☺ The Snail joke ☺

[JanR90]

Just a small joke about a snail






A snail rings on the door of a house. The owner opens the door, and seeing that it was a snail, he angrily kick him away. About ten years later, again someone rings on the door. Owner opens the door and a angry snail says "What's the fuck was that, man" ?!

What you think? Do you think that it will be better if the joke is spoken by a narrator?

[kooobus]

Hi there,
Actually I don't find anything funny in that piece. Maybe I missed the joke somewhere (I blink sometimes, so that could be a reason). I don't want to be rude but It won't change much if you have V.O. narration or not in that case.

Cheers!

[JanR90]

Hi there,
Actually I don't find anything funny in that piece. Maybe I missed the joke somewhere (I blink sometimes, so that could be a reason). I don't want to be rude but It won't change much if you have V.O. narration or not in that case.

Cheers!

Thank you for your opinion, maybe next time I can make better joke

[SimplSam]

Hmmmmmmm. The video alone doesn't work as a Joke ...

Maybe you need to show the snail slowy crawling back to the house, and also shorten the amount of journey time to 10 days or 10 hours? 10 years is just way too long.

[JanR90]

Hmmmmmmm. The video alone doesn't work as a Joke ...

Maybe you need to show the snail slowy crawling back to the house, and also shorten the amount of journey time to 10 days or 10 hours? 10 years is just way too long.

Yes, thanks for advice nextime i will do more animation, because i just noticed that when i make animated joke, It's a bit complicated...
In a original text version it is this:

A snail rings on the door of a house. The owner opens the door, and seeing that it was a snail, he angrily kick him away. About ten years later, again someone rings on the door. Owner opens the door and a angry snail says "What the fuck was that man" ?!

But in my version it is diferent :/ its not working :/

[jahnocli]

Like most jokes, and nearly all animation, it's about build-up, presentation and timing. The joke is funny as text, but visually, if you have to explain a joke, then it isn't funny. This needs to be re-interpreted for a different medium...

[Víctor Paredes]

In therms of animation, I think it's nice and has a good rhythm. It would be good to have some anticipations and holds.

About the joke, I think it's one of that jokes that aren't too funny, but the way you show them can make them funny.
This is important, also, because the way you orally tell a joke won't be the same than doing it with a video. For instance, what is the punch of the joke? In my opinion, it's about how long it takes to the snail to get the door again. That information is the secret of your story and is what could make it funny, so you must reveal it at the very end of the joke.
When you show the text "After 10 years...", you are killing the joke in the middle of the video, so as viewer I don't have anything else to discover during the next seconds.
The line "What the fuck, man" doesn't give you any new information nor breaks the expectations, because I already know 10 years have passed and the snail will react to that.

I'm not very funny person, but I really dedicate a lot of my time dissecting jokes. My proposal here would be to focus the story in the snail rather than in the person.
For instance:
- A snail rings the doorbell, then a young person appears and before the snail can even say a word, the person -disgustedly- kicks him.
- The snail falls a couple meters away and displeased crawls back to the door. You can show the snail crawling quickly and with anger.
- All this happens quickly, because we are seeing the story from the snail's perspective, but when the snail rings the doorbell again, the same man appears at the door, but much much older. Doing this, you can visually show the years have passed without showing any text and at the same moment the punch occurs.
The snail was not aware -until now- about how slow he is, so the joke can be put over his face expression, from violent to confused to hopeless. Maybe his last line could be a hopeless "Never mind".


Anyway, probably my idea is not too funny anyway, but I think animating jokes is a good project, so my recommendations is not to animate this one again, but to make a new, preparing the script and an animatic with this concepts in consideration.

Sorry for the long text. I hope it helps

[hayasidist]

this from a long time ago is on a similar theme.... you might get some inspiration from it..

[Greenlaw]

I thought it was kinda funny. But, anybody who's read my comics or seen my short films already knows, I like dumb jokes.

Personally, I think the gag is fine, but I agree with some of the above comments that timing/pacing could be improved. You probably shouldn't use the word 'joke' in the title either. If you announce in advance that something is going to be funny, it raises expectations. Maybe try calling it something like 'Response Time', which may help set up the punchline? Just a thought.

BTW, I had not read the movie description in the initial post before I watched the video. I don't thnk you should explain the joke in advance--I probably would not have laughed at the video if I read the post before watching it. People will either get it or not. If they don't get it, it's better to just move on to the next joke.

[will_f]

You could try showing the passage of time visually, as well.

Perhaps have the snail crawling slowly back towards the door while whole years pass in the background (winter-> spring-> summer-> fall, and then back to winter, over and over again).

[JanR90]

Like most jokes, and nearly all animation, it's about build-up, presentation and timing. The joke is funny as text, but visually, if you have to explain a joke, then it isn't funny. This needs to be re-interpreted for a different medium...

Thank you for your opinion! Next time I'll try better

[JanR90]

In therms of animation, I think it's nice and has a good rhythm. It would be good to have some anticipations and holds.

About the joke, I think it's one of that jokes that aren't too funny, but the way you show them can make them funny.
This is important, also, because the way you orally tell a joke won't be the same than doing it with a video. For instance, what is the punch of the joke? In my opinion, it's about how long it takes to the snail to get the door again. That information is the secret of your story and is what could make it funny, so you must reveal it at the very end of the joke.
When you show the text "After 10 years...", you are killing the joke in the middle of the video, so as viewer I don't have anything else to discover during the next seconds.
The line "What the fuck, man" doesn't give you any new information nor breaks the expectations, because I already know 10 years have passed and the snail will react to that.

I'm not very funny person, but I really dedicate a lot of my time dissecting jokes. My proposal here would be to focus the story in the snail rather than in the person.
For instance:
- A snail rings the doorbell, then a young person appears and before the snail can even say a word, the person -disgustedly- kicks him.
- The snail falls a couple meters away and displeased crawls back to the door. You can show the snail crawling quickly and with anger.
- All this happens quickly, because we are seeing the story from the snail's perspective, but when the snail rings the doorbell again, the same man appears at the door, but much much older. Doing this, you can visually show the years have passed without showing any text and at the same moment the punch occurs.
The snail was not aware -until now- about how slow he is, so the joke can be put over his face expression, from violent to confused to hopeless. Maybe his last line could be a hopeless "Never mind".


Anyway, probably my idea is not too funny anyway, but I think animating jokes is a good project, so my recommendations is not to animate this one again, but to make a new, preparing the script and an animatic with this concepts in consideration.

Sorry for the long text. I hope it helps

Every advice is good, thanks Víctor! Maybe I should really focus more on animation, on emotions of characters and so on. And now when i see this animation after a while, i see things that i maybe do otherwise. And yes, I am preparing another jokes as well, an i hope it will be better and better

[JanR90]

this from a long time ago is on a similar theme.... you might get some inspiration from it..

Hi hayasidist, good one and thanks for inspiration! i can imagine this as an animation In our country (Slovakia), we have a lot of jokes about snails, turles(bears and rabbits) and other animals, so i hope next one will be better (About a bear and rabbit)

[JanR90]

I thought it was kinda funny. But, anybody who's read my comics or seen my short films already knows, I like dumb jokes.

Personally, I think the gag is fine, but I agree with some of the above comments that timing/pacing could be improved. You probably shouldn't use the word 'joke' in the title either. If you announce in advance that something is going to be funny, it raises expectations. Maybe try calling it something like 'Response Time', which may help set up the punchline? Just a thought.

BTW, I had not read the movie description in the initial post before I watched the video. I don't thnk you should explain the joke in advance--I probably would not have laughed at the video if I read the post before watching it. People will either get it or not. If they don't get it, it's better to just move on to the next joke.

Yeah, that whit the title a good idea, nextime i will try skip that "joke" word and about descripion... I was afraid that no one understands the joke, so i put it in description too

[JanR90]

You could try showing the passage of time visually, as well.

Perhaps have the snail crawling slowly back towards the door while whole years pass in the background (winter-> spring-> summer-> fall, and then back to winter, over and over again).

That with the changing seasons is a very cool idea ! But I must improve my animation skills first (it would be great to use particles on falling leaves and snowflakes!) Maybe in next joke i use something similar, thanks for advice!