Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Q: All of the Scrat fi lms are humorous. How do you make them funny?
Chris:
I feel like a lot of times humor becomes one of those weird things. It's like an
innate sensibility to a certain degree, and everyone's a little different, but there are
obvious ways to make things funny.
One good thing about Scrat is that the audience is going into the piece liking him
and wanting to laugh. We are working with a known character. His design is
great. Big goggle eyes help if you're designing a character for a short. To make
things funny, relate-ability is a huge thing. Drawing on touchstones that your audience
is familiar with on some level is a great way get some laughs. But put a twist
on it.
Scrat is a classic physical comedy piece. Physical pain is the relatable element.
Even with physical pain, you have to try to set up the payoff. You can't just sit Scrat
there and hit him on the head with a hammer. Hitting with a hammer has to mean
something.
For example, with the sword in the stone moment, nothing painful happens to
Scrat for a bit. At fi rst he's very calm, then he fi nds the sword. When he draws the
sword, there's a moment where he is heroic and for just an instant, you think maybe he
is going to win this time. Of course, then the arrow comes in and things begin to go
badly.
That turn is where the laugh comes. It's not the arrow coming in, it's the fact he's
heroic and then he is not. Once we delivered that, then we could start doing physical
pain in other events a bit more quickly, but you have to have the moment pay for
itself.
In another example, Scrat shows up in the snow and he thinks he's home.
Hopefully, the audience probably expects he's not home. Then you cut wide and
you see a ship, the
Titanic
, coming through the mist. So there, the comedy of it is, “Oh,
he's relieved, thank God it's over,” and then the discovery that he is on the one piece
of ice in history that actually is dangerous to be on. That ends up creating some
laughs.
Mike:
What makes the Scrat funny is equal parts situation and performance. The ani-
mation team has worked really hard to refi ne a handful of characteristics that really rely
on timing; how fast does his head turn, how many times does he shift his eyes and blink,
what kind of rhythm is there to his movement. How the Scrat reacts to a given situation
is the key to his comedy. And the comedy of the Scrat fi lms and shorts comes purely
from his character; there's no dialogue or clever punch line.
