Rango signals a long overdue transition for U.S-made animation: animated features specifically for adult audiences.  A new generation of filmmakers is knocking at the door.

A few posts ago, someone asked me if I thought Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist would have been a better film if it had more dialogue.  At the time, I had not yet seen it and couldn’t give an opinion.  It finally opened in Chicago, I saw it and am ready to discuss it. Unfortunately, the film is a frustrating near miss.  The lack of dialogue is not the biggest problem. More significantly the girl’s character is not fleshed out.

The decision to be a professional artist is unlike any other.  There is no single well-trod path to success and, anyway, how is success measured when it comes to an art?  Is it a dollar amount?  Is an animator who worked on, say, “Up” more successful than one who worked on, say, “Waltz with Bashir” or “Triplets of Belleville” or the game “Fable II”?   Or perhaps you consider animation to be a craft more than an art?

Let’s talk about acting!  Animators do not perceive or apply acting theory the same way that stage actors do.  The primary variable is that stage actors work “in the present moment”, and animators work with an illusion of a present moment – 24 frames make a second. Animators need to know the connections between thinking, emotion and physical action; they need to understand theatrical structure, the way that performance relates to story and how both relate to the audience.

My least favorite thing to do is lecture.  I much prefer to discuss acting theory with you.  Ask me questions.  Challenge me.

“Show, don’t tell” is a proven guideline for screenwriters but, for some reason, feature animation is still playing catch-up.  Internationally, animated films tend to have too much dialogue and/or voice over narration.  In this article, Ed Hooks makes the case for telling a story through action, not verbal description.

Few topics stimulate as much discussion in my workshops as the “willing suspension of disbelief.”  What is it? Why is it important? … Actors, audience members, tech crews all come together at the same time in the same place for a common purpose.  Their meeting is not any more random than meetings at church, synagogue or mosque. … There is an implied contract between actors and audience, and the terms of that contract are fragile.

Empathy is receiving a lot of academic attention lately. There are 131 books on Amazon.com that have the word “empathy” in the title. There is a website that is dedicated exclusively to discussions about empathy and compassion:  http://cultureofempathy.com/.  The subject is being approached from every possible perspective - psychological, social, political, artistic and neurological.  Since the illusion of life for an animated character is a quest for empathy, Ed Hooks weighs in on this critically important subject.

Moving illustrations are not the same thing as acting. Acting means the character is actually doing something.  To act is to do - action in pursuit of a provable objective while overcoming an obstacle.

The younger the audience, the more obvious the performance.  Children are adults-in-training, and their parameters for thinking and emotion are much more narrow than that of their parents. Most major animated feature films today are designated “Family” films.  But a family is comprised of a number of individuals of different ages and life experiences.  Is there really such a thing, really, as a “Family” film?  After all, Walt Disney did not make “Family” movies like those we see today.  He made movies for kids, and then charmed the adults into coming also.