Context
here, I'll be discussing the inspiration behind why I've chosen to do a black and white cartoon.
The reasons I've chosen to try and do a black and white cartoon instead of utilising the full colour spectrum again is because it'll serve as a great excuse to do some of those monochromatic designs I hinted at during unit 7:
The other (and to be honest, much bigger) reason I want to do this (besides wanting this work to stand out from the likes of Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge) is because I believe it'll allow me to try out a different set of techniques to what I've done in the past (I.E: I could try composing the soundtrack after the animation is finished rather than beforehand) and I get to look further into the history of both animation (from the traditional black and white cels and the invention of technicolour to stop motion and the modern wonders of computer animation) and films as a whole. Alongside the medium, I could also look at practitioners of the medium from both the past and present like Walt Disney, Max Fleisher, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Studio MDHR, DreamWorks animation, Ext.
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We Interrupt This Program to Introduce The Project Management Table
I know I'm whipping this thing out way earlier than I usually would but given how this is the final major project and they're expecting to see my weekly plan ahead of everything, I figured I'd whip this out as a bit of a good luck charm. The reason I've chosen to do this rather than use the template provided on teams is because I'm simply more familiar with this format of doing things. (and it's gotten me through every single project ever since the old Colypsia website from last year)
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Considering how badly I screwed up trying to start this whole project (what with me trying to begin the Saturday before we were all told this had to be on a new website), I'd say I'm currently doing A-OK.
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Here's a read-only document I made that would have served as the original starting point. (it even contains the Idea development I did in order to help me with the Project Proposal):
We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program
So as I was about to say before I rudely interrupted myself, I could also look into other aspects of the 1920s (Fashion, Music and the general culture) in order to gain a bit of additional inspiration as well as make sure that I'm designing the new characters (whoever they may end up being) to be as historically accurate as I can make them while still keeping them distinct from every other character from that time period. (because as of right now, I can still get sued for using copyrighted content from the 1920s because The Walt Disney Company ruined the public domain)
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So without further ado, let us take a look at some similarly old timey cartoons (as well as the odd live action silent film here and there) and see how they managed to engage an audience, while keeping in mind that a lot of the silent works we'll be looking at likely won't have the original soundtrack attached, so do keep that in mind.
Steamboat Willie by Walt Disney (video uploaded by Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Trolley Troubles by Walt Disney (video uploaded by slpenwell01)
Feline Follies by Pat Sullivan (video uploaded by silentfilmhouse)
The Adventurer by Charlie Chaplin (video uploaded by iconauta)
Now, one thing you should note right away about each and every single one of these pieces of media (besides the fact they're black and white) is how because of the lack of dialogue, all 4 of these pieces of old media (as well as many others like Laurel and Hardy and even Popeye) actually have quite simple storylines when you break them down. Steamboat Willie for example is about Mickey Mouse dealing with Captain Pete's nonsense and eventually making music with Minnie Mouse, Feline Follies is about Master Tom the cat (who would later have his name changed to "Felix The Cat") getting distracted by a character named "Miss Kitty" as some mice trash his owner's house and Trolley Troubles is about Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, who has to run a trolley service that goes horribly wrong thanks to a few major obstructions.
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You could argue that The Adventurer by Charlie Chaplin actually has he most complex plot out of the bunch considering it's a live action "silent" flick, which means it gets to be the longest because even back then animation was quite expensive (although it's not as expensive as it is nowadays), but you can still summarise the plot of this movie in about a sentence or two (it's a film about a prisoner who escapes jail and then falls in love with a girl)
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The reason these films are so simple in terms of story is because back in the early 1900s, films and cartoons were still emerging mediums (with film itself being invented in the late 1800s), as such this meant that audiences were more or less going to see these movies for the novelty of a live performance with a funny story attached, and since the mediums were new, a lot of early film makers were willing to experiment with different ways of giving the audience a chuckle, which is why cartoons in particular seemed to look slightly different each year, with Felix in particular going from a boxy design to the more rounder, rubber-hose design we know and love to this day:
The Old Felix (AKA Master Tom)
Image sourced from The Daily Cartoonist
The Modern Felix
Image sourced from The Felix The Cat Wiki
Speaking of cartoon characters being rounded, the main reason a lot of characters are primarily round is because it was simply much easier to continuously draw circles due to how all you'd need to do to change perspective is manipulate everything that juts out from said circle unlike with squares and cubes where you'd need to also add in extra lines which can ruin the whole composition of the character if you're not careful with them, hence why Felix kept getting rounder as he became more popular until we reach the modern day.
We Interrupt This Program to Bring You A Project Management Update
Ok, so now we're at the point where things should really get moving.
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You may have noticed that I decided to modify the table ever so slightly, the reason for this is because I wanted to make sure I'd get the asset list in there during the second week of storyboarding. (in case I somehow get the storyboards done on the first week)
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I should also mention that since I'll be back on site soon, it might make using Dreams PS4 a little bit difficult (that is if the college still haven't bought PS4s yet), but since we're doing alternating weeks it won't necessarily be impossible, but it won't be as easy as it was last year, although I was able to find a way to do it with the music video, so I'm sure it'll all work out just fine.
We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Program
Since spoken dialogue was basically a non-option until the likes of Steamboat Willie Popularised the use of synchronised sounds in the late 20s, a lot of silent films would often take one of two approaches in the rare event that dialogue and exposition would be the only option to move the story forward. The first and most common approach to this problem was that after a particular piece of dialogue is said, you'd cut to a text box where the audience would need to read what's been said, this can also be used to explain other bits of information such as where we're travelling to. This technique (which was mainly used in the live-action "silent" films) was used by people like Charlie Chaplin and the early works of Laurel and Hardy. While I understand the need for this as a storytelling tool, I don't really like how it requires cutting away from the action on screen because it can sometimes slow down the pace of the story, especially near the beginning of films with slightly more complex plots. (well, complex by the standards of the early 1900s anyway)
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The other approach to this problem however, I think is way better because with this approach, you can have a dialogue box pop up on screen while the characters are speaking. This particular technique was used exclusively in cartoons such as the old Felix The Cat shorts because it would have been rather impractical for live action people to have to get a bunch of dialogue boxes and hold them over a character's head (and not to mention the timing of everything has to be just right), The reason I actually like this approach more than the common approach is because it allows the audience to read what the characters are saying while still keeping the camera on the action, which allows the box to appear as the characters are "talking" instead of afterwards, which can be a huge help in keeping the pace from coming to a screeching halt every so often. (which is especially helpful in a cartoon where the gags needed to really stick the landing)
So How Were These Old Pieces Of Media Accessed?
The way you used to to be able to access these "Silent" Movies during their hey-day was that you'd have to go to a movie theatre that happened to be showing that particular film, from there you'd sit in a room full of fellow patrons because these movies would often carry the same weight as a live concert. Of course, the venue you pick would play a big role in what the actual soundtrack will sound like, as larger venues would've been able to employ a small orchestra, where as smaller venues would likely have a single guy playing a piano.
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This means that a lot of people would be willing to come from far and wide in order to attend screenings of these movies in the largest venues possible, that way they could hear the best version of the soundtrack. (which would allow the larger venues to make lots of money) Since the soundtrack wasn't baked into the film itself, this meant that every single screening of these "Silent" movies would end up sounding slightly different from one another thanks to the fact that the person (or people if we're talking about one of the bigger venues that's able to hire an orchestra) in charge of providing the soundtrack could choose to improvise in certain sections thus allowing them to experiment a little bit during each screening, which made each visit to the theatre different even if you'd already seen a particular flick before:
So during the film, you could end up hearing this...
Image sourced from The Arts and Science Council
...Or this depending on which venue you're watching it in.
Image sourced from LinkedIn
How it worked back in the day was that the film companies would send the film reel with a selected assortment of sheet music for the pianist and/or the orchestra to play during the movie, but once synchronised sound and Talkies became popular, companies no longer needed to send over the soundtrack, as it would be baked into the films themselves from that point onward which also meant the live soundtrack performance would become a thing of the past (well apart from The Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra over in The United States Of America as mentioned in Austin's amazing video on the subject, but that's about it as far as I'm aware)
So How Would The People Of Today Be Able To Access These Old Films?
In our modern world, there are two main ways people can view old "silent" movies and cartoons, but it comes at the cost of said media having to use stock music without any of the original means to make the sound effects, which is why we call many of the flicks before 1927 "silent" films, so often it ends up being an inferior experience.
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The main way people will access these silent films nowadays is via video sharing sites such as YouTube and Daily Motion as well as streaming services like Disney Plus and Netflix, albeit it will have mixed results depending on which version of a given movie you find on the internet, as the version of Charlie Chaplin's The Adventurer that I managed to find actually contains gun-shot sounds and stock music, where as someone like Austin McConnell might find a version of the same film that contains an entirely different stock soundtrack and (I assume) no gun-shot noises whatsoever. (which can make finding a version that's the most like the original quite difficult, especially if you're like me and have only seen these movies on some Laurel and Hardy DVDs my dad owns) In a way, I think this detracts from the entire medium because of how the companies who re-release these movies tend to lean towards using what today's audiences would consider "stock ragtime music" because often they won't have the original sheet music or equipment on hand to re-record the soundtrack, although the trade off here is that you get to access these movies at anytime or in any place that's convenient for you. (as long as there's an internet connection or you have the mobile data for it)
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The other main way that people can access these old movies is through DVDs of films such as The Kid and collections such as "Laurel and Hardy: The Collection"
Image sourced from Amazon
Image sourced from HMV
Unfortunately, the DVDs of these movies are plagued with the exact same issue as their internet counter-parts where not a lot of the films contain the original soundtrack or even the original sound design due to how the sound effects were originally performed live, although saying that, I'm sure they could very easily re-record sound effects using authentic musical instruments. (the reason they don't is a bit of a mystery to me though, perhaps it might be costs but I'm getting off topic)
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One advantage I believe that DVDs have when compared to the internet is that you don't need an internet connection to watch the old movies as all the data for said movies would be contained within the physical disc instead. (unless you've got a collection of multiple films, then depending on how many movies and shorts you get and the overall file size, the data may be spread across multiple discs) Instead you'll need a TV, a DVD player, the DVD itself and a room to watch it in. I will admit that depending on how you look at it, you could view DVDs as a less convenient way to enjoy these old movies in the modern day and either way, you won't really get the same experience as watching them in their original setting, but I believe that DVDs are superior because you don't need an internet connection to watch them.
So What Do I Want My Project's Purpose To Be?
As I've stated in my FMP proposal, I want the purpose of my Final Major Project to be mainly trying to capture the aesthetic and the humour of old black and white cartoons, that being said, I'll have to make sure that the ideas I develop from within that theme end up being something relatively simple and relatable to my target audience (although my main target audience for this one will be people like me who love the medium of animation) all the meanwhile I have to make sure I don't accidently steal someone else's plot at the same time.
To Summarise
I believe the reasons these old cartoons and "silent" films were able to entertain audiences back in the day was because they were able to make the audience laugh with funny gags and simple, mostly down to earth stories that the audience of the day could relate to (I.E: dealing with a terrible boss, getting distracted by romance and even finding oneself in trolley troubles), but due to the advancement of technology and lazy distributers not re-recording sound for these movies, the "silent" era has lost a little bit of its magic (unless you're attending a historical screening in Springfield Missouri, but people like me can't realistically afford to go to North America every time we want to watch a "silent" film in it's original glory, so unless there's a similar event in the UK near me, I'll sadly never be able to discuss the experience I had watching these movies in their original setting. (so I'll have to bare that in mind when I do the research)
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But without further ado, it's time for us to talk about the target audience for animation as a whole. (hold your noses folks, we're about to get statistical)
So Who Is The Target Audience For Animation?
When it comes to target audiences, most people would say that animation is "for kids" but in reality, animated works can be aimed at all the same audiences as their live action counterparts (because animation is an artform, not a genre), evidence of this can be seen in the fact that there exist animated works geared towards kids and animated works geared towards a more "adult" crowd:
"For Kids"
Video Uploaded by Movieclips
For Adults
Video Uploaded by Pandora Film Verleih
In fact, according to research conducted by a group called IPSOS (which I found out about via a Motivate Val Morgan article about animation from 2018), 71.6 percent of people in the 25-34 age bracket find animated movies to be very enjoyable. (the highest percentage of all the age groups studied in that particular slide):
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting the percentage of adults who found animation to be very enjoyable to be so high, but then again, this part of the study only covers those who happen to be either 15-24, 25-34 and 35 plus, so I can't really contrast this percentage with how many children happen to find animation enjoyable (meaning I haven't quite got the ability to rub these numbers in society's face), but what I find the most interesting here is actually what the two circular graphs say about who enjoys animation more, as 76.8 percent of women seem to find animation to be very enjoyable, whereas only 65.1 percent of men seem to find animation to be very enjoyable. (the other 34.9 percent are either missing out or simply don't have good taste in my humble opinion)
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One way that film companies will appeal to these adults who happen to enjoy animation is that they'll hide little jokes that they know will fly over the kids' heads (that way, not only will the adults in the room get a giggle out of the joke, but children can revisit these movies later on in life and finally realise all those hidden jokes their parents were likely laughing at all those years ago, examples of this include Marty's "Sugar Honey Iced Tea" (or S@%T) moment from Madagascar 1, Mater asking about what Doc did in his cup (because the term "Piston Cup" sounds a little bit like "P@%$ed in cup") in P.I.X.A.R's Cars and even Buzz's wings coming out automatically near the end of Toy Story 2. (because he's got the hots for Jessie) A lot of times in animated movies, the adult jokes will happen quite sparingly so that the kids don't get completely alienated, because kids are still the main target audience of a lot of the mainstream animated films:
Video Uploaded by Gregory DiBruno
Video Uploaded by TriadAngelReloaded
Video Uploaded by Beccaxnoel
Another thing these companies will do to appeal to us adults (I say that like I'm actually mature) is that a lot of the stories within these films will often be filled to the brim with deep emotional moments (many of which I feel are better than anything those live action films could ever pull off), particularly in a lot of P.I.X.A.R's films. Part of the reason these films contain a lot of emotional moments is because if the films were entirely comedic (or if the emotional beats are done poorly), they'd risk becoming quite forgettable experiences (much like "The Emoji Movie" or "FoodFight!"), an example of a good emotional beat actually comes from the "married life" scene from 2009's Up:
Video Uploaded by ikaracoltify
Part of what makes this scene work so beautifully is the way the people making the film managed to convey an entire film's worth of information within only two or three minutes thanks to the masterful visual story telling that goes on in this sequence. (everything from Carl and Ellie decorating their future child's bedroom only for us to pan over to the hospital where we find out that Ellie is actually infertile, which is then followed by other misfortunes that force both of them to draw from their "Paradise Falls" funds) This is coupled with an excellent score which elegantly weaves between moods in order to emphasise the emotions in any given situation with a leitmotif that starts off quite cheery but as the scene goes on, it starts getting sadder until we reach the part where Carl is at Ellie's funeral, where the only thing we hear are a couple of piano strikes. (this same leitmotif gets repeated throughout the film) I could go on and on about this scene, but I'm starting to get off topic, so let's move on to the next bit of evidence. (because these statistics are boring and I want this part to be over as quickly as possible so that I can move forward with creating the cartoon):
According to the people on some website called "Mic.com", about 74 percent of the audience for the 2011 re-release of The Lion King (the good one, not the "live action" one) consisted of families with children, which meant the other 18 percent were adults without children going to see the movie. I'm assuming this was partly based upon the nostalgia, but at the same time it could also be adults who never got to see The Lion King in cinemas the first time around. (either way, it show that the original film is still a timeless classic that DIDN'T need to be tampered with) That isn't even the largest percentage of "non-family" adults that went to see an animated film that decade, as 2010's Toy Story 3 (which is the second sequel to Toy Story 1) was able to bring in 40 percent of its box office earnings through adults who don't have any kids of their own, meaning that more than a quarter of people who saw the movie were adults who chose to go see the movie on their own. (and keep in mind, that one in particular is JUST for those that fall under the 17 to 24 age bracket, so who knows how many more adults above that bracket also decided to see the movie)
This article explains this trend where a large percentage of the audience for animated films are adults who don't have kids (at least during the time Frozen was still new, as that was when this article was written) with the fact that a lot of these younger adults (which I guess includes me to an extent) seem to be going through times of constant crisis, whether it be the stock market crash of 2008, 9/11, fears of the world ending in 2012, an increase in terrorism and conflict, 2020 (because listing every disaster that happened that year would be overkill) and the global warming crisis that'll turn the arctic poles into nothing more than fiction real soon if no one does anything to stop it. As such, we've been looking for an escape from it all (because without an escape, we won't even have "good ol' days" to look back on) and the bright colourful fantasy worlds of animated movies and cartoons happen to fill that void perfectly with their simple characters (at least on the surface) and often predictable endings where the good guys always win, which serves as a comfort food to a lot of us out there. (especially in these trying times) But enough waxing off about the current state of society, I've got statistics to compare.
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When you factor this increase in adults going to watch animated films with the study done by IPSOS in 2017 which showed that 71.6 percent of adults aged 25-34 happened to find animation very enjoyable and you can certainly see that this trend only seems to have increased as the decade moved on.
So Who Do I Want My Target Audience To Be?
With these studies and articles in mind, I've decided that I actually want to try and target these young adults, but not in the traditional sense where I try and add in some hip and trendy nonsense into my cartoon as a cheap hook, since not a lot of these people will really want to watch a black and white cartoon from the late 20s if it's not Mickey Mouse, although the game Cuphead was able to use this aesthetic and it managed to be a massive success. This means I should try and use my cartoon to try and get my target audience a little bit more interested in watching these older cartoons.
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Of course, just because my main target audience happens to be adults, that doesn't mean I want this cartoon to be inaccessible to kids. With this in mind, I'll want to make sure that any violence that happens in this cartoon is highly exaggerated and non-imitable, that way even the children can find something to enjoy, and who knows, maybe THEY'LL end up becoming curious and decide to check out these old toons for themselves.
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With all this in mind, I think the tone of this new cartoon should try and stick to a similar vein that some of my other work (I.E: Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge), meaning it'll be quite a goofy affair where characters have to deal with humorously surreal circumstances (I.E: dealing with a tornado on the way to a super hero convention or even cleaning up rubbish in space), but at the same time I want to make sure that these particular shenanigans are reminiscent of something you'd typically see in a 1920s and/or 30s cartoon, so this means no hip cool memes that the young kids of today would find funny. (although I don't really want to do this anyway because by the time I finish animating everything a lot of the hip cool stuff would come off as dated)
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So with this in mind, it's finally time for me to move on to more important things, like the research section. (after a quick bit of reflection of course)
So Where Do You Plan On Releasing The Cartoon Then?
As for where I plan on releasing this cartoon, I plan on releasing it onto the video sharing website known as YouTube. My two reasons for this plan are because one: I already have account which I made during level 2 last year, so releasing it there will be more convenient for me. Reason number two is that since there are lots of people who use YouTube (from adults to even children), releasing my cartoon there will allow me to release it to the widest audience possible (including those within the 25-34 age bracket because they'll be) unlike other video sharing platforms such as Daily Motion and TikTok. (which don't quite have as big of a user base as YouTube due to how YouTube have a virtual monopoly over the market thus leaving me with not a lot of other options if I want to reach a wide audience, also I don't really use social media a lot)
So How Was Looking Into The Target Audience For Animation?
Alright, I'm just going to come out and say it. I didn't like doing this part very much, as I found looking into the statistical side of things to be quite boring. On the plus side, this did end up being quite a good excuse for me to briefly talk about things such as the adult jokes that sometimes get put into animated movies (because parents and adults also watch animated movies sometimes) and even the "Married Life" scene from Up, albeit those were just brief tangents because this section was supposed to be about me looking into target audiences for animated movies and how they impact the decisions of the film makers rather than the other way around.
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Now that I mention it, maybe THAT'S why doing this section was a little bit of a struggle, as I had to talk more about the statistics surrounding the medium of animation rather than the actual medium itself and all the effort that goes into making anything within that particular medium. (which is in part why this section seems much weaker than what came before it) If that's the case, then I'll just have to find a way to steer the discussion back to the creative side of things inbetween the statistical stuff, that way I can make the statistical side of things easier for me to chew on. (or at the very least, it'll become more bearable)
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Heck, I'm even having a hard time putting these feelings into words (which isn't usually a problem with my reflection, as I often enjoy what I'm actually reflecting on), so with this, I think I want to move on to the research section and hope I can improve upon what I did here.