ACTING IN ANIMATION -
PART 1: GETTING STARTED
• What are the psychological ground rules for your character that you should never, ever break? When should you break them? In other words, your character may remain consistent through most of the film, but break from his established character traits to express a different or deeper aspect of his personality. In Phil's case, he was always shown as a hot-tempered guy with a low boiling point. However, to show when Phil was truly hurt and angry, we made the choice to shrink him down into a more contained performance. By portraying him as loud and bombastic most of the time, it made a great contrast to have him quiet and restrained for his deepest emotions. • How does your character act in repose as well as in activity? How does he react as a secondary character when another character is performing or talking? • Can you use posture to convey emotions? How does the character's line of action/spine help to express what he's thinking and feeling? Get off the vertica l when doing humans! By that, I mean there is a tendency when animating humans in a scene together to have al l of them standing up straight like they have poles up their ... well anyway, what's to stop you from using a variety of postures and angles within the characters to express their differences and enhance the staging?
GET OFF THE VERTICAL! Here's a dull scene in which everyone stands up perfectly straight. ... Ho hum ....
In this scene, Mean Lady leans forward, making her more threatening. Husband throws his chest out and leans forward on the opposite diagonal, making him more defiant. Wife curls around behind Husband, making her appear more fearful.
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