Acting For 'Traditional' Animation Seminar

Because the Level 4 year has passed which allowed us to experiment and become comfortable with frequent softwares, we now get to delve into making our animation have personality, character and narrative, which is something I am quite surprised to be excited about. This is because after leaving Level 4, I was certain I wanted to stick to motion graphics, or inter titles, however after the first few sessions of being introduced to this brief, I am more than excited to see what I could possibly explore within character and narrative.

The seminar that was held today involved looking at references. I love looking at references for any art work in general, and of course for animation, however when Matt told us to look at silent films as a good source, I was both shocked and impressed. I think this is a genius idea, because silent films are made to be extremely exaggerated. There is no talking therefore the audience has to comprehend the narrative through body language and facial expressions. 

One actor that stood out to me was Charlie Chaplin. I had to study him as an auteur in his iconic film 'Modern Times', and everything Matt was saying started to come back to me. There is a reason why he is so famous, though his movements exude drama, they are simultaneously elegant and graceful. Each movement has purpose to convey an emotion or convey a story, or in his case, slapstick comedy.

I love how he has exaggerated his eyebrows and mustache so that even when the camera pans out throughout the film, you can still see his bold features communicating to the audience his reaction to whatever he is interacting with. His performance is iconic, and I cannot wait to use him as a reference when I get to experiment further this year.

        

One thing that did pop into my mind when listening to this seminar was the music video for Sia's 'Elastic Heart'. Though this is not silent, as it is a music video, the characters in this use similar features to convey their story. Through dance. Though this is a controversial music video, the facial features of the characters are extremely strong, hungry and fierce and you can tell their emotion just by their face and how heavy they travel around the cage. Whether they are crawling or swinging from the roof, you don't need words to understand how they are feeling, therefore this is why I thought of this particular video when sitting in this seminar.

Overall I am excited to look at more references and have a variety to keep for when I am exploring a range of ideas and I think this was an extremely useful seminar.