You Ought to be in Pictures

"You Ought to be in Pictures" is a Warner Bros. short created in 1940. The short is centered around the characters Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. The overall plot of the short is that Daffy wants to be in more features so he convinces Porky that he 'ought to be in pictures'. After doing so, Porky has the producer, Leon Schlesinger, rip up his contract and then proceeds to search for a job in live action films. With Porky gone, Daffy is free to make his case to Schlesinger. In the end Porky returns to his original studio, gets his job back, and beats up Daffy.

In terms of its animation, the most significant aspect of this short is the fact that it portrays animated characters in real life settings. This is probably the most extreme way to use the masking effect. Having these characters interact with real people also helps to make them more relatable and believable, even though they are obviously hand drawn. Another important technique of animation at play in this short is the use of reflexivity. At the beginning of the short the viewer sees Porky and Daffy actually 'jump off' of the drawing easels that they were created on and at the end, they return to them. This helps to make this short more spectacular by reminding the viewer that what they are seeing through out the short is hand drawn characters interacting with humans in a human world.

(above written by Ajeevaratnam)