All right, perhaps that’s enough theory on acting for now. How do we translate all this into our own personal working methods and approach to this wonderful art form?
When animation got its start in the early years of the twentieth century, a lot of its cues were taken from its live-action counterpart, vaudeville. Vaudeville was a sort of traveling live-theatre circuit, where early comedians like George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and the Marx Brothers would travel from town to town, performing at local theatres. It was a lot like The Muppet Show pre- tended to be, a variety show, and a valuable training ground for those skilled performers who would later become legendary stars in radio, film, and finally television.
As a matter of fact, I daresay a lot of animation’s conventions, not to mention routines and old jokes, were translated, “borrowed,” and/or downright stolen from vaudeville.
Perhaps the reason for that is that these performances taking place on a stage in a crowded concert hall, with a tiny little five-to- six-foot-tall person at one end, had to be seen by people sitting on the back row at the other end, perhaps hundreds of feet away. You couldn’t be terribly subtle in those acting conditions without the electronic microphones and gigantic video screens that are present at our modern concerts.
Perhaps that’s why animation is so much like vaudeville. Those broad actions that carried across that crowded concert hall to the back row translate rather nicely into these characters that have to be reduced to their most simple outlines.
A line of action is an imaginary line that runs through the figure that is acting. I truly believe it’s one of the most important ingredi- ents, if not the precise key ingredient, to making a dynamic, action-based, storytelling drawing.
A line of action gives a drawing direction. Just like the layout drawings we discussed earlier (in the painfully obvious camera shot examples in Chapter 3), a line of action can subtly (or less so) lead the viewer’s eye to where it should be.
It goes almost hand in hand with the importance of a silhouette drawing. If you can still “read” what a character is doing in silhou- ette, or if you were to see the character’s shadow cast on the wall, chances are that’s a rather powerful (and quite likely successful) animation drawing.
Although his friend on the upper left doesn’t seem terribly interested, is there any doubt which direction the character on the upper right is looking? Even though we’re giving this example with “gingerbread figures,” you can still tell the direction this figure’s action is taking.
There’s a saying in animation: “When in doubt, act it out.” If you’re having trouble coming up with a pose, then read the lines as you act through them. And don’t act so much with your mouth, but use your arms and hands… maybe even your eyes as well. (We’ll cover that in more depth shortly.) And invest in a full-length mirror if you don’t have one already. A camcorder or even a camera (if you don’t have room for any of these other sug- gestions) might provide a useful reference guide. And if all else fails, don’t forget the three Rs of animation when you hit a creative block: research, reference, and resource materials.
If you can “read” what’s going on in silhouette, chances are it’s a successful animation drawing. Which of these drawings are perfectly clear and which aren’t? How would you fix them?
(Okay, sorry, but I slipped an M in there as well… and they’re all strikingly similar, but it’s usually easier to remember these things in threes, so we’ll stick with that theory.)
Whenever you do get to the point where you realize your 2D acting skills need work, or any time you find yourself in a creative slump, there’s only one thing you can do to overcome these psy- chological brick walls… Seek inspiration!
And how do you do that? Those three Rs of animation I just mentioned, remember?
n Research. Investigate what you’re animating. If you’re animat- ing some characters dancing, then rent a video of ballet or an old Hollywood musical. If more current dance moves are required for your scene, then go to where they’re doing the kinds of dances you’d like to use. Take some reference footage if you have or can borrow or rent a camcorder. (And if it takes any money to do so, then save your receipts for next April 15. Chances are if you’re working on a project for profit the related expenses are tax deductible… if they’re genuine, of course!)
n Reference. For something as deceptively simple as an everyday walk cycle, you might find a book like Eadweard Muybridge’s
The Human Figure in Motion, or any of his other series of pho-
tographic books that provide a useful reference for animators, helpful. Legend has it that Muybridge, prior even to the cre- ation of the motion picture camera, made a bet with a politician that all four of a racehorse’s legs were indeed off the ground during the course of a run. The only way to settle the bet was to set up a series of cameras along the course of the horse’s run that were activated by a series of trip wires. As the horse ran past each camera, the photo was snapped, and a series of photo- graphs, precursors to motion picture film, were the result. The bet was won, incidentally, because the photos proved that all four legs of the horse did leave the ground during its run.
Muybridge’s work continued to develop toward human motion, and undoubtedly had an influence on Thomas Edison’s invention of the aforementioned motion picture camera.
You can also purchase these same plates today, in book format. Besides The Human Figure in Motion, you can also get his Ani-
mals in Motion, which shows everything from the cycles of
parakeets flapping their wings to camels, elephants, and dogs walking. I do want to emphasize again that it’s not necessary to become an obsessive book collector (as some might call me, and not altogether without reason), but just start out with a few basic titles that can get you moving. (A book collecting dust on your shelf isn’t doing you any good… you have to complete the process by actually opening and reading the book in order to apply the knowledge therein.)
n Resources. Yeah, yeah, the Internet is great and all, but let’s face it. Like most technology, the darn thing just offers way too many dangerous distractions. The temptation to read seemingly interesting tangents that might come up (not directly relevant to your search) is easily categorized as procrastination. And if you’re not careful typing in just the right search words, you’re going to come up with a whole bunch of trash you have to filter through just to get to the useful bits.
Instead, try your local library. There are books there on just about any subject imaginable, there are nice people there who make a career out of helping people find just the information they need for free, and (as I no doubt mentioned already) if they don’t have the exact book you need, they may even order it for you. Then when you’re done reading it, you don’t have to leave it on your own shelf, taking up space and collecting dust. (When it comes time to pack up and move, you’ll thank yourself for not buying every single book title that popped into your head!)