In giving screen life to the above, the dog and dish would be drawn but once on celluloid and the other parts separately drawn for each phase of the movement.
ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS
CHAPTER X
ON HUMOROUS EFFECTS AND ON PLOTS
The purpose of the animated cartoon being to amuse, the experienced animator makes it his aim to get, as the saying goes in the trade, a laugh in every foot of film. The animated cartoon is allied in its kind to an extravagant farce or a lively comedy of the spoken stage.
Although strongly limned character and that there be something moving all the time seem to be the two important ingredients of a film of this type, it is not to be forgotten that plot is an essential in the work.
Naturally, a scenario, or skeletonized plan of the story, is written out first. The full details of the action and business, from the beginning to the very end, are not worked out as they are in a manuscript for a stage play. It is simply that some sort of a framework, on which to build the story, is first required.
In the early days of the art a film with a string of incidents only, but with plenty of movement in the animated figures, would find a ready market and an appreciative audience. At the present time not only must the pictorial properties be well rendered imageries of nature but the story must be artistic in form. This signifies that the idea of plot, and all its attendant concomitants, should be present. The usual requirements of a dramatic story are now sought for in an animated cartoon. The plot must be the orderly establishment of parts leading up to some main point, or the working to a climax and a subsequent untangling of it all.
PLENTY OF MOVEMENT IS DEMANDED IN SCREEN PICTURES.
If the artist does write the first sketch of the play himself, he at least will elaborate it and add various bits of dramatic business. This is all very well if he understands and knows what he is about, but if, on the other hand, he has not the dramatic idea, his additions are quite likely to confuse the story.