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AAU graduate showreel

Posted on May 22, 2010 
Filed Under Acting, Animation | 1 Comment

I just found that great showreel from Stefan Schumacher, a Swiss AAU graduate

http://www.vimeo.com/11009073

Really, really nice stuff. What really stands out is the guy’s use of secondary action. Those character don’t only deliver their lines, they belong to a story, they are alive.

I would also recommend you to check out all the links from his links page.

http://schumacherstefan.com/?page_id=28

It’s amazing how different Norman can look in those reels…

Related post:
What is AAU?
Uta Hagen acting class and DVD

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Overdoing it

Posted on February 3, 2010 
Filed Under Acting, Animation | Leave a Comment

Avatar’s producer Jon Landau made a very interesting comments some time ago and a lot of people failed to understand what he was talking about.

Here is an extract from the article published in the Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/titanic-director-james-cameron-grabs-films-holy-grail-in-new-film-avatar/story-e6frg8pf-1225766563195

To me, it’s the exact opposite,” Landau says. “Our goal on this movie was not to replace the actor, it was to replace the animator. If you think about it, what a great actor does and what a great animator does are antithetical to one another.

“A great actor withholds information. Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men can sit there and do nothing. No animator would ever allow that, they would put in a twitch. So our objective was to preserve Sam Worthington’s performance and have that be what you see in those characters.”

As animator we find it difficult to keep our characters completly still. Because we get paid to animate and because we love to see animated things we feel compelled to add twich, eye darts, shoulder raise. Top Disney animator Mark Hen made a similar comment in one of the Animation Mentor lectures and more recently the good people from the “Speaking of animation”.

The reason I am bringing this topic today is because I found a very cool clip that will illustrate something very similar.

The modelling industry has very specialised professionals called “Body parts models”. Don’t believe me? Hit the link (http://www.bodypartsmodels.com/home.html). Those people get hired for photo-shoots mainly when nice looking hands, arms, shoulders, bums …. are required. They are obviously cheaper than full body models but do the trick for close ups. Now the problem is that very often those “body part models”, similarly to animators, just… just overdo it! Instead of “straight acting” their part, and just display what they are supposed to display, they feel compelled to “hit the pose” and come up with the most over-the-top gesture or poses that will justify their pay check.

Now I have a very cool clip where you can see one of those models illustrating this perfectly. Pay attention, well, how could you not pay attention to the silly hand gestures of the woman holding the Emmy award on the right hand side. It is so over the top that Ellen DeGeneres can’t help mimicking her towards the end of the clip.

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“Churro?” “I am good!”

Posted on September 6, 2008 
Filed Under Acting, Animation | Leave a Comment

No matter what you think about PC/Macs, I have to share the new Microsoft ad with you. I can’t help smiling while watching it. There is so much emotion coming out of this ad that I can’t help loving those 2 characters.


Shoe Circus from Windows Videos on Vimeo.

If we study this ad on an animation point of view we can see so many great touches. It is obviously a bit wacky with Seinfield explaining that he has a shower with his shoes on to save time or when he asks if Microsoft will every gonna come up with something that will make our computers moist and chewie like a cake but there are some more interesting elements.

Secondary action:

1. Seinfield and the churro. He holds it, bite it, offers it to Gates. At the end they both walk out, each holding their churros.

2. Gates and Seinfield softening the sole. Seinfield has a very accurate gesture while Gates can only ackwardly mimic him.

Both action happen while they are talking about something else and are still not distracting but help them to look more alive. They are real characters in a real store, not two actors delivering lines.

Timing and pacing

The beats in the add are dictated by the delivery of the lines. There is a lot of talk but there are also some long moments of silence filled with emotions like the “what is it?” “the leather” sequence. The beats slow down, accelerate, stop and start again. Isn’t that a nice texture?

Now on a marketing point of view I think it is very clever. A lot of people are commenting negatively on it saying that they don’t understand it but the advert is not a soap advert hammering that the microsoft products are better and shinnier, it is much more clever than that. They have already tried the soap marketing campaign and it only partially worked so why not trying something a bit more “wacky”? Don’t forget that it is only the first one of a series of advert so let’s wait and see what else they have in store.

What they are trying to do here is to portray Bill Gates as a really simple guy, someone really down to earth with really simple values in which most people will recognise themselves.

He is a very rich person but still buys his shoes at the discount shop in the shopping mall because that’s the only place he can find the best price for value products. Shoes like computers are a commodity, they shouldn’t become a lifestyle and paying a high price for them is silly.The message is quite clear: he doesn’t like to be ripped off.

There is one little details than hardly anyone will notice and that the ad company probably placed there for a reason. I am not too sure why exactly. Maybe to show that Bill Gates hasn’t always been the straight guy we know but just like everyone made some mistakes in his life? If you don’t know, the picture on the Platinium Shoe card is the one from his arrest in 1977 for a traffic violation.

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52 Acting tips by Ed Hooks

Posted on July 26, 2008 
Filed Under Acting | Leave a Comment

I was supposed to write some notes regarding the Ed Hooks masterclass but never got around doing it.

In the meantime, here is a great link from you on the Indian website cgtantra.com:
52 Acting tips by Ed Hooks

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Method acting

Posted on July 23, 2008 
Filed Under Acting | Leave a Comment

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Sanford Meisner, Theatre best kept secret

Posted on July 23, 2008 
Filed Under Acting | Leave a Comment

Here is a link to a 7 part documentary on Sanford Meisner. Don’t be put off by his voice problem, the teaching is great.

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Uta Hagen, acting class

Posted on July 23, 2008 
Filed Under Acting | 2 Comments

Last year my ex girlfriend introduced me to the work of Uta Hagen.

I won’t go into much length about who she is tonight and will only recommend the purchase of her DVD “Acting class” and her book “Respect for acting”, both available at Amazon

Watching her videos, the lecture with Doug Sweetland we had at Animation Mentor finally made sense, especially the concept of Endowment.

Here is an extract:

and are some exercises I just found:
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~thea301/Rigdon/Uta_Hagen.htm

Beautiful, look what I found too!
http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2006/05/08/respect_for_act.php

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Traditional Captured Performance

Posted on November 21, 2007 
Filed Under Acting | Leave a Comment

This week I had the great pleasure to see a wonderful movie which used the traditional Captured Performance technology. You know the one where the picture of actors get printed onto celluloid not the crappy lifeless motion capture stuff.
Olivier Dahan “La Vie en Rose” (2007) is probably the best movie I have seen for a long time. Yes the editing is a bit confusing, yes Dahan omitted to mention the second world war and some important parts in the life of 1950 french singer Edith Piaf, yes it is a bit long, but this dark, emotional tale is such a pleasure to watch and even if you don’t fancy 1950′s song you can only succumb to the stunning interpretation of the first famous french Rockstar by Marion Cotillard.
If just like me you don’t understand why Zemekis wastes his time and my time releasing crappy lifeless movies then “La vie en Rose” is for you!

lavieenrose_poster.jpg

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