Context of Practise 3: Changing my Ideas and Research

 Context of Practise 3
Changing my Ideas and Initial Research

• This week:
• I decided to change my point of exploration from video games to acting in 2D animation, as I felt this best fit my areas of interest. I also felt that I could learn and develop my acting in animation, which would significantly help in my Extended Practise module.
• What went well:
• I gathered a selection of books and articles which explore acting for animators. The list of these include:

1. Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks

2. The Animators Survival Kit by Richard Williams

3. Animated Performance by Nancy Beiman

4. The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

5. Acting and Performance for Animation by Derek Hayes and Chris Webster

6. Acting and Character Animation - The Art of Animated Films, Acting and Visualising by Rolf Giesenand Anna Khan

7. Skwigly Animation Magazine:

1. Acting for Animation and Character Performance by Andy Joule

2. Acting for Animation: Character Development

8. Acting in Animation Thesis by Niklas Bjorklund

9. Animation: The New Performance? By Teri Silvio

10. Animation Arena - Acting and Animation by Doron A. Meir

11. Emotions and Acting by Elly A. Konijn

12. Animation World Network: Performance and Acting For Animators by Judy Lieff

13. The Nine Old Men by Andreas Deja

14. The Artifice: The Use of Animation to Convey Character Traits

15. Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair

• Furthermore, to gather primary research, I contacted Ed Hooks, Barry Purves and Reg Isaac, asking about their approaches to animating characters and how they convey personality and emotions of a character. Here are screenshots of emails, evidencing contact:

Barry Purves:

Reg Isaac:

Finally, Ed Hooks, who responded!

• Ed Hooks provided a lot of information and insight for acting, as he has also written the book on Acting for Animators. My questions mainly focused on putting yourself into the characters' shoes, how to animate emotions and animating to for a character's personality.
• What Could Be Improved:
• I need to gather more varied research from videos and video-based analysis. I plan to look at some short animated scenes and analyse them with the knowledge I have learnt from reading through the written-based research!
• Next Week:
• Ill continue research from videos and pencil tests and create some pencil tests of my own to start applying some learnt methods and ideas.