The Actor Behind the Character

Last week we were lucky to have Anna Rudzka,  running a Stop Motion Animation Workshop over at The Lab! The participants received a brief introduction to Animation, before they were split into groups and got instructions on how to make a stop motion animation film, using plasticine.

The students were split into four groups, and each group came up with a story and created their own characters, set, props and background.

It was inspiring to see creative people coming together and working on these claymation projects, and fun to see what they could come up with in this short 3 hours workshop! If you are curious to see what they came up with, here are the animations!

1. Angry Colours

2. Potamato

3. Cycle of life

4. NREEEEEE

Acting for animation is very different from acting for film. When acting for film, the actor tries to become the character, live the character, breath the character, walk like that character, talk like the character, all in order to deliver a sincere performance. When acting for animation, the animator needs to know how it LOOKS like to be that character, how it LOOKS like when that character walks, how it LOOKS like when that character acts. The skill of observation is therefore very important for animators. They do not necessarily have to be great stage actors, as long as they observe the world around them and can draw inspiration for great acting ideas from what they see and experience.

Ed Hooks is an actor and an acting teacher, that has also specialized in acting for animators. I highly recommend his book “Acting for Animators”, if you haven’t already read it. He also has a Website with lots of resources, and a newsletter that you can subscribe to. Check it out!

http://www.actingforanimators.com

SICFF is the first children’s film festival in the GCC region, and it aims to present the world's best films for children & youth. Their vision is “To be the premier children film festival in the region by encouraging learning and creating, through the art of film”.

SICFF are currently calling for entries, so if you have a film you would like to submit, the submissions deadline is WEDNESDAY 31 JULY 2014.

The different competition categories are (from the SICFF website):

Best Feature Film Open for any international, national, Arabic and GCC films, and will be compete with other feature films. The film should be suitable for children's screening

Best Animation Film Open for any International, national, Arabic and GCC films, which will be compete with short and feature Animation films the film should be suitable for children's screening

Best UAE Film Open for Emirati feature and short films, which will be compete with Emirati films. The film should be suitable for children's screening

Best Short Film Open for any international, national, Arabic and GCC films, and will be compete with other short films. The film should be suitable for children's screening

Best Child Made Film Open for any international, national, Arabic and GCC films, and will be compete with other child made films the participant age should not be older than 18 years old.

For more info, please visit the SICFF website

The SICFF is organised by FUNN:

“FUNN is  an organization established by Sharjah government (under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher Al Qasimi, wife of His Highness, the Ruler of Sharjah) to promote and support Media Arts for young children and the youth of Sharjah and UAE.”

As an animator, you are the actor behind the character that you are animating. You have to decide how the character should act, react, talk, walk and behave on screen. To be able to do this convincingly, it’s important for an animator to learn about body language, facial expressions, emotions and human behavior. It is therefore important for an animator to observe the world around him/ her, and the people within it. Dr. Paul Ekman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman) is an American psychologist that has done extensive studies in these areas, and a lot of his material is available for the public. This is excellent research material for any animator, please have a look!

Blog: https://www.paulekman.com/blog/

Books: https://www.paulekman.com/books/

Videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUPCfp3EUsaEnsNvvrX8ABg