Character animation crash course

ACTING IN ANIMATION - PART 1: GETTING STARTED 17
How Do You Develop a Convincing Character in Animation?
• Believe he exists! No one will believe in your character unless you do first.
And if this character exists, he will have certain properties, physical and emotional,
that you will need to convey to an audience.
• Know who he is. Any character has to be conceived from the inside out. By
understanding who your character is, you will define movements, gestures, and
behavior that reflect his outlook. Often, animation characters start with archetypes,
so the audience can "get" who they are quickly. I call this the "John and Ron"
technique, since John Musker and Ron Clements are the directing team that uses
this method so effectively. (Heck, they darn near invented it!) Let's use Disney's
Hercules as an example: Meg is the "tough gal with a heart of gold/' Phil is the
"feisty coach/' a has-been with a gruff exterior. However, these characters become
richer when you define for the audience why they have become these archetypes
and how they deal with it. Meg has been hurt in love before - so much that she's
developed that hard shell as a defense mechanism - and it's the prospect of true
love that makes her crack. Phil is a washout, a failure: he's given up and lives a life
of debauchery to help him forget- but the prospect of Here just possibly being
"the one" makes him drop his guard one more time. Now all of this may sound
lofty for a broad cartoon comedy such as Hercules, but I assure you it is indeed
the process the directors and animators went through to realize their characters.
By giving your characters a history, your animation can evolve over the course
of a film : start by showing the audience the archetype, and deepen it- contrast
with it- when revealing the character's motives, changing attitudes, and internal
conflicts.
• Ask yourself the right questions. Grill yourself over all the aspects of
your character until you know the answers:
• What makes your character who he is? What excites him? What makes him mad?
What is his driving motivation? How does he look at life? What are his basic attitudes?
How can you expand these basic attitudes to acquire more depth? What
makes your particular character tick? What makes him unique? How do you show
him thinking, changing mood?