Animators should
focus on the acting...make the characters think and act...start
with the body first, next focus on the eyes, and last focus on the
mouth. When reviewing reels we look at the acting first." --
John Lasseter, November 4, 1996 during a lecture at the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.
The actor and the animator may approach creating
the life of a character in a similar fashion, but while actors transform
themselves into their characters, animators have an additional challenge
of maintaining a subjective, as well as an objective, approach to
characterization. Therein lies the challenge of finding a form of
acting training that will be particularly useful for the animator. John Canemaker
For actors, and particularly for animators, it is useful to develop
a keen kinesthetic sense and a thorough understanding of music and
rhythm. Frank Gladstone, Director of Training at DreamWorks SKG,
feels the animator is responsible for creating characters who not
only fit their own voices, but ones who can perform without vocal
cues as well. The more keenly developed a kinesthetic sense an actor,
dancer, or animator has, the more capacity that artist has to portray
various characters and exhibit organic nuances and gestures appropriate
to that character.
Researching a number of animation curriculums from academia to commercial
studios, and conducting interviews on the subject of acting and
performance, as it relates to the professional animator, has shown
unanimous agreement on the importance of acting classes for successful
animation training. However, there has yet to be any course of study
for investigating acting and performance that specifically relates
to the expanding requirements of animation. Not only do animators
have to understand the process of acting in order to create a character,
but they also have to be able to direct and communicate with actors
for projects involving live actors for reference or motion-capture.
"Animation is the kind of medium that is such a combination
of other mediums that the more you know about music, art, film,
choreography, literature, or current events, the better you are
going to be. You name it, and it is only going to make you a better
animator or better storyteller for animation." -- Craig Kellman,
Character Design, Disney Feature Animation
What follows is a series of excerpts from some of the interviews
I conducted addressing acting and performance as it relates to the
professional animator and his training. From historians to television
and feature film to motion-capture and voice actors, I have gathered
a number of viewpoints on this critical issue.
Director of the animation program, New York University's Tisch
School of the Arts
Action analysis and acting are just as important to study as the
technicalities. You have to create personalities, and you do it
somehow through a combination of physicality, psychological points
and emotion. How is the character feeling? Who is the character?
For classical character animation, where the plot revolves around
the personalities created, I think it is essential to know all of
the areas -- acting, action analysis, story structure, traditional
animation. I want the students here to have knowledge of that. That's
what the action analysis classes are for and that's why I brought
you in. I brought you in to help give the students a "feel"
of what it is like to reference their own bodies and then to project
that into their puppets, computer characters, or drawings. [Editor's
note: Judy Lieff taught a movement workshop for John Canemaker's
Action Analysis Class.
Many of the greatest animators knew their
bodies very well and how they could stretch beyond what normal people
do with their bodies just through their athletic prowess. Grim Natwick
who lived to be 100 years-old was a track runner. Ollie Johnston
was a runner. I think a lot of animators are well coordinated physically.
If they don't know it through sports or through performance, they
may know it through dance. They said Freddy Moore had incredible
balance. Like his animation, he might find himself off balance,
fall over backwards, but then end up in a great storytelling pose.
Norman Ferguson was not a performer, but he's the one who really
started to create animated characters that could think (Playful
Pluto, 1934). Ferguson was a great fan of vaudeville as was
Ward Kimball. Vaudeville is throughout all of Ferguson's work, and
he claims it as a big influence. There were a whole bunch of these
people who had performance experience.
Walt Disney created his own educational program and it included
action analysis. Don Graham was hired from Chouinard to put these
classes together. They examined the films of artists such as Charlie
Chaplin and Buster Keaton, frame by frame and discussed how the
gags were set up and how they communicated with the audience. They
looked at all kinds of films including German Expressionism, films
by Leni Reifenstahl, sports films, Hollywood films, nature films,
documentaries. They used bits and pieces of everything, and learned
communication principles from that.
In the `30s there were a few instances of dancers being referenced
for characters. Danilova of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was
brought in to the studio to pose for the Ostrich in Fantasia.
Snow White's model was Marge Champion, and you can see her balletic
grace in the character's posture and mannerisms. Marge Champion
was also referenced for the blue fairy in Pinocchio and for the
hippos in Fantasia.
I was an actor for about 10 years. So I knew about performing and
communicating and posing. I am trying to get people who may not
have had that experience to do these things. I encourage students
to take acting classes. I encourage them to look up the method,
or study Uta Hagen, or go see a musical comedy, or watch mime performers.
There is a world out there that we can draw from literally and figuratively.
Because body language and expressions in great classical animation
are so refined, direct and expressive, it isn't necessary to hear
the sound track to understand what is being portrayed. In classic
Disney films you understand just through the movement, how the characters
feel and relate to each other.
Brett Varon I took acting in high school but not at CalArts.
The best way for me to stage a scene is to act the scene out myself.
If I act something out, I invent things that I wouldn't have done
drawing. I think an animator has to have a sense of physical comedy
and acting. There has to be an interest in expressing an idea visually,
like dance in that way. A dancer, like an animator, has to be a
physical imitator. I think everything you do helps in animation.
If you can, and you have access to it, an acting class is a really
good thing. Jim Duffy
Assistant Director, Fox's Family Guy
Watching references is one thing but then doing it gives you a more
thorough understanding. It takes things to the next level. The more
you research and the more time you put into something the better
it's going to be in combination with the talent you have.
Director/Creative Producer, Klasky Csupo
At Klasky Csupo, we believe to be successful, directors and storyboard
artists should possess strong acting and composition skills so recently
we've offered acting classes to enhance their work. The classes
aren't meant to teach them acting as such but more to increase their
awareness of what motivation and emotion a character might be experiencing
so they can better construct each scene.
When an artist gets a script and voice track, they begin to envision
composition as well as what actions the character might be doing.
To engage an audience, the scene must be interesting to watch. Today,
we often see animation that's simply talking heads with little acting
and boring composition. Like live-action, the job of the director
and artist is to enhance the actor's vocal performance with more
visual clues to what's happening in a scene. We hope the classes
we're offering can support our artists, giving them more tools with
which to work.
Frank Gladstone
Director of Training, DreamWorks SKG
The voice performance can establish the timing for your character.
If there is a pregnant pause or a rush of words or something like
that, then it gives a hint to the animator of what the character
is going to do and what his or her emotions are. Animating becomes
a kind of a pantomime synchronized with a voice. The voice gives
a lot of the timing and much of the character's attitude. The animator
is responsible for making a performance that fits the voice. The
interesting thing happens when there isn't a voice and the animator
has to deal with a scene or a sequence where they are acting true
pantomime. That's why the animator has to get to know the character,
so that not only can they perform when they hear the voice of the
actor, but they can also perform when there aren't any voice or
timing cues.
We have acting coaches come in. Whether you are animating a horse,
or a buffalo, or a human being, you still have the same considerations
with timing, expression, pose, silhouette, lines of movement, choreography.
If a school only teaches people how to operate a computer and they
don't teach fundamental principles, meaning fundamental art principles
as well as fundamental acting principles, then they are doing a
disservice to their students who want to be animators. I'm not talking
about students who want to work on the technical side of things
or students who want to light scenes, construct or render environments,
composite images, etc. Whatever their specialty in animation, whether
traditional or cg, artists must have a well developed knowledge
of design and composition.
It's generally much easier to train a traditional
character animator to use a computer than it is to train somebody
who uses a computer to understand what it is about animation that
makes something alive and makes people think that this character
is real. The computer is not a magic box. It's as good as the soul
of the person working it. In terms of acting, what we look for are
teachers who understand what animators need. Our teachers have been
pretty eclectic in their approach, and they often tailor their workshops
for the project at hand. If you are an animation student, I suggest
going to the theater department and taking Acting 101 and 102. If
possible, try to get on stage and do a play. Glenn McQueen
Randy Nelson
Dean, Pixar University (PU)
Animators don't want to become actors. They want to know what an
actor knows and how an actor prepares. But being able to do it as
a real-time performance skill is not as important to them as knowing
the kinds of things that an actor would do in approaching a role
and building a character. In general we concentrate on schemes of
physical movement, and techniques and mechanisms at the literacy
level. What everyone should know and the mastery kinds of things
come out of the internal teachers. We tend not to go outside because
we are so rich internally.
One of the things that we think is very powerful here in the studio
is the way that we do dailies. The approach here is that everybody
from the least experienced animator, the greenest kid, to the most
experienced director -- everybody -- every day gets together in
the same room and sits and looks at the material together. Unlike
the model in traditional animation where a single animator will
be responsible for every bit of a particular character throughout
a show, we are looking to find the best match between the character
and the performer/animator per scene. The animator is responsible
for a particular scene in which he or she animates all of the action
in that scene, all of the various characters, and when they finish
that scene they get another scene. It brings a fresh eye to the
material but it's difficult keeping continuity and that's just what
the dailies process gives us -- the best of both worlds, continuity
and the fresh eye.
Pixar is made up of a diverse group of people but the one thing
that ties them together is that everyone is a life-long learner.
Supervising Animator, Pixar Animation Studios
It's interesting that you are even asking about acting and performance
because as far as I'm concerned that is pretty much all there is.
All we are trying to do is come up with believable performances
for the characters. For me, as an animator, some of the most important
things that you have to know in order to come up with a believable
performance is knowing the story inside and out, where the character
is coming from, and where the character is going. You have to know
whether to hold back a little bit because ten minutes later, or
five minutes later, in the film the character has to take it up
a notch. It may just be emotional notes.
We have to be far more analytical than an
actor. An actor is in the moment, whereas we have to be in the moment
sometimes weeks at a time. The important thing is to have some sort
of record of what your initial inspiration was for the shot because
a week from now you will just be buried in minutiae. It's easy to
lose sight of the original kernel for your shot and be worrying
about things that aren't necessarily making the performance more
entertaining and more real.
I think acting classes are valuable. Anything that stretches your
imagination can be helpful. However, for me, most great animators'
work is already so strong that they are able to intuit what is right
for a character. Finding acting classes that address the particular
needs of animators is difficult. You are listening to a line over
and over again trying to develop a performance that fits inside
a fairly rigid framework that fits with the surrounding shots. I
act things out unconsciously and then become conscious of what it
is I am doing -- what are my arms doing, what are my wrists doing
relative to my arms, how my weight is shifting from one leg to the
other, what my hips are doing while I am delivering that line. You
want to start off doing a performance that feels natural and right
for the character and then move to an analytical mode where you
decompose the performance into its primary elements. I videotape
myself in a room with mirrors on all four sides. Thumb nailing is
also a valuable tool as well.
The way we work at Pixar when portraying an emotion is to start
with the body and touch the face last. One of the best ways to portray
an emotion is to come at it from a pantomime point of view and ask
yourself: how can I communicate that emotion with my body? If you
have something that works without the face then adding a little
something with the face only enhances what is already effective.
Ultimately, you want to be able to turn the sound off and almost
get a primal feel for what is happening in the shot.
Another tool we use to help us come up with
a good performance is videotaping voice-over recording sessions.
In the course of a recording session, an actor may do 10 takes of
a line. For an animator it's fantastic. It's like an all you can
eat buffet. You can grab a hand gesture from take two, use the eyes
from take four, and be inspired by something the actor does with
his head in take seven when the director picked take two as the
final select for the film. How much movement an actor gives to the
camera when recording varies from actor to actor. However, even
an actor who isn't gesturing with his hands can be helpful for facial
expressions. Very often the rhythm of the dialogue will greatly
influence the rhythm of the shot and provide a framework. However,
it is up to the animator to "compose" the character's
movement. Punctuating every verbal note with a body movement is
messy and confusing -- too many notes. I generally find things that
have a very regular rhythm are not that interesting. It's important
to create a push and pull and manipulate the rhythm to keep the
shot interesting. A good script, a good actor, and a really fun
dynamic read? Give me that and I am as happy as a clam. Craig Kellman
Visual Development and Character Designer, Disney Feature Animation,
also Character Design Instructor, Gnomon Institute
Most character designers think only about design and not about character.
It helps me to focus on the fact that no matter what these characters
are, I should be getting inside their heads, and I should be treating
them like a character that I would be acting. You have to be acting,
or the characters are just going to be designs. They are going to
be lifeless, or they are going to be very cliché and stagnant.
You don't want clichés. You want to be looking at a character
from many different angles, just as an actor would. A good actor
would be thinking about not only the external character, but the
internal one as well. Let's say the character is a teenage cow.
I am going to think about what makes this character not only a cow
but inherently teenager. Maybe he's very gawky and awkward. Visually,
I might want to give him these long appendages, a high center of
gravity and oversized hooves -- like a pubescent teen whose hormones
are out of wack.
I think it is important to continue to study
acting, because acting is in design as well as in animation. Once
a design is done, a good animator, if he's a good actor, is going
to make that design come to life. If the character designer is a
good actor to begin with, he's going to make the animator's job
that much easier.
Jim Bresnahan
Lead Animator, Blue Sky Studios
We are doing a lot of commercial work. It is pretty obvious what
the character needs to do if it has to perform for a commercial.
On that level we are just concerned with how it should move. For
a bar of soap, I would just do thumbnail drawings, and for a more
complicated character I would act it out myself. The commercial
jobs are generally not story driven and there isn't time for character
transformation. We just go for what is entertaining. About three
years ago we did a spot for cranberry nut cereal. We had to do a
tango between a cranberry and an oat flake. We tried to do it ourselves
but none of us could actually tango. So we brought in a couple of
tango dancers and video taped them which was helpful. However, in
most cases we don't have to bring in live models. We can find reference
on tape.
One of things that I think makes a good animator or helps people
animate better is to have a kinesthetic sense. A sense of your body
allows you to pose characters and perform while you are sitting
there in front of the computer motionless except for your hand.
Like music, timing and a sense of structure in the timing of the
animation is also very important. The best way to improve your animation
is to develop your sense of pacing and timing. There might be something
about a particular walk cycle that really feels good because it
has that underlying musical structure. You might not be able to
explain it when you see one piece of animation versus another but
that's why something looks better. It's got an underlying musical
structure whether it's based on 4/4 time or another meter.
I haven't taken acting classes. At Blue Sky
we have brought in on several occasions acting teachers. Hopefully
we can do some more work with them in the future. I found it helpful.
We tend to get bogged down on the technical side of animation but
I think we definitely need to get more abstract and understand more
about what the actor's thought process is. Alberto Menache
Up until recently you had to drop out the subtle stuff and just
go for broad gestures but with computer animation advancements there
is some amazingly subtle stuff going on with the characters. It
will be interesting to see who becomes a really good animator and
what skills are really valued. The people who are good at acting
and can convey the subtleties that you get from good live-action
actors will have opportunities to shine. The people who are good
animators have a mixture of having the visual eye and sensitivity
toward the process of acting itself.
Daniel Robichaud
Vice President of Creative Development, Vivid Animation
It is a well-known fact, at least within the animation community,
that character animation is a form of acting, and you act through
your character. This is why for instance in my film Tightrope,
when it was time to assign a lead animator for each of the two characters,
I wanted to make sure that the personalities of the lead animators
would be similar to the characters that they would have to animate.
It is a general rule that for any type of a performance you need
to put yourself into the skin of your virtual character and be it.
You need to be a good behavior analyst. I think if there is a common
denominator to the different personalities that I have encountered
among character animators, it would be that they all have an integral
sense of observation. I believe that keen observation is the most
important skill to have because after that it is only a question
of assimilating, analyzing and understanding what you have remembered
from observing and then applying it to your craft.
Character Technical Direction Supervisor, PDI, and author of
Understanding Motion-Capture for Computer Animation and Video
Games
Depending on the project at PDI, the animators "act into the
character," so they need to have certain acting skills. When
I am setting up a character, I am aware of what the character is
supposed to do mechanically, but it is always surprising to me,
seeing it actually moving and coming to life. I am mostly involved
in the technical issues. The people that actually design the characters
come to me and ask if this is a character that is feasible to do
in 3D and then we discuss which areas of the character are more
complicated than others in those terms.
I had a company that produced video games,
visual fx, commercials and motion-capture. It's very easy to overestimate
what can be done with motion-capture. Take Disney's 12 rules of
animation, squash and stretch for example. How can that rule be
followed by a human performer? A lot of clients came to us asking
us to produce cartoon characters using motion-capture. They don't
seem to notice we can't do that unless you have a magical performer.
When humanoid characters are required, motion-capture can be useful.
For example in Michael Jackson's Ghost, obviously it was
better to capture the actual motions of Michael Jackson than have
an animator try to replicate that. Ghost is a perfect example
of what motion-capture should be used for, or if you need realistic
movement for crowds or for stunts, such as in Batman Forever
and Batman & Robin. Steve Giangrasso
In many video games you usually have one person performing for each
one of the characters in the game. Games playback resolution is
still low compared to video. This is due to hardware limitations,
so basically the real-time characters usually end up with no personality.
When I had my studio, I found that most clients really underestimated
the value of having a good director and a good performer. They would
have one of their programmers do the motion. Nobody on the client's
side would be directing. For video games you can maybe still get
away with that but for commercials or visual fx that is really not
acceptable.
Producer/Director/Production Manager, Sorceron
Our company deals with streaming technology, virtual characters
and virtual set technology. Motion-capture turns animation into
a director's medium whereby it's more like a live-action shoot.
Motion-capture is more like pantomime than it is like acting. You
have to overemphasize. Like acting in other medias, the performer
has to interpret the character, mood, emotion, and purpose of the
character for that script line.
Sometimes our clients bring in a director
or we direct. The directors have to somehow be conditioned to understand
the limitations of motion-capture. For the talent, it helps if the
person has a theatrical, athletic, comedic, mime sense, and sense
of timing. Ideally, you want an imaginative person, somebody who
can listen to direction, improvise and add something to it, and
who ultimately turns themselves into that character. As a director,
you don't always want the performer to be watching the character
but you want to be able to let them see what they look like and
you want to be able to play back a move for them so that there is
a collaboration between the performer and the director. Better than
the script is to provide the performer with a sound track so that
they get a sense of the meter, attitude and where things change
in time. Mary Ann Daniel A motion-capture actor has to marry what
the voice-over talent has done and bring originality to it too.
It's as if two actors create one character.
Keith Robinson
President, Modern Uprising Motion-Capture Studios
We rarely direct the talent, rather we consult with a client on
directing. The best case scenario for us is to have a director who
is familiar with motion-capture and who knows how to direct talent.
We have a 16 camera real-time system which allows the data to be
processed instantly. With this system, we can also output skeletal
data and apply a model to it in a 3D animation package, thus, allowing
the director and client to view the virtual performer while a performer
is moving.
Good animators are actors too! Sometimes we use the animator as
talent. In the last video game we captured, one of the animators
was one of the characters, not only because of his talent, but because
his body and movement matched the design of the character.
In video games or features, you are capturing the nuances of the
performers' motion. There is no need for a performer to exaggerate
unless that is called for. For example, we have had someone sit
in a chair, and our motion-capture process picked up the subtle
nuances from just the way the actor was breathing.
Motion-capture and live-action actor
The design of the body, the structure of the body, the emotional
context, the colors, everything about the character dictates tome
how I should move. One of the most important components is to hear
the timing of the voice-track and memorize it. As an actor, I have
to go through each line and each inflection because that makes a
difference in how the body responds. My background as a dancer,
actress and musician informs how I hear the rhythm of the voice-over
track and interpret its musicality. It's the same as phrasing in
a dance.
As a motion-capture performer it is helpful for me if the director
has both a working knowledge of the actor's process and an understanding
of the technical aspects of motion-capture.
Lorenzo Music
Voice-over talent for commercials and animation, including the
voice of Garfield the Cat and Carlton the Doorman
There are basically two kinds of voice actors. Frank Welker is one
of the prime examples of an actor who has the gift of being able
to make many different sounds come out of his face, from machinery
to people, to animals. I am the kind who can act many different
characters using basically the same voice pattern sound and head
tone -- whether it's playing any type of character. My musical ability
has had an affect on my voice-over work. I was a folk singer in
the `60s. I mostly direct myself unless someone directs me first.
A creative director can pull things out of an actor that aren't
in the natural read of an actor. Many times directors ask for something
that they don't know how to identify. In that case, I try to intuit
what they want to end up with. Even if the voice actor and director
are not speaking the same language they need to speak the same ideas.
There is a very easy way to direct voice-over actors for animation
in my opinion. This is what I respond to: rather than giving motivation
and history and all kinds of psychology, I say tell me you want
it older, younger, faster, slower, smarter, dumber, softer, louder
-- just the dualities. Ask for the affect. Don't talk about process.
The actor is in charge of process. When it comes to directing a
voice -- from my standpoint for a first time director -- let the
actor read the piece, and if you want something different, ask for
it in terms of dualities as the base. All the action and all the
possibilities are within the dualities. If the subtext is not in
the text then you can discuss it with the director.
Judy Lieff earned her M.F.A. in dance and experimental film/video
from the California Institute of the Arts following a career as
a professional dancer. She has performed as an animatronic character
in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and as
motion-capture figures for Raven Software and Sony's 989 Studios.
Judy has taught "Movement for Animators" at CalArts, New
York University, Royer Studios and Pratt Institute amongst others.
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