Chalk talk
Encyclopedia
A chalk talk was a popular act in vaudeville
. A performer used chalk
on a blackboard to make changes in a drawing while delivering a monologue. Some performers would do caricatures of audience members. The term also was used to describe an act done with crayons. The term became ingrained in the language to the extent that a performance using markers and a sketch pad is still known today as a chalk talk.
Winsor McCay
began doing vaudeville chalk talks in 1906. In his The Seven Ages of Man vaudeville act, he drew two faces and progressively aged them. Popular Illustrator Vernon Grant was also known for his vaudeville circuit chalk talks.
The chalk talk format again gained notoriety in the 2000s in television advertisements for United Parcel Service
. Andy Azula
, the creative director for The Martin Agency
, starred in a series of UPS advertisements in which he draws on a whiteboard
.
and "Komikal Konjurer" Alfred E. Smith.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
. A performer used chalk
Chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
on a blackboard to make changes in a drawing while delivering a monologue. Some performers would do caricatures of audience members. The term also was used to describe an act done with crayons. The term became ingrained in the language to the extent that a performance using markers and a sketch pad is still known today as a chalk talk.
Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator.A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades...
began doing vaudeville chalk talks in 1906. In his The Seven Ages of Man vaudeville act, he drew two faces and progressively aged them. Popular Illustrator Vernon Grant was also known for his vaudeville circuit chalk talks.
The chalk talk format again gained notoriety in the 2000s in television advertisements for United Parcel Service
United Parcel Service
United Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...
. Andy Azula
Andy Azula
Andres "Andy" Azula is a creative director for The Martin Agency, who achieved fame after starring in a series of advertisements he created for the United Parcel Service in which he draws on a whiteboard. The ads were directed by Errol Morris....
, the creative director for The Martin Agency
The Martin Agency
The Martin Agency is an American advertising agency based in Richmond, Virginia that is now part of Interpublic Group of Companies.*Freecreditreport.com jingle since October 2007 starring Eric Violette.*"The money you could be saving with Geico"-Clients:...
, starred in a series of UPS advertisements in which he draws on a whiteboard
Whiteboard
A whiteboard is a name for any glossy, usually white surface for nonpermanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to chalkboards, allowing rapid marking and erasing of markings on their surface...
.
Animation
Chalk talks formed the basis for early animated films, as seen in the films of J. Stuart BlacktonJ. Stuart Blackton
James Stuart Blackton , usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation...
and "Komikal Konjurer" Alfred E. Smith.