Seeking originality

Surely everyone of us has at some point tried adding something original to our character, details that would make him/her stand out from the rest and achieve an animation that would stick out. We start thinking and thinking and after long and fruitless hours our mind is still in a blank state, with no ideas and nothing new to provide. I believe the common mistake is to search for an idea from the infinite, as if it were floating around the universe waiting to be fished. It’s never like that, we have to search a lot closer, looking at our surroundings and within ourselves .

All great characters in animation history have something in common: they are the living image of their creators and the world surrounding them .

A great example is the Coyote from Road Runner and his adventures with Acme’s products . It’s creator, master Chuck Jones, only had to bring his own frustrations from the world of DIY to the character. Every time Chuck Jones tried to fix something at home, his wife and daughter would hide away in case anything happened. His experiments with his toolbox would always turn out disastrous and frustrating. Chuck Jones would only have to exaggerate this so that it would turn out more comedic. One time he spurt a huge amount of glue and couldn’t separate anything that stuck to it. It was the cornerstone for one of his most famous gags for the Coyote.

There’s always an absolute logic in the devices used by the Coyote. They never seem likely to fail, but there’s always a slight little thing that goes wrong and leads to disaster. The same thing happened to Chuck Jones, his adventures with his toolbox always ended up disastrous because of a small detail.

Also notice the famous Acme brand, the funny name we’d always see and ask how it came to Chuck Jones?? All Chuck Jones did was get a phone book. Going alphabetically, a lot of companies took the acme name because this would put them first and thereby gaining the advantage over their competitors.

Nobody ever said it’s easy, but coming up with good ideas is simpler than it seems. Simply get in front of the mirror and take a look at yourself. Analyze the way you are, how your life is and surely you’ll have something particular and different to add to your character .

Like Chuck Jones said:

“We all have a unique personality, with it’s own oddities and peculiarities. The only thing worth seeing in this or any other world, is all the stuff that goes beyond the ordinary. The usual has to be avoided and look for the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre and the unexpected."