Email Interview with Ed Hooks

   Whilst Rosy has passed on the videos and recordings she had made for her CoP2 project (Which I still hope to make good use of for my research), I still found it necessary to personally email Ed Hooks on a particular section of his book, that being his chapter on animation in video games. Seeing as the book was written in 2011, I wanted to know whether his opinion had changed since then, especially after the release of critically acclaimed titles such as "The Last of Us", and even "Beyond: Two Souls", which I believe focus on a more interactive form of storytelling (Along with many other recent games) as compared to older games that had originally focused solely on gameplay.

  Needless to say, I was absolutely nervous as I wrote this email, fearing that my questions would be nothing but nonsensical to the father of acting in animation. But, taking a deep breath, I decided to go right ahead and ask him the first few questions that came to mind. It was through his site that I was able to find his email, and thanks to Rosy (Again), we were able to properly speak to one another from there.

This was the message that I had sent him through his site, when he attempted
to contact me, there were once again issues with my Yahoo email. But fortunately,
by mentioning Rosy, he went on to contact her about me so that I could share with
him another one of emails for contact.

My first email:

'Hello Sir!

Rosy forwarded me your email!

I am terribly sorry about the email issues, for some reason my Yahoo email has been having a lot of issues as of late. But I am sure we will be able to communicate through this email instead (If not, my professional email is wholahayola@gmail.com)

Thank you so, so much for the incredibly fast response!

I would like to start off by saying that I absolutely enjoyed reading your book "Acting for Animators", out of all the books I have been reading for my research, your book has given me so much to think and write about (I especially find the aspect of empathy to be an incredibly interesting topic and issue to look into when it comes to acting in animation). I however do have a few questions to ask about your Video Games chapter.

I was wondering whether your opinion has changed since then? About whether video game acting has actually improved since then?

Your chapter on empathy especially got me curious about whether you have tried any other games aside from "Ico". I was wondering what your thoughts on games such as "The Last of Us" might be, especially? And whether you have managed to find games that have more humour to them as compared to "Call of Duty"?

I am still listing down some more questions to ask, but for now, I am absolutely dying to know about your thoughts on the progression of video games so far.

Thank you kindly!

Yours Sincerely,

Rebecca Wong Si-Lin'

His response (About an hour later):

'Hey Rebecca,

I'm glad you found me. <g> I often have difficulty with e-mail addresses in the far east. The company that hosts my domain name, edhooks.com, is Earthlink, and it blocks many addresses over there, presumably because of piracy issues. It is a hassle.

In answer to your question, my answer will probably surprise you: I do not play video games. I teach for all of the major studios -- most recently for Valve and Warner Brothers Games -- and I understand the acting issues the studios encounter, but I do not personally play games. Well, Monument Valley on my iPad now and then, but that's about it. Having said that, I do make it a practice to study the walk-throughs now and then. When I know I am going to be teaching at a particular studio, I will always review their most recent games to see what I might be dealing with.

"The Last of Us" is basically a game-length cinematic, IMO, and it has much stronger performance than the typical game. It also has a very clever design, putting a child in a lead roll. That - all by itself - is going to evoke an emotional response in the player because it triggers an evolutionary impulse to protect our children. Very smart.

"Ico" was the first game I saw that did anything special with empathy, which is why I mentioned it in the book. An essential element of empathy is distance. You cannot empathize with yourself and, since the player is imposing himself or herself on his or her avatar, the player cannot empathize with his own avatar. At least not to the extent that the avatar is responsive to direct instruction. (Go left, shoot gun, turn 360 degrees….)

My impression is that cinematics in general are being phased out. The smaller the platform, the less well the cinematics function. That evolution has caused the studio job of Level Designer to be the hot ticket, career wise. Especially the Level Designer who has some understanding of acting, emotion and empathy. When I first started teaching at the game companies, it was really difficult to get Designers to take the class. They considered that anything and everything having to do with acting was something for the animators to worry about. They were thinking of themselves mainly as programmers, and so there was a systemic division in most studios -- programmers on one side, animators on the other. Mocap was somewhere in the middle but, in the beginning, I also rarely had mocap directors in the class. Today, it is different. Wherever I teach, the classes have representatives of all divisions, and I expect that trend to continue.

Ed'

   I will surely be sending more questions his way as I progress in my dissertation, until then, I do believe that I have gotten quite a bit of useful information from this response alone. I am glad that I had finally taken the chance to contact him. Hopefully I will be a lot less awkward in my next email to him.

Research from 'Acting for Animators' by Ed Hooks Pt 2

Extracted from Pg 28-87 of  "Insights, perspectives and suggestions"

28.

The truth is that there is no end to the study of acting. Part of it involves craft and technique, and part is a reflection of your perspectives on human behaviour... And so, too, is it your job if you aspire to performance excellence. You are a shaman, and it is your job to hold up a mirror so that the tribe can see itself.

'Animating Dialogue'

Acting has very little to do with words... It is standard practice to record dialogue first, then create the animation, That is why animators at work are usually wearing headphones. They listen to the words and them make the animation fit. The in the real world, though, movement precedes words.Words express a thought, the same as a hug or a kiss. The important things in acting are intention, objectives, motivation and emotion. In other words, acting is more about what is underneath the words! When a thought occurs, it is not the words that emerge first; it is head and eye movement, shoulder and neck movement. Therefore, when animating to pre-recorded dialogue, the animator is forced to sort of work backward from the way actual humans function, finding the inner impulse- the thought- that would be expressed by the recorded words.

29.

If you think that words are the most important thing, then it naturally follows that you will need some sort of animated movement to "act out" what the words are saying.

• Acting has very little to do with dialogue. The character's thoughts, emotions and intentions are more important.
• Search for the internal impulse that is expressed by the character's pre-recorded dialogue.

'Power centers'

It helps an animator to be conceptual about power centers because every character has one. When you give a character a noticeable power center, it suggests more characterisation. This can be a very useful thing to remember when you are working on sequences that have multiple background characters that you do not have time to properly flesh out. Different power centers will keep them from walking the same way.

The power center also affects a character's "tempo/rhythm"... The higher the power center is above the shoulders. Anxiety is a high and heady power center. Confidence, on the other hand, manifests itself in a feeling of weight, a lower power center.

30.

• Anxiety manifests itself as a very high power center. Confidence is lower. The higher the power center, the quicker is the rhythm of the character.
• The use of power center is particularly useful with background characters.

31.

'Status transactions'

Status negotiation does not have anything to do with a person's intrinsic value. All humans are equally valuable. Status transactions are simply part of the way we deal with one another... whoever entered second would have higher status.

"the master owns all the air in the room, and you are there by invitation" ~ Anthony Hopkins

It doesn't mean the servant is a lesser person in life, only that this is the kind of status transaction he uses in his work.

32.

• Status transactions are an integral part of human social and business behaviour.
• A status transaction is an unspoken agreement having to do with how we comfortably interact with one another. It has nothing to do with the innate value of a person.

32-33.

'The psychological gesture and atmosphere'

A gesture can express an inner emotional state that might even be in contrast to what the character is saying. A psychological gesture like this can be a powerful tool. Remember, out sense of sight is a lot more powerful than our sense of hearing, so what you show an audience is going to count for more than what you tell it.

Animators begin with a disadvantage when it comes to gestures because the dialogue is usually recorded first. The temptation is to listen to the words and then make the gestures and mouth sync to them... The impulse to communicate comes from within, and gestures are as primary a form of expression as words are. Think of them as a form of truth-telling from the character. Get inside and connect with his feelings, and that let that be the motivation for gesture.

Michael Chekhov contended that every character has a defining psychological gesture. Have you ever noticed someone who wrings his hands a lot while he's talking? That's a psychological gesture...

33-34.

Gollum in Lord of the Rings is continually making psychological gestures, probably because Andy... Serkis, the actor playing him, was classically trained. Psychological gesture is standard material for strong acting programs... Take a look at some of the courtroom drawings by Honore Daumier (1808-79), an artist who obviously understood the principle of atmosphere. For every mood there is a gesture.

 

35.

... And atmosphere can, in turn, affect the kind of gestures a character makes. Michael Chekhov's idea was that every scene has its own atmosphere. Every location has its own atmosphere. Your kitchen at home has a different atmosphere than your bedroom. Chekhov contended that every character and person has an atmosphere that he or she carries around. Certainly a happy person brings a different atmosphere into a room than an angry one. Have you ever tried to spend time around a depressed person? It can be difficult to share her atmosphere with her.

I was teaching at a game company, and one of the animators was demo-ing a game for me... I learned that nobody had taken atmosphere into account. The castle was simply a place- a location- where the game took place. It had not occurred to them that the atmosphere would affect the behaviour of the characters. That single adjustment improved the look and feel of their follow-up game substantially.

36.

• Human sense of sight is more powerful than sense of hearing. Therefore, what we see a character do is more important than what we hear him say.
• Humans often send contradictory messages. It is normal but unconscious behaviour for the words to say one thing and the body to say another.

'The adrenaline moment'

You can apply this concept to energise a performance and also when you are creating a story.

I define than adrenaline moment as one that the character will remember when he turns 85 years old and looks back on his life. I am convinced that effective story telling necessarily includes at least one adrenaline moment, and it may include many.

37.

An adrenaline moment doesn't have to be a big earth-shaking deal. It only needs to be significant to the character.

38.

An adrenaline moment is what the character has, not what the audience has.

• An adrenaline moment is one that your character will remember when he turns 85 years old and looks back on his or her life.
• An adrenaline moment is something the character has, not the audience.
• Excellent storytelling always includes adrenaline moments for the characters.

39.

... Hayao Miyazaki said that western animators are afraid of "ma". They think that, if you are not making the sound of the clap, your audience will get bored and tune out. Miyazaki believes that if you fill "ma" with intention, emotion, thought, you will not lose your audience...

• "Ma" is the sound that you do not hear in between the claps. It is stillness, filled with intention, thought and emotion.
• "Ma" is silent honesty.

'Animating force versus animating form'

... if you draw the form of a leg and then another bunch of forms and legs, it might all flow together as a moving image, but it will not stimulate the audience emotionally. To have that effect on an audience, you must animate force. Don Graham was saying is that the audience sees the movement of your character and automatically seeks the emotional motivation under it.

40.

A scene of animation is more or less a series of gesture drawings... do not attempt to copy the model, but rather capture and draw the gesture... Draw verbs, not nouns. A noun is a thing that can be named; a verb is that thing given the breath of life.

When Walt Stanchfield says- as he often does- that a drawing should tell a story, he means the story in the pose. You want to capture the inner impulse of the action in your drawing.

Why is the woman watching the bird in the first place? What is her objective? To identify the species of bird? Or maybe she is a serious birdwatcher?

The ability to animate is akin to the ability to act. Animation is, in effect, acting on paper. This doesn't mean an animator much be able to act well on stage or before a camera, but that he must certainly be sensitive to poses and gestures that portray the various moods and emotions that story telling demands.

Just keep in mind that stage actors and animators come at acting in significant different ways. An actor does not think about poses and gestures. An animator must pay close attention to the actual physical movement involved in a character's gesture.

It is utterly impossible for a person to do nothing.

41.

Although we use poses in animation, every pose is in reality an action.

We are once dealing with "acting is doing". Walt Stanchfield wanted his students to capture the "doing" rather than the "fact". If art was easy, anybody could do it.

Human movement is purposeful, it has a destination.

42.

... the attempt to appeal to "everybody" fails for the simple reason that children do not have enough knowledge or life experience to appreciate adult themes. The result of trying to appeal to everybody are movies that lurch back and forth... You must adjust the story and the telling of it to the intended audience.

Children younger than ten have a simplistic view of things. To them, the villain is the bad guy, and he does nasty things all the time- just as Frank and Ollie observed... As a child matures, however, he learns that life is full of nuances, shades of grey, not just black and white. An adult understands that a person can do bad things one day and good things the next, that good and evil have a lot to do with a person's perspective. He learns that everybody, even the worst villain, is a hero in his or her own life.

44.

The problem is that a character analysis for an adult villain is going to be far more complex and nuanced than of an old-style, traditional Disney villain... A kid's movie requires more blatant character choices; an adult movie is where you get to work on more complicated characters.

• Performance cannot be separated from the kind of story being told and the intended audience.
• What is the general age of the intended audience? The younger the audience, the simpler and more obvious are the characters.

(Should we however really design the characters in such a manner these days? Should we not provide more to the younger audience? Chances are that they are a lot smarter than we give them credit for)

46.

• A hero is a regular person who overcomes a huge obstacle to achieve a desired and worthy objective.
• A villain is a regular person with a fatal flaw.

'Movement and body language'

What a person in the audience sees creates a stronger impression than what he hears. In fact, if you want to prioritise the sense, they would rank this way:

1. Sight - We see something before we can hear it.

2. Hearing - We hear something before we can smell it.

3. Smell - We smell something before we can touch it

47.

4. Touch - We touch something before we can taste it.

5. Taste - Taste is intimate, as close as we can get.

"it is probable that the eyes may be as much as a thousand times as effective as the ears in sweeping up information." ~ Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension

49.

• What we see makes a more powerful impression than what we hear.
• Movement can reveal a deeper emotional truth than words.

50.

• Acting is truth telling. Empathise with your character's emotion. Help him act truthfully.
• Good acting requires great courage.

52.

The trick to capturing the illusion of life in this kind of transaction is in the character that is listening, not the character that is talking... listening, when it is right, is extremely active.

• When a character is listening, he is busy thinking of things to say in return.
• The person who is listening looks into the face of the person who is talking 80% of the time.

'Live-action reference and mirrors'

Animators use a lot of live-action reference, studying scenes from live-action movies for clues about nuanced communication, or animal movement or even car crashes... this is another one of those training tools widely used in animation schools. When animated features are created, it is standard procedure to videotape the voice performers during their recording sessions, for future reference.

54.

There used to be an animation studio outside of Chicago, Illinois called Big Idea, known primarily for the television series "Veggie Tales"... was impressed with their "animation buddy" system. The animators would not record their own live-action reference. If you need live-action reference for a sequence, I perform it for you; if I need it, you record it for me. This is a very clever procedure because, when I am recording your live-action reference, I do not know what is in your head. I am not going to try to fit my movement to your preconception. Therefore, the reference you get is going to be more spontaneous.

A good actor realises that he should not be aware of his own performance when he is performing. A good actor is focused on actions, objectives, obstacles, communication, listening, whatever... an animator is not really an "actor with a pencil"... Unless you are one of those animators who just happen to also love stage acting, it will be very difficult for you to perform your own live-action reference without being self-aware. If you find that you seriously have difficulty doing it, then try the "animation buddy" trick.

55.

• It is impossible to be on the stage and in the audience simultaneously. When you tape your own reference, do not direct yourself.
• If possible, get a friend to perform the live-action reference for you.

'Character tempo/rhythm'

Stanislavsky taught that emotions have actual rhythms - slow, medium and fast. He contended that an actor needs an organic connection to these rhythms in order for the performance to be "truthful". 

The tempo rhythm can change based upon a character's circumstances. What happens, do you figure, when a sloth gets angry? Does he have the same inner rhythm? I don't think so.

56.

• Every character has a baseline rhythm that varies according to context.
• A character must be organically connected to his inner rhythms.

'Character analysis'

Character analysis is like a giant iceberg. We only see the 15 percent that is above the waterline, and the other 85 percent is under water. Even though we may not see it often or for long, that 85 percent is very important. If you don't have that, you don't have an iceberg. You have an ice cube.

"Mickey seems to be the average young boy of no particular age; living in a small town, clean living, fun loving, bashful around girls, polite and as clever as he must be for the particular story. In some pictures he has a touch of Fred Astaire; in others of Charlie Chaplin, and some of Douglas Fairbanks, but in all of there there should be some of the young boy." ~ Fred Moore, p.551 of The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation

... you simply cannot get away with such a sketchy and generally vague character analysis anymore.

Many studios maintain what they call a "character bible" for general reference. It contains a biography of the character, physical traits, sketches and any other useful descriptive information. When an animator is...

57.

... assigned to work on a character that already exists, his first stop is at the table holding the character bible. This is a good way to keep all of the animators rowing the boat in the same direction. It saves time and money, too.

Ed Hooks Character Template:

Name:                                                   Sexual Orientation:
Gender:                                                Goals, ambitions, dreams:
Age:                                                       Secrets:
Ethnicity:                                             Fears/Phobias:
Family:                                                 Favorite kind of music:
Cultural Background:                       Sense of humor:
Intelligence (IQ)                                Adrenaline moments:
Education:                                          Physical description:
Occupation:                                        Physical disabilities, if any:
Religion/Philosophy :

Prepare a character analysis during pre-production.

60.

'Pantomime'

Gesturing is different from pantomime. Gesturing is improvisational movement that begins with a person's impulse to communicate.

Pantomime is a highly structured art form in itself, a way to tell stories imaginatively with no words at all... I have heard knowledgable professionals say straight out that animators must be good at pantomime.

"Pantomime" is one of those words that can lead to confusion because there is "English Pantomime", which involves fairytales and cross-dressing... The origins of both are unclear, but they evidently are rooted in Commedia dell'Arte in 16th century Italy... The way the word "pantomime" is used in the world of animation is probably a holdover from the days of the silent cartoons. Back then, the characters did pantomime! But that's because they had no voices, no other way to communicate.

61.

... how long animators in the US had been recording voice first and then doing the animation... Japan, they do it the other way around. Miyazaki does animation first and then adds the voices... My person opinion is that Miyazaki's way allows the animator more latitude. But I am not going to stand in fire to defend the practice.

Stage actors don't pantomime... it is considered to be bad acting if they do. It is external, too much of an "indication" of emotion rather than a straightforward expression of it. The movement in pantomime is very artful, and the audience relates to it differently than they do to the general movement of actors... Part of the appreciation of mime is because of the considered and purposeful nature of movement.

• Pantomime is an art form and is not the same thing as gesturing.
• The arrival of sound in movies rendered pantomime obsolete.

62.

'The expression of emotion in the human face'

The animators at Weta in New Zealand created Gollum's facial expressions manually, but they could not mocap a face. One of the tools they used was the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), created by Dr. Paul Ekman, a psychologist-researcher-scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. Especially if you are involved with photo-real animation, you should familiarise yourself with Dr Ekman's work. He has codified the expression of emotion in the human face so that it can be objectively studied.

64.

• The expression of emotion in the face is innate to humans.
• Expressions of emotion are always true.

66.

'Photo real and the uncanny valley'

Especially in the universe of video games, some people dream of the day when photo-real characters are routinely presumed to be live-action performers. Strides in that direction have been made, but the dream remains just that, a dream, The most perplexing aspect of the quest in that the more lifelike the animated characters become, the more audiences and gamers resist them. This paradox is known as the "uncanny valley".

... concept... was first coined almost half a century ago by Masahiro Mori... to create a convincing lifelike robot. Whether applied to robots or animation, the principle is the same: the closer to human-like it becomes, the more skeptical will be the reaction.

In order to escape the uncanny valley, the producers must stop announcing proudly in advance that a particular new character is foolproof. Creators are understandably proud of their strides toward photo-real success, but the proof of success will be when such a character is put alongside live actors in a game or film, and nobody notices.

67.

We humans make subtle choices thousands of times during even the simplest conversation. Photo real will have to incorporate this... we must acknowledge that there are good reasons why human behaviour is best depicted in poetry rather than science.

... humans seem to be full of contradictions. This is why it is essential for the photo-real artists to capture a sense of unpredictability. Shakespeare advised that the actor hold the mirror up to nature, and that is what animators have to do. The pathway our of the uncanny valley is not a matter of mastering the intricate interactions between muscle and thinking. They are already close to achieving that. But they are long way from capturing the mystery of human behaviour, the unknown factor, the thing that actually makes us human, the thing that makes us fall in love and survive into the next generation.

'Videogames'

The basic rules of acting apply unilaterally to stage, movies, television and games. Games however, present some unique challenges because the aesthetic experience of playing a game is totally different from watching a movie in a theatre.

... the acting challenges are similar.

1. Eyes
2. Empathy 
3. Humor
4. Motion Capture
5. Credibility
6. Dialogue

68.

7. Male/Female Relationships
8. Can a videogame make a player cry?

'Eyes'

... It takes a lot of time to create nuanced facial expression, and some game producers do not think it is necessary in the first place. Their reasoning is that players have come to play the game, not to be moved by facial expression and complex character relationships... My suggestion to them is to work first on the eyes. Game characters too often unflinchingly stare at one another far too much. In life, humans are careful about eye contact. It is threatening to stare directly into another person's eyes for more than a few seconds. Or it is an invitation to romance. Lovers stare into one another's eyes.

Eyes cannot be mocapped, and so the animators have significant latitude. Take blinking, for instance. The average person blinks maybe fifteen times a minute, but a blink it not just a way to moisten they eyeball and keep out dust. Blinking is directly correlated to a person's thought patterns and communication style. 

Eye contact is a status negotiation. Lower-status characters will avoid a lot of eye contact with superiors. High-status character will make more and steadier eye contact, especially with other characters of a similar status.

70.

'Empathy'

... a game player cannot empathise with a character he can control. Cut scenes work as they do primarily because, while watching one, the player cannot control the behaviour of his character. In effect, he is watching the cut scene the same way he would a feature film... A cut scene provides back story and exposition so that the player can advance to higher game levels.

The way to evoke a more nuanced emotional response from the player is via "buddy" or "companion" relationships. Eg, ICO.

71.

... many games are employing this same device for establishing empathy, but we are still years away from the full potential of having many empathetic characters in a game.

'Humor'

Why are the characters humorless in so many games?... It is rare that I see a game in which the characters exhibit more than two or three, with anger being the most common. Games are chock full of deadly serious, angry characters.

Humor is a defining characteristic of us humans. We are social creatures that are constantly sending value signals back and forth between us. It makes a difference what kind of sense of humor we have.

I can't prove it, but my impression is that game designers are focused on gameplay, and they do not give much consideration to the characters' sense of humor (I really don't know what games Ed Hooks has been playing... but this is definitely something I can argue against). The animators cannot do it alone. Designers and programmers will have to factor in, from the beginning, the influence of humor on gameplay.

72.

'Motion Capture'

Motion Capture (Mocap), which is used by many if not most game companies, is inherently flawed in terms of acting. In a mocap session, you are capturing human motions with very limited context. Remember, emotion is what tends to lead to action. And emotion is defined as an automatic value response... Mocap makes everybody, actor included, think about movement too much.

Performance Capture is an improvement over Motion Capture, but it is still not a home run, and it is terribly expensive. Performance Capture lets you capture an entire scene involving two of more actors. That works better for the actors, no doubt about it, but their will still have to be aware of their movements to some degree.

... to get better data from a mocap session, start by hiring a director who knows how to talk to actors. And then hire trained actors to perform, instead of stunt people or gymnasts. Actors naturally do not think about movement because doing so will make them self-conscious. You need a director who will let actors do what they are trained to do.

73.

... The reason we see these kinds of unrealistic reactions in games is simply because honest and believable reactions take more time, and cost more money, to animate. The producers figure it is a game after all, so probably nobody will notice. This kind of reasoning will have to change en route to stronger performance. Character behaviour must reflect what real humans actually do, not what the programmers can give the animator to work with. Therefore, much of the fix hinges on improved communication between the various studio departments... it is a good idea for all the departments to have their eye on the same prize.

74.

'Can a videogame make a player cry?'

Empathy is the key.

74-75.

'Laban Movement theory'

Rudolf Laban... worked out a system by which you can analyse movement in relation to the dynamic use of the body in space. He then created a special form of notation, so that a dancer fifty years from now could see precisely... how a dance was performed today.

77.

"... the animator should know what creates laughter- who do things appeal to people as being funny?" ~ Walt Disney memo to Don Graham 12/23/35

"If what you're doing is funny, you don't have to be funny doing it." ~ Charlie Chaplin

"There is only one way of making comedy richer- and, paradoxically, funnier- and that is by making it more serious." ~ Walter Kerr in his book The Silent Clowns

There are two huge traps that animators will be wise to avoid when it comes to comedy. The first is the idea that a cute character doing something in a humorous way will be inherently funny. The second is that a "gag" is the primary instrument for comedy. 

78.

... It was Chaplin who brought empathy to comedy.

... comedy is directly related to drama.

86-87.

'Short animation guidelines'

• Reach a higher standard than your school may require
• 5-8 minutes instead of 2 minutes
• Make certain your characters are actually acting. Do not fall into the trap of making an animation that features "moving illustrations". If you can, avoid any voice-over narration. Tell your character with side performance.
• Most major animation studios are going to be more impressed with your storytelling ability than with your mastery of any particular software.
• A short animation is more like a poem than a shortened version of a novel... Simple is better!
• ... your audience empathises with emotion.
• What will interest the audience.
• Look into Animation Show of Shows for examples.

Possible books to look into:

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone

On the Technique of Acting: The First Complete Edition of Chekhov's Classic To the Actor) by Michael Chekoc

Walter Stanchfield: Drawn to Life (20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes) by Walt Stanchfield

Research from 'Acting for Animators' by Ed Hooks Pt 1

Basic Details:
Hooks, E 2011, Acting for Animators, Routledge, London.

Extracted from Pg 6-7 of  "Stage actor versus animator - vive la difference!"

6.

Walt Disney borrowed storytelling and editing techniques from live-action filmmaking and produced the first animated feature film, Snow White, Instead of real flesh-and-blood actors giving the performances, animated characters would do it. The magic was in the way the Disney animators made the characters so lifelike. The Nine Old Men, the original Disney Studio animators, literally invented "the illusion of life", and their influences remains powerful even though most animated films are now created with computers.

An animator is an actor with a pencil. Starting back in Walt Disney's era, new animators have been encouraged to "take an acting class" to learn first-hand how acting works. That is excellent advice except that animators create animated characters in a very different way than actors create characters on stage. An animator that enrols in a traditional acting class will be expected to get up and act alongside stage actors.

6-7.

Animators do not need to participate in traditional acting classes in order to understand acting theory. In fact, a regular acting class would be counterproductive for some animators. Animators do not need the kinds of relaxation and concentration exercises that typically are included with actor training, nor do they need voice and diction coaching. The bottom line is that stage actors act in the present and fleeting moment, and animators create an illusion of a present moment. Same principles, very different application.

Extracted from Pg 8 of  "The illusion of Life verses "moving illustrations""

Moving illustrations generally follows the same format as comic books, and does not qualify as acting. Moving illustrations will never achieve the illusion of life. The focus in this book is on the creation of animated character that think and have emotions and play theatrical actions.

Extracted from Pg 9-27 of  "Seven essential acting principles"

9.

Disney-style realism is harder to accomplish than more restrictive, stylised cartoons. To adhere to realism is to abide by the laws of physics, weight and volume. That's why, even if you do not aspire to realistic animation, it still is smart of you to learn what it's all about- and that is why, even though animation takes many different forms, I am mainly concerned with realism in this book. For Picasso, without first having mastered the basics. His Blue Period, Rose Period and Cubist work would have been impossible without a firm foundation in realism.

There is a lot of blending and cross-referencing in acting theory.

CONFLICT means something different in terms of acting theory than it does in everyday use. In real life, we think of conflict as a bad thing that needs to be alleviated if we are to have a peaceful and happy lifestyle. For theatrical purposes, however, you must expand the meaning to include positive conflict. To the stage actor, "conflict" is really an "obstacle", something to be overcome. You can be in "conflict" about whether to eat the cherry pie or the chocolate ice cream, or whether to vacation in Paris or Rome.

10-11.

OBJECTIVE, to an actor, is more concrete than it often appears to be in real life. A theatrical objective must be provable, something you can pursue. You have to know whether you achieve the objective or not. You will never know whether you have reached a state of happiness that cannot be improved. Happiness is a shifting target that a stage actor might refer to as a "goal" or "super-objective".

ANTICIPATION means something altogether different for a stage actor than it does for an animator. For the stage actor, it is an acting error to anticipate, to react to something before it actually happens, to answer the phone before it rings. For an animator, anticipation is what a baseball pitcher does when he winds up to throw a fast ball. This is an important distinction because, if you want to create the illusion of life, your character will have to learn not to anticipate- in the stage actor sense.

DOING, for a stage actor, implies the pursuits of a provable objective. It is more active in that sense than, say, brushing your hair or taking a shower. Those are activities that you "do", but they lack theatrical structure. If you freeze-frame you character and ask him what he is doing, his answer should be stated in theatrical terms.

11-12.

Seven Essential Acting Principles:

1. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions, and emotion tends to lead to action.
2. We humans empathise only with emotion. Your job as a character animator is to create in the audience a a sense of empathy with your character.
3. Theatrical reality is not the same thing as regular reality.
4. Acting is doing; acting is also reacting.
5. Your character should play an action until something happens to make him play a different action.
6. Scenes begin in the middle, not at the beginning.
7. A scene is a negotiation.

12-13.

What is the definition of an emotion? Do you figure that there is a connection between thinking and emotion? Is there, on the one hand, your thinking, calculating brain and, on the other, emotion that floats around and lands on you from time to time? Let's say we are starting a new dictionary. Emotion (noun) is... what? A feeling certainly, but that is a synonym, not a definition. An impulse? Close, but no cigar. The impulse is going to come after the emotion. Emotion has something to do with how much a person cares about a subject, right? Now we are getting close. The best definition of emotion that I have heard, and the one I use in his book, is:

Emotion (noun): An automatic value response.

14.

You feel emotion, and you do something about it. Emotion tends to lead to action. Acting is doing.

These mental processes seem to happen instantaneously. Unless you stop to focus on it, emotion is going to feel like it exists independently of thought. What I am doing here is encouraging you to slow it all down so you can look at it frame by frame. We humans have brains that are faster and more complicated than any computer ever will be. We are generally unaware of our own thought process unless we make a conceptual effort to examine it.

"the mind is the pilot" -- Walt Disney

Everything, including emotion, begins and ends with the thinking brain.

'We humans empathise only with emotion'

The audience needs to identify with your character's feelings. The was this works is that they see what your character is doing, and then they tune into the emotion that led to that particular action. What is more, empathy happens instantly.

15.

There is a significant difference between empathy and sympathy. "Empathy" literally means "feeling into"; "sympathy" literally means "feeling for". The word "empathy" came from German aesthetics in the 1920s and many people are still getting used to using it.

The illusion of life rests on empathy. You want your audience to identify with- empathise with- your characters, not to pity, or sympathise, with them.

17.

Empathy is an essential attribute for humans because we are by nature social creatures. We have to get along with one another, and empathy is key. One of the hallmarks of a sociopath is that he does not empathise. His ability to empathise is broken; it doesn't work.

19.

There are only three possibly kinds of obstacles of conflict; there is conflict with yourself, conflict with your situation and conflict with another person. Your character needs to have at least one of those in order to be taking theatrical action. He can have more than one kind of conflict, but he must have at least one. No conflict, no scene.

Many people believe that good acting happens where then character behaves believably. No! Behaving believably may be part of it, but it must be for a theatrical purpose. Acting is behaving believably in pretend circumstances- for a theatrical purpose. Theatrical purposes are not the same as work-a-day purposes in life.

20.

Acting is doing something. It is doing something in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle.

22.

'Acting is doing; acting is also reacting'

Learn how to allow your character to react. The temptation is to focus all the time on the doing part. For sure, you don't want to ignore that, but allow for reaction, too. Both doing an reacting are part of the illusion of life.

A character's reaction has everything to do with that particular character's values... different people react in different ways. When you are animating, you must know your character so well that his reactions are almost automatic to you.

24.

The situation needs conflict in order to be theatrical.

'Scenes begin in the middle, not at the beginning'

25.

Do not just start animating. Your character will tell you how he is supposed to move when you understand his context. Scenes begin in the middle, not at the beginning. And they do not end at the end. Your guy exits the door on the right, but his scene continues. We just cannot see it from this room.

26.

'A scene is a negotiation'

If you look at a scene and cannot find the negotiation, the scene is in deep trouble. You must rewrite it... this is true for acting as well as writing. A scene that you play- or that your character plays- is a negotiation.

Remember the three kinds of conflict? Conflict with self, with the situation and with another character? Okay, there is the answer to your negotiation problem. In any negotiation, there needs to be a way you can win a way you can lose, yes? Let's say you come to a form in the road far away from civilisation. Which way should you go? You have conflict with your situation and perhaps conflict with yourself. 

27.

Again, conflict with the situation. From your perspective, you win if you get the kiss, and you lose if you do not.

Possible books to look into:

Animation from Script to Screen by Shamus Culhane

The Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes