I’ve talked a bit about thought process in previous posts, like here. Now I thought I’d share an example that always shoots to my mind. The example comes from a film called A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum. It is a very silly film, but it has some GREAT moments (particularly for animators). The acting is very exaggerated and very clearly shows thought process through facial expressions.
In the following scene, we have various characters disguised as other characters. One man in particular has been disguised as a leper, a gymnast, and, at the moment, a bride. In this clip a violent captain, who is trying to figure out what is going on, realizes the person he is addressing is not the beautiful bride he expected…
(A bit of trivia, the old man with the wide brim blue hat is the one and only Buster Keaton- famed silent filmmaker, like Charlie Chaplin)
Here I broke down some minor thought “beats” :
1. To me this pose reads:
“Something is wrong here…”
2.
“Disgusting!”
3.
“I’m in danger!”
4.
“HELP ME!”
5.
“I will KILL someone for this!”
Much of the entertainment comes from the character showing his thoughts with his body. Here are some more clips I like from the film:
Love Clip
Pretty self-explanatory. I just adore the way the younger character’s face lights up when asked about his love.
Might Win Clip
Again, no need for much context. The emotion change when he says “you might win” is great. (The woman in the background is pretending to be a statue… you have to see the movie)
Gladiator Training Clip
Here I really like the sincerity of the gladiator’s self satisfaction. You just feel it beam out of his smile.
I thought I’d share some of my recent animation tests. I completed these at Pixar this past summer. It was a fabulous experience, and I grew so much, both as an animator and as a person. Thanks to all of the other interns and to the wonderful artists and staff at Pixar who took time to help me! I owe them all so much.
Hey, so how have you and other interns found this subtext animating?
This is certainly an area of animation that is hard to teach, and the learning of it usually comes down to the individuals talent. I know people who can learn the basics and principles very well, but dont have the born with talent to progress onto great character performance through acting.
I think the larger question that might be at play here is how to be “original”or “unique” with your acting choices- or anything else you do. Well there is certainly no definite answer here… professionals are generally very vague in this area as well. I don’t know how many times I’ve just been told to “be more original”. I usually nod… then 2 hours later I’m wondering what the hell that means.
I lived in the constant fear that my “originality” might suddenly leave me, and every project I would feel terrible until the moment I finally thought of something. I had one basic assumption: Originality was the creation of new ideas in my head using no outside ideas. I had read this in art books and books on writing. “Sit in a room with nothing in it and think!” It wasn’t until I started studying how to write arguments and papers that I completely changed my idea of originality.
Originality is attained by integration, NOT by creation from nothing.
What do I mean by this? When I wrote papers in school I quickly realized I couldn’t think of a good thesis that wasn’t already explored. So I started taking other papers and mixing them together. For instance, I wrote a paper about making video games using methods from argument structure.
How does this apply to my post on subtext? Well, it is a way to think about your acting choices. Instead of trying to come up with completely new gestures from nothing, think about gestures you know and mix them together. You might take an iconic gesture like shaking your fist when you are angry. I see this ALL THE TIME. So here is my thought progression:
Step 1) What is my character’s personality? If she is shy, the fist shake might be very small and barely noticeable. How does she hold herself? If she is broad and large, her whole body may go into the fist shake.
Step 2) What is my character feeling? (Well in this example she is angry, but what kind of anger?) What context is she in? Is she in public, alone? She might be trying to hide her anger, or maybe she wants everyone to know. Maybe she is angry and disappointed- her fist might go limp after a few shakes. What just happened?
Step 3) What is my character thinking? Once you have the context write the actual thoughts. “I can’t believe he forgot my birthday” is very different from “I would kill you if I could”. And show the thoughts through body language rather than through vocalization. The birthday example: the fist shake might be purposeful and short. The murderous example: the fist shake might be more involuntary and sustained.
Step 4) What is my character doing? Once you have all these elements in your fist shake, combine it with the environment. Is your character washing dishes? Conducting an orchestra? Writing a letter? If you can, make the gestures are affected and affecting the physical context of the scene. A character washing dishes might shake their fist as they pick up a sponge.
At the end of all of this, you hopefully won’t have a very recognizable iconic “fist shake”. Ideally, you’ll have a new movement much more unique to your character. At Pixar I have not been told to be more original: there is a slightly better maxim “be more specific“.
Here is a very appropriate clip a friend of mine showed me from a French film called Moleire.
Again, this is more of a rough way to frame the word “original” in our minds. I’m sure there are many ways to come up with ideas, this is something that seems to work for me.
So I’ve been at Pixar for about 6 weeks, and there is one main point that just keeps getting slammed on me over and over again.
SHOW YOUR CHARACTER’S THOUGHT PROCESS WITH THE BODY LANGUAGE
Typically, animators will animate “to the dialog” -> the motion will be pretty, the arcs will be wonderful, the polish will be exquisite, but the acting just sucks. The body language is redundant and generic. Animators will take the wonderful language capabilities of the body and say the same thing that the dialog says. It’s redundant… really redundant… redundant… very redundant… completely redundant… boring, huh?
So how do you escape that? Well, this is something I’m always learning as well, but here are a few notes I’ve gathered: Think about the personality, feelings and thoughts of your character.
Personality: what is your character generally like? how does she hold herself? is she an introvert or extrovert? Personality will dictate your initial posing of the character, and how the feelings and thoughts are framed. Feeling: what is your character like right now? what is the context of the scene? Feeling is layered onto the personality, an introvert who currently feels outgoing will look very different then someone outgoing who is feeling outgoing. Thoughts: What is your character thinking? Thoughts are shaped by the personality, feeling and context. Thoughts are the last internal process. For instance, when you touch something hot, your body reacts first, then you think “SHIT, THAT IS HOT!” and it isn’t until after you think that you speak.
So, the actual spoken words are the final part of the process. The body says much more than words. And if you use the body to say different things than the words, you really start to hit empathy and entertainment with your animation. Imagine the entertainment in a scene where the body language says “SHIT, THAT IS HOT!” and the spoken line is “hehe, nice day isn’t it?”
Unfortunately, animators seem too caught up in the actual movement to think about the performance. Ultimately the performance is the key to animation- because as hard as it is to move characters believably, the average person won’t give a shit. The audience came to see a performance, they shouldn’t notice your character’s fluid wrist overlap and buttery movement.
Here is a music video in which Ben Stiller acts with no subtext (on purpose). It is sad, but his mock performance is strikingly similar to how many animators approach dialog.
Ben Stiller’s section is from roughly 1:08 to 2:15.
Questions? Anything need clarification?
I’ll find some good examples of showing thought process in my next post!
So I’m finally getting into this 11 second club thing…
Here is my first hack at the clip. I went a bit goofy with it, but I’ve enjoyed working on it so far.
This clip is just composition and color (no animation). It’s confusing as hell, but I aim to clarify with good animation. I’m hoping to make this a buttery 30 frames per second. So try to picture it as amazing ;)
Picture lots of helicopters and crumbling buildings too… :D
I came across some clips from this British Series on Youtube. I haven’t had a chance to actually watch an episode, so I don’t know how consistent the show is as far as acting and humor. Never-the-less, the following sketches are pretty fantastic (despite the odd title of the program). Some great timing and subtle acting, really good stuff for animation reference.
I find it very difficult to explain how to make acting decisions. All I can muster here is that there is some quality the actor possesses in this clip that I find very appealing and believable. In animation, I often feel as if I am witnessing some really lazy acting- For instance, when an animated character twitters his fingers before picking something up (an overwhelmingly overused action) I almost wonder why the animator even bothered. Why not just have the character look at the audience and say “Anticipate my next action!”.
To be fair, I struggle with acting decisions a whole lot; And I am sure there are some very good uses of the “finger twitter”. I guess it just seems sometimes that many animators do not even consider making acting decisions. Do we really want to just be movers? I would much rather be a performer someday as well…
In any case, enjoy a few more clips from Man Stroke Woman:
