Acting on stage vs acting for camera

Acting on stage, body language is more important than facial expression. Strong poses, exaggerate movements and quite symbolic poses. For example: When 2 people facing each other holding hands and leaning on a oppossite direction = trust, dependent to each other.
OR
When one person is in a middle of a circle, surrounded by people and those people are looking down on him/her = domination, etc.
Body poses will deliver the message/ story to the audience.

Acting for camera, facial expression is more important than body language for example: Well...medium shot and close-up. The camera will focus on your face, therefore you have to limit your body movement.

Yay! I'm joining the intermediate plus acting class...!

And this is the first day....

We take further the Brecht technique. We had 2 people on stage, each had been given a sentence and they can only use the sentence to achieve their objectives, no other words...

Some tips
---------------
During conversation between two people or in a group:
*) Don't feel like that you have to take turn or wait other people to finish their sentence. (depending on the script of course)
*) Do not feel that you have to be polite to other people.
*) Always think about your objective and keep your character.

Head, heart and soul

In acting, it is a good exercise to analyze the script and decide in which script that you have to speak from your heart, soul and your head. Then think of a pose from each. Then act it out! :)

For example: if in the script you decide to speak from your soul, you might want to sit down on the floor, place your hand to your chest.
if you speak from your heart, you might kneel down on a chair and lower your head down.
If you speak from your head, you might want to look up and hold your arms high up.

It does make a difference :) try it!

You speak from your head,
speak from your heart and
speak from your soul....

Internal dialog

What is the character thinking in his/her head?
=Internal dialog.

It is a good exercise to find out and say out loud what the character is thinking before he/she starts speaking with other people or doing things. What is in the character's head at that time?

In animation, I think this will create more beliavable and realistic animation, more natural and smooth motion. Try it...! =)

Power is the energy

As we know in acting, every act has an objective. We have to think about what the character wants, how is the character pursuing the objective, why?, what is the tactics, etc....and one more....power.
We have to know who is in power, when we are in power and we are not.
Pick up and script and try it with your mate and think who is in power, when you are in power, when your mate is in power....I'm surprised when I'm acting and thinking about this...it really gives you the energy. =)

That's all folks.

Animation tips

If you google animation tips, there are millions ka zillions tips out there. Usually it involves create great poses, clear action, etc.

PLUS I'd like to add some for me:
1. Learn all those acting techniques, think and choose which technique that suits your animation.
2. Think of the OBJECTIVES of your character, mind the motion, mind how you're going to animate it. Once you get the objective, the motion will come after. Always the OBJECTIVE.
3. Feel the character, study the character's background, believe the character, gain more information about the character. What would you do if you are the character?
4. ....then animate!
5. I always keep reminding myself not to do the "show off" animation. . .
6. People always tell me to bring mirror. I personally choose recording yourself is better. Your facial expression and body language always change so if you record it you get a better reference.

Well, that's all for me...at the moment.

Animation style

So, how many animation style are there? I'm thinking...
1. The most and popular one, Pixar style (cartoony almost towards realism style, cartoony realism that's how I interpret it) Examples: How to train your dragon, The incredibles, UP, Planet 51, Tales of Desperaux, Monster vs aliens. I think it's more to acting. There are 12 principles of animation applied in a right proportion. For example: not too much squash and stretch just to retain the realism and so that the acting looks real.

2. Cartoony gag style (That's how I interpret it) which I think is quite different than Pixar style. Super exagerration. I think this is just for fun. Examples: The only recent film I can think of is "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs". Check out some of those super exagerrated movements! Insane! They manage to apply 2D movement into 3D! How the heck did they do the rig and the animation? I'm curious!

3. Realistic style. Examples: Avatar. The only animated film that actually achieve the style properly. Very well polished! This style is done properly is not that bad after all.

4. Stop motion + CG. Examples: Coraline, Tim Burton's Corpse bride, Unique and stylized. It has its own characteristic.

5. and many more...!

Florian the Flower

<--- Meet Flo. Isn't he cute? =) He's the main character in our short film "Overcast"

Me and Radek are polishing the animation. The animation will be changed, well...slightly not too much as we don't have time to do it.
We're aiming to finish it at the end of May 2010. There will be time of sleeping 2 hours in a day but we're happy ;) Fingers crossed. Whoop!

Small tips...

Some key points to remember in acting:
1. to know your objectives
2. What do you want
3. Think about your tactics and try to convince other people
and the most important of all....
4. Imagine...imagine what you see is real.

Pretend what you see is real...

While Stanislavski method of acting is to act naturalistically and not to affect audience at all. You have to feel and believe your environment, what you see is real and happens in real life.
On the other hand Antonin Artaud presents the other way around. Acting should affect the audience as much as possible. You don't have to feel and believe what you see is real, you pretend it's real. Artaud's method involves more physical expression and gestures, therefore the act doesn't look naturalistic. How to make your act easier to read and understand by the audience? to let them involve in the story? More body gestures will help the audience understand the story.

Since I come from animation background, the way I understand is that Artaud's method is to add exagerration into your act but don't misunderstand it with Melodrama (Shakespeare like, over the top act :), not showing off). I am guessing this method is injected to most of animation, should be maybe. It's much easier to understand what's going on on the stage compared to Stanislavski's method. A performance is much easier to read using Artaud's method compared to Stanislavski. I think this is more appealing if you want to apply this method in your animation.

Let's take an example: I want to go to sleep.
Stanislavski: You are probably very tired, after coming back from work, you don't want to eat dinner that's already prepared by your wife/husband, you go to living room straight away, sit on a couch, rest your head, look at the ceilings and say "I want to go to sleep"

Artaud: The same context as above, a person tired, coming back from work, sit on a couch, you looked at your wife/ husband and say "I want to go to sleep" while putting your head on your hands (making gestures that you want to sleep on a bed)

I hope I make myself clear. If not, you can discuss with me or google it :), it's quite hard to put it in words. All right then, I too want to go to sleep...

Thanks
:)

To show off or not to show off

Which means, since I have got my computer fixed, I can start working on my animation and hopefully no more technical issues. Damn you, machines! can't really rely on them.
Now what's in my mind...right! let's talk about applying acting in animation. I have been taking an acting class for the last couple of months and there are two types of acting.
1. un-natural acting, showing off performance, like poem reading perhaps? Imagine shakespeare's films. I think this is probably the thing we've been doing so far and probably most of us doing that especially in demo reel...
Exagerrated expressions and cartooney style which is fine for entertainment.

2. The natural acting technique which is used by most actors, is developed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Now, this is very difficult. You have to believe your character, how to be in the moment, what is the motivation of a character, what's the character's background, how is the character's feeling at that time, objectives, obstacles, etc. They key is to "Believe your character and be in the moment" I also learn that characterization is very important, without this actor will struggle to act OR they will simply make things up. In animation, if you get the character's personality, etc it's sooooooo much simpler to animate!

Imagine the number 1 is Shakespeare's films and the number 2 is Godfather. In video games, I think the number 1 is the cartooney animation and the second one is the mocap animation. So, how do you animate? Which one is more interesting? Cartooney or realistic? Do you animate to entertain or to tell story? or does it really matter all this?

:)

Marching march

Erm...this is my first blog and today is Wednesday 3rd of March, the weather is getting warmer.
I don't know what to say yet, that's because I am at work at the moment and I'm hungry. Will try this blogger later on.