Character animation crash course

ACTING IN ANIMATION - PART 1: GETTING STARTED 19
• What are the psychological ground rules for your character that you should
never, ever break? When should you break them? In other words, your character
may remain consistent through most of the film, but break from his established
character traits to express a different or deeper aspect of his personality. In Phil's
case, he was always shown as a hot-tempered guy with a low boiling point.
However, to show when Phil was truly hurt and angry, we made the choice to
shrink him down into a more contained performance. By portraying him as loud
and bombastic most of the time, it made a great contrast to have him quiet and
restrained for his deepest emotions.
• How does your character act in repose as well as in activity? How does he react
as a secondary character when another character is performing or talking?
• Can you use posture to convey emotions? How does the character's line of
action/spine help to express what he's thinking and feeling? Get off the vertica
l when doing humans! By that, I mean there is a tendency when animating
humans in a scene together to have all of them standing up straight like they
have poles up their ... well anyway, what's to stop you from using a variety
of postures and angles within the characters to express their differences and
enhance the staging?
GET OFF THE VERTICAL! Here's a dull scene in which everyone stands
up perfectly straight. ... Ho hum ....
In this scene, Mean Lady leans forward, making her more threatenin g.
Husband throws his chest out and leans forward on the opposite diagonal,
making him more defiant. Wife curls around behind Husband,
making her appear more fearful.