Ed's Newsletter - November 2000

Welcome to the Acting For Animators web site!
Wipe your feet before you come inside because the carpet is new, and help yourself to whatever is in the fridge.

For several years, animators who are interested in my thoughts regarding acting have had to share space with stage actors in my original web site, www.edhooks.com. The time has come to give animators a Hooks clubhouse of their own plus a monthly copy of their own newsletter. To that end, I suggest you get on the mailing list if you are not already on it. I'll be writing and sending out a new free newsletter at the beginning of each month. (Don't worry about your e-mail address getting passed around, by the way. I send the newsletter BCC, protecting the anonymity of my subscribers.)

If you have ever taken my Acting for Animators workshop, then you are entitled to be included in the section of the newsletter devoted to "Hooks People Working". If you have credits you want the world to know about, tell me, and I'll include them. Once we get the site up and running comfortably, I plan to allow space for small animations that demonstrate particular acting principles. If you have work you would like for me to consider, let me know. I expect that this will prove to be a valuable showcase.

LINKS?
If you have a link you think I ought to include, let me have it. I'm starting small and building things.

REGARDING ED'S ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOPS
I have my own studio in San Francisco, located at 70 Oak Street (between Franklin and Van Ness, just north of Market), and I conduct a one-day class there every six or eight weeks. I'll announce upcoming dates in the newsletter, which is another reason to subscribe. I also teach on site whenever someone wants to hire me. If your company is interested, tell the person in charge to drop me an e-mail at edhooks@edhooks.com.

ED'S "ACTING FOR ANIMATORS" BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE!
The book is finally printed, and the cover price is only $19. You can order it from Amazon.Com. Follow the links in this web site, and the nice folks at Amazon.Com will send me a small commission on your purchase. They have this neat-o Associates Program, of which I am a part. Thanks!

UPCOMING ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOPS
Jan. 20, 2001 San Francisco, $125, 10am-5pm.
Contact me at edhooks@edhooks.com.

Feb 1-2, 2001 London, England.
I have been invited to speak and teach at Animation 2001, sponsored by the University of Teeside in Middlesborough.
Contact Siobhan Fenton at the university for info. Her e-mail is: s.m.fenton@tees.ac.uk. I am hoping to arrange at least one class that will be open to the general public. Stay tuned for further announcements.

June 25 - 29 Stuttgart, Germany.
I'll be teaching for a week at Filmakademie Baden-Wortemborg. Also, there will be one or two Acting for Animators workshops in either Frankfurt or Berlin, or both.
Contact animator Jens Kafitz , the fellow who is organizing those classes. His e-mail is: JT-Kirk@t-online.de I hope to be in Australia sometime in 2001. Again, stay tuned.

CRAFT NOTES
Charlie Chaplin was the first international star because his work was bigger than any national barriers. He was in fact conceptual about appealing to humans everywhere. When Chaplin made his movies, they were silents, and language was not the issue. Therefore he tried to tell stories that would appeal to all people everywhere, regardless of nationality. To me, animation in the year 2000 is going down the same road. I have been fortunate to travel widely with my workshops, and I have discovered that an animation house is home no matter where it is located. Animation is a universal language. "The Iron Giant" plays just as well in Germany and Singapore as it does in San Francisco.

Animators are performers, like actors. As such, they are shamans, like actors. The performing arts stretch back seven thousand years, to the days when nomadic tribes were trying to get through hard winters and to secure a successful hunt. Shamans talked to the animal spirits, drew pictures on cave walls, helped the tribe survive. Successful survival is what all the arts are about. We laugh at Wile E. Coyote because we recognize in him our own weaknesses. We laugh because we know that the weaknesses must be harnessed, or we will perish. The coyote trusts the Acme Company and its cock-eyed inventions too much, and he lusts for a Road Runner sandwich too much. Each of us can relate to the trouble that can come from falling ass-over-tea kettle in pursuit of a thing. Each of us can see the value in moderation, and Chuck Jones helps us understand that via the coyote's compulsions.

When you storyboard a new animation, remember that everybody in the world acts to survive. From the time we are born until the moment we die, everything we do is oriented by our intent to survive. The choices we make in the pursuit of life are the stuff of laughter and tears. Keep your finger lightly on the pulse of humanity, search for the survival mechanisms and your animation will soar. It will be meaningful regardless of its style.