Acting and Performance for Animation by Derek Hayes & Chris Webster

Author:Derek Hayes & Chris Webster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Focal Press

Wants and Needs

Let’s say we have got a juicy character part to create and we’ve worked out what the character needs, we need to remember that doesn’t mean the character realizes it. Very often the story grows out of the realization that what she needs is different to what she wants in the beginning, and one important way of analyzing a story is by asking two questions of the character: what do they want and what do they need ?

In Shrek (2001), Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, the title character, the ogre Shrek, lives alone in his swamp until it is invaded by fairytale characters banished there by Lord Farquaad. What Shrek wants is to get rid of the interlopers and go back to his solitary existence and for this reason he undertakes the quest to free the princess. We can empathize with his grumpy reaction to being invaded, we understand about personal space, and we’ve all been bothered by annoying people when we had other things to do. But we don’t go along with it completely, we don’t sympathize and want to see the back of all these newcomers, because, well, we’re getting a lot of fun out of his reactions and we sense there is something that Shrek needs that is different to his immediate desire. What it turns out that Shrek needs is the exact opposite of what he starts out wanting: other people. He needs society and it takes him the entire movie to find it out.

Shrek is an engaging character right from the start, and we recognize a childlike sense of fun and a child’s delight in doing just what he wants without an adult getting in the way; in his domain, Shrek delights in his farts and body odor and does just what he wants to. If we were there with him, we probably would be less tolerant but we are responding to our own irresponsible younger self and empathizing with his pleasure in his freedom. When the other fairytale characters arrive we can understand his reaction, at some point in our childhood, we’ve all had to cope with the expulsion from our own little Garden of Eden, whether it be the primal move from breast to bottle, the arrival of a sibling, or the first day of school but, whether we are a school age child or an adult, we know he has to grow up and live in the world with other people; we are enjoying the ride and eager to see how he copes and how he changes.

Shrek, like Snow White’s Wicked Queen, has reached stage two of the Maslow pyramid but the arrival of a problem (the invasion of his domain) starts him off on his journey to a realization that there is a gaping hole in his life, one that needs to be filled with other people (Social) who love and value him (Esteem).

To go back to Snow White; while Snow White mainly reacts rather than acts and has an

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.