Ed's Newsletter - August 2008

CHICAGO ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOP
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4TH, 10AM-5PM
I’m going to run another one-day Acting for Animators workshop in the city where I live. Yes, I will cover the basics of acting theory, so if you took the workshop previously, you’ll have to listen to them again. But I’m going to include some new stuff. Also, and probably most important, if you took the workshop before, the price this time is $75. If you are taking it for the first time, the price is $100. Drop me an e-mail at edhooks@edhooks.com to express your interest. This is Chicago, folks, and I almost never teach in Chicago. This is a rare event. Tell your friends and co-workers. Put a note on the bulletin board.

Sept. 12-13, SPARK Festival Vancouver, Canada (sponsored by Vancouver ACM Siggraph. This will be a ninety-minute talk, not a full class.)
Oct. 4, Chicago, Il. (open class. Contact Ed Hooks)
Nov. 12-18 United Kingdom, various classes, some open. (Contact kumar@twelvej.com).
Nov. 21, Stockholm, Sweden (Electronic Arts)
Nov. 24-27, Swansea Animation Days, Swansea South Wales
Nov. 29, Ludwigsberg, Germany, Academy of Performing Arts Opening Celebration
Dec. 1-5, Ludwigsberg, Germany Filmakademie Baden-Wurtemberg (closed workshop)  

One of the reasons animators are still stuck in the Uncanny Valley is that every ten-year-old kid is an expert at human behavior. You can’t fool them. As we get older, we start distrusting our gut reactions to things, but that hair-trigger gut reaction is what has saved us from getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers. No time to think about it. Gut reaction. Leading to emotion, leading to action, leading to survival.

When we feel fear, for instance, we display a unique facial expression. Most notably, we instantly expose a lot of whites in the eyes. Horror shows in the whites of your eyes. Anybody in the vicinity will, empathetically, feel fear also when they see those eyes. It is a signal to the tribe to be on guard.

Part of the problem is that animated characters are created individually but, in life, we are always bouncing off of one another. You don’t cross the street when a car is coming. You don’t kiss the girl if she turns her head away. You have to wait your turn at the checkout counter of the supermarket.

I’m not a religious person, but I very much enjoy visiting the churches and cathedrals of Italy. There are generally other people in there, most of whom who are not talking loudly, but all of whom who are sending signals to me and to anybody else who takes the trouble to pay attention. What does it communicate to see another person pray? Does it affect your body language? Do you avert your eyes so as to allow privacy? Does it matter to you how the praying person is dressed?

The truth is that we in 2008 are one huge global tribe. Hardly anybody lives alone in the woods any more. It is in our self-interest to function as a group. But animators just animate one character at a time. It would be impossible to do more than one at a time anyway, but what I am trying to say is that what the individual character does and says is greatly influenced by the behavior of the characters around him.

Think about this: You get home from work and your roommate is cooking dinner. Before you even say hello, you have picked up maybe a hundred signals from her. Without saying a word, you can tell if she has had a good day or a bad day, whether she is pre-occupied, whether she has an upset stomach, whether she is feeling sexy. And on and on and on. It takes only a fraction of a second – much faster than any computer – to take all that in, and you will adjust your behavior accordingly. Again ten-year-old kids know this, too. If you don’t put it in your game, you are handicapping yourself.

How many times have you heard a director say, “Tracy knows something is wrong the minute she comes in the room, but she doesn’t know what it is. That is going to affect her body language.” Would you know how to animate that? And yet, this is common, everyday behavior, part of our non-verbal, tribal behavior.

The path forward in animation, folks, is to look backward, not forward, to find the tribal characteristics in ourselves. Read books on evolutionary psychology. How did we behave when we gathered around the campfire every night? How have things changed? If we have a purpose on earth, it is to get the next generation into existence. If we fail at that, we go the way of dinosaurs.

Our saving grace is that we are tribal. We may not be conceptual about it, but we constantly send signals to one another. And we are going to remain in the uncanny valley until we come to terms with that.

HOOKS PARTICIPATES IN WRITER’S TELESUMMIT, SEPT. 4-7
Are you a writer or believe that you have a story inside you that needs to be published? Join me and twenty-three other published writers on the Internet at the Writers TeleSummit!  Learn about the craft and business of writing from people who have actually done it. I, for instance, have written six books for what is known as a “niche” market (actors and animators), and I’ll be speaking for an hour on that subject on Sunday, September 7th. Twenty-four published writers talking about how to do it. That’s a rare opportunity. The best part is that you don’t have to leave the comfort of your own home! For more info, prices and procedures, go to www.telesummits.com.

Until next month...be safe!