John Kascht

I've always had some difficulty with the term, "master class", as it is often a little too liberally applied to instructors who might not be quite so masterful. Well, for once, I can use the appellation with utter conviction when I talk about John Kascht and his film,"Funny Bones". It's a short, incredibly incisive deconstruction on the art of caricature. In it, Kascht diligently analyzes every peak and valley of the topography that makes up the face of comedian, Conan O'Brien. And while it has plenty of delightful time lapse sequences of John sketching, painting and even sculpting, the piece is not about technique per se. It's really a rumination on the art of capturing a likeness and more importantly, the essence of a subject. He reminds us that caricature is not distortion for distortion's sake, but rather an amplification of those features that reveal what is unique about that particular person. There is plenty to marvel at in Funny Bones and if you are trying to learn something about capturing a personality on paper, go here.