I wonder if anyone stops to think what it is like to write site gags for cartoons day after day. Don't get me wrong I love the challenge. As one gets into this hobby or career one tends to develop ways to see things as other do not.
Today for instance I am working on a gag pertaining to Sam the wild life movie maker giving Percy the lion on what to do during the shooting of the scene. And there I am drawing out the concept and realize I didn't know what the new movie cameras look like so I pulled up Google images for the new movie cameras. As I am drawing the camera I decide to add Zak the bear as the guy who holds up the chalk board that goes click and pencil in his thoughts about primadonna actors and bang!! A brand new gag hits me like a bolt of lightening!
Sometimes ideas hit me while I am a sleep and wake me up at 2 or 3 am when I have to tell my wife who of course is asleep. She sort of wakes up and says,"That's nice." and goes back to sleep.
Ideas for gags usually happen when you least expect them or while you are working on something totally unrelated.
I once read that there are exercises to build up your gagability (brand new word) or the ability to build or create gags or jokes. In that same book the author said that most gag are in groups of three, gags have to have a surprise ending and since our life styles are changing with new inventions the gags usually refer to the here and now. Today a joke about a hand crank telephone would not work nor would most people under the age of 30 know what one would mean when stating that a phone was slammed down.
There are quite a few people who seem to think all the gags and jokes and books have been written but how can that be when I am not done yet?
No comments:
Post a Comment