Acting & Animation

Animators perceive and apply acting theory in a different way than do stage actors.

SEVEN ESSENTIAL ACTING CONCEPTS

1. Thinking leads to movement and emotion

(A) Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.

2. Acting is reacting. Acting is doing.

3. Your character needs an objective.

(A) An action should be in pursuit of an objective.

4. Play an action until something happens to make you play another action.

5. All action begins with movement.

6. Empathy is the magic key to acting. Audiences empathize with emotion.

A. All humans -- even the most vile -- act to survive. From birth to death, every
waking moment, we act to survive. The audience's empathic reaction depends on the
actor finding in his character survival mechanisms.

B. Empathy is essential to human survival. Mothers empathize with their babies,
lovers empathize with one another. We empathize with emotion. If you see someone
cut her finger, you flinch because you empathize with the feeling of pain. When
the on-screen heroine's lover is reported killed at war, it is her emotion that we
empathize with, not the information itself.

7. A scene is a negotiation.

A) A negotiation contains conflict.


SOME SPECIFIC ACTING CONSIDERATIONS ANIMATORS NEED TO KNOW
** Eye contact between characters
** The look of memory
** Sense of sight vs. hearing (human sight is eight times more
powerful than hearing)
** Convert "want" to "need" for more powerful characters
** Shadow movement (secondary movement )
** Make yelling the last acting choice. There are more
interesting ways to dominate a scene.