Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks

Author:Ed Hooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136720581
Publisher: Routledge

Introduction to Film Analysis

Performance in animation cannot be considered separately from story. Without story, there is no performance.

Up until this point in Acting for Animators, we have been studying acting theory in a sort of theatrical Petrie dish, as if acting as an art and craft exists independent of any other considerations. We have been examining how a character sequence – any character sequence – will work best when certain principles of acting theory are applied, and what happens when they are not. We have to approach performance that way, whether for stage acting or for animation. You first figure out how to create a stitch, and then you decide what kind of quilt you want to make, right? You first figure out how to sit on a bicycle, how to place your feet on the pedals, how to hold the handlebars and, once you know all of that, you figure out where you want to go on your bike, even if it is only to the end of the sidewalk.

We have looked carefully at all of the acting theory that you as an animator should ever need. If you have gotten this far with me, you understand why it is important for your character to play an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle. You understand that scenes begin in the middle, not at the beginning, and that we humans only empathize with emotions, not with thinking.

Now it is time to place performance in its real-world context. If you are on a traditional career path, you may already have found employment at a feature animation studio or game company. Especially if you are employed in the United States, these enterprises are, above all, businesses that are run by people motivated by the prospect of making money. This is a mixed blessing. On one hand, you get to make a living from animation but, on the other, story and artistic purity are sometimes pushed aside in favor of merchandising and production schedules. For a person who cares deeply about her art, this can be frustrating.

We are going to take a close chapter-by-chapter look at a few animated feature films. We are going to play each chapter of a DVD and examine it for performance, characterization and story development. I would like for you to pretend that you and I are sitting side-by-side in front of the monitor, discussing the film in front of us. I have the remote control device, so if I want to stop and look at a particular sequence a couple of times, that is what we are going to do. My option.

Before getting started, a few ground rules are necessary. First, the point of this exercise is to learn something. I become impatient with weak performance in multi-hundred-million-dollar-movies, but 20/20 hindsight is really not fair. We were not present when production decisions were made. The movies we are considering in this section were created by some of the most elite artists in our industry.

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