Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton

During this course we have looked at old comedies starring the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, these actors have helped my project as they know how to use empathy and emotion in thier performances to get the desired affect from the audience, they use a number of the principles of animation in thier performances including staging, exaggeration and timing. Also Ed Hooks who I've researched during this project admires the work of Charlie Chaplin and considers him to be a genius of comedy.

Ed Hooks On Charlie Chaplin
"Charlie Chaplin brought empathy to comedy. Before Chaplin, it was all Keystone Cops,
pratfalls, banging into trees, slipping on banana peels. Chaplin understood that the joke was not in the slipping on the banana peel, but in the emotional reaction to it after the fact. You understand that? Okay. He used to get his foot caught in a bucket. There was a gag in the old silent movies where you’d get your foot caught in the bucket, and you’d hear the music… And they bucket and they’re kicking it off, kicking it off. Chaplin got his foot caught in that same bucket. But instead of trying to kick it off, he’d try to hide it while he was getting it off. He’d try and maintain his dignity while he got himself unentangled from the bucket. All the while, there’d be girls watching. He understood that quality about embarrassment, that quality about empathy. I think that watching Charlie Chaplin movies is one of the best things you can do. If you’re only going to watch three Charlie Chaplin movies, watch “Goldrush”, “City Lights” and “Modern Times”. There’s a wonderful new collection out now. They’ve digitally re-mastered several of Chaplin’s classic movies, documentaries. I recommend it. But don’t watch it as if it was made in the 1930’s, watch it as if it was made last year. He was a genius. He would still be a genius if he was around today".