The Midnight Diaries of Catty Wampus

(note: this post is part of the Here Come The Puppets category here at the Midnight Diaries. Be sure to check out the full category for other selections from this spectacular program)

After a large positive response to the previous puppetry posts, I’ve decided to continue with some of my other favorite pieces from the ‘Here Come The Puppets’ special. This post will focus on the second highlighted performance from Peter Waschinsky (see the first piece here), a selection from his performance called “Earthworms.”

In animation terms, this piece is almost entirely about line of action and timing. Let’s talk about the timing first.

A friend of mine recently said “It seems like a lot of animated movies have similar pairs of characters in them: a lot of the time, it’s just a big round fat guy and a tall skinny guy. Is that because that’s the only thing that works in animation?” She wasn’t being sarcastic, she was legitimately curious if having those two character types are the only way to make animation interesting to an audience. I understood where she’s coming from. After all, it seems like “Big and Little” are everywhere in animation. Have a look at Mike and Sully, or Woody and Buzz, Shrek and Donkey, Dori and Marlin… heck, even Lightning McQueen and Mater.

My initial reaction was “Well, they’re not all paired up as big and small, or fat and skinny.” But the question remains, why are there so many that are? And the answer is: Contrast. The visual contrast in two characters’ design help us separate them in our minds. This isn’t just limited to animation. Just taking the “Short and Fat vs. Tall and Skinny” example, you could point to Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello. Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza. If I were being a little more pompous (which I’m clearly going to be, so hang on), I might even bring up Falstaff and Prince Hal… but to be honest, I haven’t read any of the plays Falstaff is in. I just know that he was a big, tubby guy and Hal was probably a little more on the lithe side.

It’s not always “Big and Small” that creates visual contrast, however. Two of my favorite characters from animation are Futurama’s Fry and Bender. Human and Robot. How about the Lethal Weapon franchise, whose two main buddies are Black and White. Or any number of movies that pair up a woman and a man for a thrill-ride adventure, like the recent Transformers or the Indiana Jones movies.

Of course, it’s not just the visual contrast of two characters that we respond to. There has to be a difference in their personality. One is dumb and the other is smart (Pinky and the Brain, perhaps?), one is cool as a cucumber and the other is a ball of energy (Jay and Silent Bob, right?), one is neat and tidy and the other is a boorish slob (Felix and Oscar, from The Odd Couple). To call out one of my other favorite television shows, LOST has Jack Shepard whose entire personality is rooted in science and fact, and John Locke who is a dreamer and willing to follow the mystic side of things because his world is based in faith. Heck, look at fairy tales: The Country Mouse and the City Mouse!

This kind of contrast really starts making its presence known when the two characters are placed in the same situation with each other. Any two characters put in a situation and will react differently. Typically, the more different two characters are, the more extreme their reactions will be from one another.

Now, puzzle this for a moment: what if your two characters are nothing more than two fingers? In fact, they’re the same finger from opposite hands. They look exactly alike, so you can’t rely on any kind of visual contrast in their design (except maybe “This one’s on the left and the other one’s on the right). They don’t talk, so you can’t rely on one screaming and shouting while the other speaks in only a whisper. Your only tool is this: how they move. To put it another way, their timing.

Watch the clip again and notice how the worm on the left moves with slow and cautious gestures, while the worm on the right is much more jumpy and quick when moving from pose to pose. Even when Left Worm starts moving more quickly there’s still a slowness and a grace to its movements, while Right Worm slows down, but still has much more quick timing in its movements by comparison. This is contrasting timing in its very essence. And I’ll bet that if you go watch any of your favorite comedy duos, you will see that they move very differently from one another–just like Waschinsky’s simple finger-earthworms. This is what we’re responding to.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about line of action. I did a little side-by-side comparison here:

Admittedly, this is an almost comical exercise since the line of action should be pretty clear from Waschinsky’s fingers. But sometimes it helps to separate things out in a clear graphical space as if it were an animation line test, instead of seeing the details of skin, joins, and fingernails. The important thing is that you can clearly see where each character is looking, and more importantly the attitude that is conveyed through their poses.

Look at the first picture: with Left Worm just peeking out of the ground, and Right Worm pretty aggressively observing him. Things change pretty quickly in the next panel as Left Worm approaches closer and Right Worm has an almost complete reversal in the base of his pose–it’s clear that he has gone from being in charge to being startled. The third panel pushes this idea even further.

You can even see in panels 4, 5, and 6 that Left Worm’s upright position conveys a message depending on what angle he’s at. He’s not merely “standing upright,” but he is at one moment inviting, and then confident, and then happy.

Panel 7 shows Left Worm in a wonderful anticipation, while Right Worm is now striving forward to get closer. I admit I can’t tell exactly why, but I can tell almost just from that single frame that Left Worm’s line of action isn’t recoiling in fear like Right Worm did earlier. Perhaps it’s the base of his pose, which is still slightly leaning forward.

Then finally, in panel 8, we see both worms supporting each other, being affectionate. Again, you can tell that this is affection as opposed to being belligerent or standing guard or anything else. It’s clear because the lines are so relaxed and calm (they’re not struggling against each other), and they are just barely giving each other a soft little touch–literally a kiss–where they meet.

As much information as a character’s line of action can give us, I believe there is even more information when we see two lines of action playing off each other. It’s almost like the two form a Line of INTERaction. I’ve always had more fun animating two characters reacting to each other–even if one character is completely silent during the entire scene, I find that simply having them there for the other character to talk to, or talk at, or avoid talking to can help draw the audience into the personal dynamic between the two. And the line of action always helps me define where each of my characters’ attitudes are coming from.

By the way, aside from all of this cool theory and observation, I just want to point out something that might not be apparent because of the darkness of the video: Peter Waschinsky performs this entire story (and I can only imagine there’s more even after the video cuts off) while lying on his back! The “stage” is nothing more than one leg crossed against the other with a black sheet draped over it. This is a quick overlayed sketch of what’s actually going on:

One of the things that separates puppetry from animation is that the puppeteer has the choice over how much the audience is aware of their presence. Sometimes you want the audience to only see the puppets and relate to them as characters, and other times you will incorporate yourself as puppeteer into the audience’s awareness, even if you don’t participate in the story at all. We’ll get into this in a later post, but I thought it was worth noting here.

Next Friday, when we return to Here Come the Puppets, we’ll take a look at a troupe from Northern Canada. See you then!