Acting and Animation

Acting and Animation Part 1 of 2

Doron A. Meir Offers Some Guidelines for Achieving Convincing and Interesting Acting
in Animation

By Doron A. Meir

"An animator is an actor with a pencil", goes the oldest and truest animation cliché.
Not "a draftsman that acts", but first and foremost - an actor. If you're trying to tell a story
through a character, inevitably you're an actor. The only question is whether you are a
good actor or a bad one.

Power, self-confidence
and arrogance. Shere-
Khan, "The Jungle
Book" (original cel
courtesy of Avi Blare).
My feeling is that in the past few years, while there's been great progress technology-
wise, the art of acting in animation has been abandoned. Compared with the acting
quality of characters such as Shere-Khan (The Jungle Book), Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
and others, today's characters are pale, dull, and lack personality. In better cases, an
exceptionally interesting voice-talent saves the day (Robin Williams as the genie in
Aladdin); but usually the script alone is responsible for providing the characters with
some sort of personality.

In the various internet forums one can find threads concerning software, design, textures -
some even talk about movement - but it's rare to read something about acting. I haven't
yet seen a comment saying something like "the animation is good, but the character
has no personality". It seems that the level of expectations is so low, that it's enough for
an animator not to make technical errors. Would you consider praising a writer simply
because he made no spelling mistakes?

In the following article I have put on paper my thoughts considering acting in

animation, which apply to any form of character animation - including 3D. The article
is not meant to provide a "good acting in animation" formula - simply because such a
formula does not exist. Every animator has his personal attitude, every film has needs of
its own, and undoubtedly there are other ways of getting good acting. The goal is to
propose a "toolbox" for the actor/animator, and maybe raise - even a little - the animators'
awareness of acting in animation.

What is good acting?

When I ask my students what they think good acting is, the first answer is usually
"believable acting". But credibility is only one side of the story. Good acting is believable
and interesting. In my opinion, these two attributes wholly define good acting. With this
idea as an axiom, we will try to separately analyze what makes acting believable, and
what makes it interesting.

I. Believable acting
In the life of an animator there are short and rare moments of true magic. Those moments
are the reason I became an animator, and they are the reason I still am one. I'm talking
about a moment in which you look at the animation you've just created, and suddenly you
believe your own character. Suddenly it's alive, it's there in its own right. Those are the
moments of believable acting.

Believable acting holds a great power over the viewers, because the character they're
watching gets a sort of meaning. Every man has meaning to us - even if we don't always
think about it: If a total stranger sitting next to you on the bus suddenly collapses, you
will not be indifferent - because the very fact that he is a flash and blood human earns
him that meaning. This is why we feel sorry when Bambi's mother dies: we believe her
and we believe Bambi, and both of them mean something to us. On the other hand, the
characters in South Park are anything but believable, which is why there's no
problem killing Kenny in each chapter.

(This might be the right place to reemphasize that the animator is of course not solely
responsible for contributing meaning to the characters - script has an important part in it
too. This article, however, is dealing with animation).

Believable acting means that the audience feels that the character's actions are the
result of its own inner motives, and not the animator's inner motives; that the character
feels, thinks and reacts consistently according to its personality and mood. I emphasized
the last sentence since it encapsulates many of the ingredients of convincing acting:

Feel.
The aim here is not just to portray clear and defined feelings (happy, sad, etc.) but to look
for a kind of inner feeling that we have in us all the time - maybe it can be called
"consciousness". Try to "feel" your character when you create animation, not just move it
around according to the principles of animation <principles-of-animation.html>.

Think.
Your character shouldn't always act on immediate instincts. Look for opportunities to
show thinking process, which leads to decision and action. It will enrich your animation
with depth, complexity and believability.

React.
Acting is actually more or less a series of reactions - the character reacts to its
environment, to other characters, to stimulus. Every action must have a reason. Make
sure you know what your character is reacting to, and that the reaction is reasonable (in
other words: it's reasonable that this particular character will react in this particular way).

Consistency.
Retain a consistent attitude to your character's reactions. A shy character (small, timid
movements) that unexpectedly acts in an extroverted way with no clear reason, will suffer
great damage to its credibility.

Personality.
The character's personality dictates its reactions - i.e., its acting. Again, we are not
necessarily talking about a definite personality such as "arrogant", "grumpy", etc. Try to
get to know your character the way you know a family member or someone you work
with. What makes him tick? What is he afraid of? What are his problems?

Mood.
Mood resembles personality - it, too, dictates the character's reactions - but unlike
personality, its effect is temporary. For example: a guy who's hurrying to work acts and
reacts in a very different way than the very same guy as he calmly walks his dog in the
evening.

***

Reading the above notions, one might think - "hey, all those things belong to the script
and storyboard! Reactions, personality, mood - I can't control that! I'm just the animator
here, my job is merely to move the character around and make sure there's a lot of
anticipation!". My answer is in the following example:

The storyboard shows a character entering the frame, and looking angrily at another
character. You're assigned to the scene, and the questions that should arise are: does the
character enter slowly? Quickly? Determinedly? Hesitantly? Does he stop suddenly or
gradually? Did he know the other character would be there, or does he spot it in the
scene? Is he furious, or merely dissatisfied? What sort of anger is it - helpless (like a
child's anger towards his parents), or superior (like a parent's towards his child)? And so
on and so forth.

The actor/animator's task is to carefully read the script, study the storyboard, and
try to "get into" the character. In other words: to find the character's inner feeling and
to "wear" it for a while as if it was his own - so that he can get to know and understand
the character. A good actor doesn't invent his acting - he discovers it. And still the
animator faces the tough challenge of putting the experience into his animation, keeping
the principles of motion. It isn't easy, but the reward - that magical moment of believable
animation - is worth the effort.

Next Week: Part 2 - Interesting Acting.