Acting with the pencil: Why performance is so important in Animation
Written by Don Radhay.
In today’s world where technology has now taken the drivers seat in animation, it is often forgotten that the most important key element in becoming an animator are firstly, being a good actor. Performance is crucial in being able to sell the idea of a living, breathing character. Voice acting is also very important, however visually, your character must be able to showcase its personality. This is an element of animation that has seemed to disappear, particularly in animator circles. So how does one showcase good performance within the animation of a character?
Most importantly is believability. Not realism. It is often thought that the more real looking a character is, the more believable it is, and I for one believe, this is far from the truth in animation. Believability is getting your audience to feel as if your character has thoughts, and inner motives. Being able to create a successful character means that your audience will empathize with them. This is why we are upset when Simba’s father, or Bambi’s mother dies. We’ve grown to truly believe these characters exist, even by them not being realistic. We’ve still sold our audience the idea that these characters do in fact exist and are important to care about. There are a few aspects to creating a believable character.
Firstly is feeling. Happy, sad, angry etc. Mixing between each, particularly if our character is more angry than sad at most times, Look at the Seven Dwarfs for instance. Yes they have defined feelings, however we believe them to exist because they each still carry a conscience, which means Grumpy may be angry at most times, he’ll still portray worry, and happiness, because he has a conscience.
Secondly thought, which requires showing your character in situations of thought, through subtle action particularly with eyes, you can help establish a motive if your character uses his eyes first before anything. This helps the audience to understand his thoughts before the action. This helps to create a second dimension for your character, depth is always important.
Reaction is key to help your character become apart of its environment or situation. Its important that depending on the situation your character reacts to, that his reaction is believable in the context.
Personality helps to bring all of these elements together in order to keep a consistency. Someone is is easily agitated will always react, think or feel differently than someone who is generally calm most of the time. I feel that the characters personality must dictate how you use each element.
As much as script helps to descriibe the characters personality. It is important that the animator implements the personality, otherwise you’ve failed the script, and quite possibly the voice acting. Much like an actor, if the acting is poor in a film, it will affect the story in many ways. The animator is the host of the show, and they dictate how our audience will perceive the show. It is crucial for animators not to forget this as our industry will soon fall short if we continue to forget the values of bringing performance and acting into our character animation. As an animator what are some ways we can learn to truly excel in bringing life to our characters?.. Well, its simple, take a look at life itself. Referencing is the greatest tool we can use, sit back and take a look at our friends, family or strangers. Study their actions, see if you can get a feeling of their though process and see how their personality might dictate these. As it is always great to reference animations, I may suggest to reference everything. Live action films, old films, TV shows etc. To become a master in your craft you cant get there by staring at one resource all the time. True artistry comes from looking everywhere, and will help to broaden your skills.
About the author.
Don Radhay is an Art Director for Kukuzoo Studios which is an Animation Studio in Toronto, Ontario Canada. Don Radhay is involved with directing projects, creating concepts and writing stories at Kukuzoo. Currently Kukuzoo Studios is developing an original series called Toids. To see more of the work, visit http://www.kukuzoo.com
