How Maurice Noble Made 'What's Opera, Doc?' a Visual Masterpiece
Why 'What's Opera, Doc?' looks like that
Chuck Jones's 1957 Bugs Bunny short 'What's Opera, Doc?' is famous for its striking look. Designer Maurice Noble created angular sets, huge shadows, and unnatural colors like a red Elmer Fudd against a purple sky. Jones said without Noble, the film couldn't have been made. Noble experimented with double exposures and bold layouts to spoof grand opera, and the result became a classic.
Sometimes when you experiment you will fail. Some way-out ideas may not work the way you thought they would. But that's okay! That's the nature of being on the edge of exciting design. You will never do anything interesting if you don't take chances.
- WalterBright
Oh, what a great cartoon that is!
In my college daze, Chuck Jones dropped by to give a talk to a packed auditorium. Of course, what he showed was What's Opera Doc. We all loved it, and Chuck enjoyed our enthusiasm.
- Frieren
> To get the extra work done, Jones and his crew secretly shaved a couple weeks off other, easier films and faked their time cards. It was something they did on occasion. (The mysterious price increases angered the managers, Jones said, but they were “not very bright” and didn’t figure out the trick.)
How many companies work just because the average worker is the one making it work? In my experience a lot of them.
It is sad that the money always accumulates at the top even when so often that same people at the top are an impediment for doing better work.
- throw0101c
What's always been a bit surprising to me is that the conductor Leopold Stokowski had enough 'cultural cachet' that there was some expectation that people watching the cartoon would recognize the reference to him ("Leopold!"):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Stokowski#Hollywood_Bo...
Not sure that the general public would have any kind of awareness for conductors or anyone in the classical music world today: perhaps Yo-Yo Ma, and some years ago 'The Three Tenors' were a thing.