the film,the characters attitiudes,reactions and
movements,the gags, and last but not least, the visual story structure
of the cartoon.It's here that the actual toon ,extracted from the
script, first sees the light of day, and all the climaxes, asides,
montage, trivialities and dramatic thrusts,winding down to a punchy
deoument ,epiloge or twist ending,and the camera angles that support
them,are taking form before your eyes, talking back to you, the big
hulking presence above the the drawing board, squibbling and
squabbling,until you put them on the shelf and break for dinner.
