Our humor unit revolved mostly around English Class, during this we studied several works of literature that include satire and humor. The three books we read were The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco, and Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. For our english class we wrote humorist studies so we could propose the kind of humor we wanted to make. I researched different short animators to find two humorists that made films similar to what I wanted to make. In Honors english I wrote a Satire Comparison Essay where we had to compare and contrast the works of two humorists. I chose to write about The Importance of Being Earnest and Rhinoceros. At the end of the unit, we were supposed to make a humor script and production to show to the class. For my humor project I decided to make a short animation in after effects.
Humorist Study and Project Proposal
The two humorists I will be studying are Tom Law and Nicholas Menard, they are both animators who make comedy and humor short films. I chose to write about their work because their animations are close to the product I want to make for my Humor Project, a short narrative. Nicholas Menard’s short film, Wednesday with Goddard, is about a man looking for god, he finds a woman, Evelyn, who says she can lead him to god. They grow close during their journey up to the top of a mountain to find god and the man ends up awkwardly professing his love for Evelyn. When they reach the top of the mountain, god appears to them as an absurd but terrifying monster who opens their mouth and shoots a beam of light that vaporizes Evelyn. This leads the man to run home crying. The short started somewhat absurd with a man trying to literally (instead of spiritually) find god and where they live. The absurd humor is funny because it makes so little sense, it’s random and awkward and makes the audience find it humorous. Then it continues to get more absurd when they find god and the god obliterates Evelyn. The ending of this short can also count as slapstick humor, as it’s a somewhat violent event that leaves the viewer feeling stunned. This is closest to shock value humor, where something unexpected happens in comedy.
Tom Law’s animated short, Love, is about a man who is in love with a cactus and has started a family with it. He is drawn covered in bandages. His challenge is that his son wants a hug, except his son is a personified cactus and so is his wife. The man gives in and hugs his spike covered son and then has to peel himself off of the spikes. This short is full of absurdism and slapstick humor. Tom Law makes good use of caricature when drawing his characters to show their mood, for example the man is drawn to look very grumpy and covered with bandages while his cactus son is drawn with an endearing face.
What Tom Law did differently than Nickolas Menard is that he was able to show a full story without dialogue. Just a few scenes in his animation were enough to portray a humorous story. Both animators used simplistic styles to convey comedy better, if they used realistic animation styles it may have felt too serious. Both creators also create a somewhat wholesome atmosphere in their films with the relationships between their characters, but then cut it short with a dramatic situation with shock value humor or slapstick comedy.
Satire Comparison Essay
Click on the image to link to view full Satire Essay.
Final Humor Project
This is my final Humor Project, I am also including screenshots of my after effects interface so you can see my process. I drew the parts of each character in Procreate and then keyframed the animations together to create my final product.
Humor Script
Ladybug: hello! I’m a tiny creature! you’re another tiny creature on this great white plane!
Ant: You’re the first person I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve been lost from home for so long, I used to have a pathway but I got curious one day, look where it got me, lost.
Ladybug: I’ve always been alone
Ant: I never should have strayed
Ladybug: If you never strayed We’d never have met, we wouldn’t be here right now, we’re lost together!
Ant: you know what, you’re right! you’re kind of cool by the way, what’s your name?
Ladybug: I’m Pollyannah Bernadette Robinson
Ant: That’s a nice name, i’m Ant H43#01
Ladybug: That’s a lovely name, let’s be friends
Ant: that… sounds very nice, hey do you know where we are
Ladybug: no idea!
Person [looks at bugs on their book]: ew *closes book on bugs*