BAD DAYS

I love these so much! They do what all great cartoons should do... the make me laugh, and in turn, that makes me feel like I'm having FUN!!! The genius of these shorts are in the simplicity of the character designs matched with the insanity of the posing and timing. It's very difficult to teach this kind of animation. I wish coming along I had learned to animate like this. I guess it's just one of those things that comes with a lot of study, practice, and experimentation. One of the things I learned working on Hotel Transylvania (and still in the process of learning) is how much you can get away with a held pose and smear frames... or "ugly drawings" as I like to refer to the them.

One of the biggest slap-in-the-face notes I ever got from Genndy Tartakovsky on Hotel Transylvania was, "It looks too Disney!" I understood what he was saying. It was like he was saying, "Snap out of it MAN!!! You must unlearn what you have learned!" He actually told me the animation was nice, but it didn't fit the style of the film he was directing. This for me was one of those animation light bulbs that never really got checked to see if it was working properly, but they've already been strung up on the tree. For something so stylized, there are times you feel like you're getting it, and other times it's hard to make sense out of what seems like pure anarchy and chaos, but there is a formula to it. For more on this, just look back to the days of UPA. Sometimes we forget our job as animators is to entertain audiences. One of the best ways to do that is with silly poses and timing.

Anyway, I love these shorts by Junaid Chundrigar! I am definitely a fan!