 Welcome back to the acting analysis at Tips for Animators and today's going to be about a different clip than usual movies or tv shows this is a what it's called a robin screen test here as you can see i was tagged on twitter i was sent this i checked it out and it's really cool and it's also right off the bat really interesting so i'm going to scrub forward this is where the footage starts but a link in the description you can watch and you should watch the original it's really neat how it starts with the robin wheel's impression just the audio you can't see anything robin what you can hear a concerned voice that says robin that's my robin i gotta try another thing here more calling and then more impressions where the energy is up and then every now and then you can hear a robin i'm saying this because from a visual point of view also this is really cool i love that we know right away where we are so you have some makeup you got a clipper here must be dressing room it's something movie tv related there's a script there and then you can see okay and we still see this so you hear the energy of robin williams but then you have this character that kind of paces around it's very interesting as a as a setup and this is what i like in terms of animation you can hear this and again you should watch the original working on my report on dreams he's laughing here so is working working on reporting on dreams but while this happens you can see this here and i like this as a setup for your animation imagine you have your your audio it's your lip sync and it could be i mean pretend it's exactly this right it's a happy piece where it sounds like this is going to be great it's going to be funny and you might imagine that this character is laughing and it's being happy and then it turns around and you can see the worried face the clasping of the hands and it just changes the tone of the shot already and then you can do your own lip sync or it cuts the other character it's just it's an interesting setup where it's the off-screen audio is like an anticipation to oh this is going to be fun and then this is going to change the direction of it as the general thing for your clip i think would be really cool this for animation is always really fun when you have an act in front of a mirror just trying different things and i think when they're rehearsing it gives you an opportunity to overact into really big moments i think that's really cool but then right off the bat like i'm not a robin williams expert but i'm a big fan of his but you watch this and go okay first of all he looks like it happens when you're at night and you close but then you got these expressions the tone of the voice i think it's really really good it's really crazy again watch the whole thing what i like about this in terms of editing that could be something for your shot too is where you have a lot of energy in terms of expressions and a lot of body movement right there's a lot of visual energy it's it's a lot of stuff that is bizarre cutting to this where it's just a lot more quiet and she's just desperately trying to get his attention and i love that little just that slight little lift there it's very subtle the eyebrows the mouth the slight little step back and in terms of animation it's kind of neat to have imagine this is your your sequence where if you had always energy it's pretending your timeline a lot of energy all the time as a viewer you might get tired after a couple seconds like because it's always kind of same thing the energy is always at a 10 but with this setup i like that it's it's getting you know it's kind of small and big the way he does it but then it gets to something very quiet for contrast so you might get already enough here but then you draw back into like oh what's going on okay that's interesting contrast and then back to a bigger moment and for animation you can have a character sit and then suddenly stand you can show off different mechanics and still go back to almost like an escalation of the worry and that contrast can really draw you in i think that's a really cool setup this is a five minute thing i'm gonna do the whole thing but again you can see this here where she's just standing looking worried stepping back and he continues more energy but different types right more facial stuff this time her more where she's closer you can even frame her correct like she's just it's like the camera tries to catch up with her getting closer and it goes bigger and bigger until this and then you get the explosion where she yells robin and then you can see that change into what's going on including the makeup hair artist there i love this tool here that she finally has the attention but she needs to speak to him privately and this is anticipation before she says it she looks up first the worried look and it's again like it's a stepping back at the distance like she needs i don't know i'm totally you know guessing here but to me it feels like she needs room you know she's almost like she's stepping back in anticipation for her to leave but i like this i'm could be totally wrong i don't know you know actors do things instinctually but for me analyzing this i like this idea of stepping back because in her mind she wants her to get out so she's already giving her room and i love this too with the facial the head accents here before the audio thing i talked about is actually in my last acting analysis tips it's so great she follows her a little bit she's almost like i'm sorry it's that expression i'm sorry that i have to do this to you you gotta get out and she goes out and again like that's cool too in terms of when you have three characters and something uncomfortable is happening the she is trying to get his attention so what is he going to do when the moment is coming of okay she's got my attention something's going to happen i'm not sure what's going on where is it going to look is it going to be immediately addressing her is it going to be slightly well i'm going to wait until i address her when i look at her leaving kind of interesting too and then not immediately getting into this this is also something that's not used too often in animation again i'm trying to just keep this animation related but you could have lip sync while the characters in this pose and it's more body language stuff with the hands but you don't quite see the face yet and you can use this for i don't like two-thirds of the shot and then at the very end let's see when she does it you can have the moment where she finally looks up like here and then that's your contrast but even then in this case also she's not immediately saying this i was it's so painful for her to say it and it's got that that sigh before we go but again not an expert robert williams but i feel like yeah i feel like this he does those things here he does that a lot i feel like it could be totally wrong but the moment you look at this the silhouette everything else that really feels like robert williams it's so well done i also like that he has he has a lot of energy through all this right and he realizes that she's really upset and in order to not make this worse with more energy he realizes i need a little soft touch here when he picks up the chair you can feel this right he picks it up and he takes tiny little steps to put it down it's not a lift and slam down of the chair i love this too i'm a big fan every time i i talk about like off-screen gestures or actions i always reference spider-verse just because it just it does a lot in that movie it's really cool and this is really neat too this goes back into using props for acting in like character reveal i like that lifting the chair a little bit and dropping it down lightly tells us that okay he has now a softer touch he wants to see what's going on and he's worried about her because he doesn't know yet that it's more about him i mean his friend died spoiler but it's more about she's more concerned about his reaction to all of this but it's really neat even just how he sits and he has the slower relaxation in the shoulders just to keep it quiet and soft there's a lot of cool stuff here let's go before we do this too like all those little things here this reminds me of robin williams i love this just from a look of it just the way it's shot with the lighting and the lights here just the whole thing is really it's so my thing all the actors are really really great i love this i love how he at this point he realizes something's really not right because she's still not saying anything and i like this here if you look at that that small little small change it's tricky in animation if you have to it's on your demoreal to do something this subtle but i think at the in the middle of a shot or your second shot on your reel you could do something where it's that kind of setup i love this that light tiny little tiny head accent over there for his what and even then you can see how even his eyes are relaxing just a little bit from the smile so just a bit less it's super subtle it's so cool and then she finally says it and even this here it's a subtle thing of i'm reading way too much into this but in terms of animation i like the idea of there's going to be something with a lot of weights that i'm about to say and she's dropping the head to go john belushi died last night and it's kind of this and let's go and let's say it again i don't know if that's intention i like this idea and i'm totally going to steal this idea of dropping first in anticipation of the heavy subject john belushi died last night and i'm doing that and you can see this here too from a technical point of view so i bring this up to students a lot it's little head accents so when you have your line maybe not yellow in front of this is not the best idea but if you have your line john belushi died last night sometimes it's interesting to match the up and down in your rotations of your head right if your head goes up and down match that exactly and then you start deleting things right so you don't want it to be like super mimicking that but sometimes it's interesting to keep remnants of it so i'm actually going to keep the sound in here i'm going to bring up the sound john belushi died last night and you can see how she has those little accents that match obviously she's saying it that match the sound but something to think about when in your animation it's just some of the pitfalls is that you do your head move so let's say she goes from here and to here and that's all you have in the head it's just a rotation plus the body mechanics of the chest moving over while she's saying something here and then it feels like that is a move and the mouth is just a copy paste on it so that's why i'm always a big fan of just adding every now and then if the jaw goes down that's also going to bring the head down as well you can see the little accents in the head as well there and this is just interesting when you have as a viewer like how is he going to react you know she's going to say something bad and then you hear this and then you wonder how is he going to react and it's very subtle again i love that it's not an immediate explosion it's just small changes animation wise it would be so tiny in terms of your head rotations the hold get a slight dip in the shoulders and a slight drop in the eyebrows it's so tiny she couldn't use here and explains more stuff to him and this is almost it's almost almost feel bad talking over this emotional moment there but go watch it there's a lot of stuff where he's not again he doesn't have a big outburst he doesn't quite believe it the eye contact goes away but then he peaks back up just to check are you kidding or not he also does a lot of raising of the head again this is me reading into this but i like this animation wise as an dissipation of you can see this he just raises the head raises until he goes down something interesting to think about in terms of like feeling wise happy sad would you you know if you stylize this puppy ears will go up the head goes up with shoulder go up something to think about how you raise parts of the body or the head or whatever it is when he does this this again reminded me so much of Robin Williams this must be something i don't something the way he does it here that all that to me just screams robin williams but i love the little changes it's always a different type of thing because it's it's starting to bubble up and it's just really upset about it oh that stuff again i don't want to house feel bad i must go up forward just watch this it's a it's a really really well done moment and again it's like he's peeking at her he doesn't address her completely i always use this as an i don't want to face the truth so i'm slightly turned away from you but i need to look at you to confirm that would be my my highfalutin impression and interpretation of this but i like the idea of that but anyway continues on and she's very worried about him you got the puppy tilt she leans forward towards him i mentioned this in my account slips a lot so sorry if this is a broken record but if you have two characters if they talk depending on the subject matter is she going to lean away from the character or get towards the character she cares about him so she's going to lean towards him and and and close in that gap there stuff like that you got to think about when you have multiple characters just animation wise and compositionally also like a lot of the just again the filming the over the shoulder i can't and i like that too that she she has a bit of a problem she can't handle that he would be in a bad place and you can see how he wants to reassure her and he's really turning more towards her and keeping eye contact but a telling swallow there there's a lot of subtle stuff in there it's so good again let me just go forward some stuff towards the end it's she makes a joke and i like that it kind of breaks the tension they both have kind of the the room to look down and be a bit more loose and i go all right and this is cool too this goes back to animation stuff so if you if you listen to this i'm going to bring up the sound for myself well i'll cut in the actual full audio here so they have their moment where it's quiet they go reconnect and you hear a muffled sounds of okay whatever it is i actually didn't understand it but you know it's probably time for them to go and that's an interesting set up in terms of animation where and it's tricky because you don't people don't always have the sound on when they listen or when they watch your animation but it's a cool thing of an external like a grab of attention where you might have your pantomime or your lip sync and then something happens that breaks that moment and then it changes that right it could be something dramatic a call to action something like come over here help me but i think it's a cool opportunity to break your acting as in like breaking the mood or breaking the intensity whatever you want to do i like that as a as it's almost like a lip sync tweak right you have two characters talking so one and two but you tweak the audio to muffle this sound and this character is either talking through the door to the other one or looking at someone else but it's it's kind of this setup where you tweak the audio so that it comes off screen so they both have to react kind of like this this is a cool contrast of standing up also i'm a big kind of props right if you watch if you watch my my my shots on my clips you know i talk a lot about sets and props but here's here's another one right so he has a chair with arm rests and she doesn't so he gets up by pushing with this leans forward a bit more and she does using her knees that are slightly off slightly completely off screen here and then he's you know maybe the nervousness sweaty hot sweaty hands there that it's just interesting i like just as a contrast but it's just a usage of prop i'm always a big fan of that you know you don't have to go out there she needs a little bit of a moment and this is cool too where it's almost like he is i don't know like however you want to use this but it's you have the frame of the shot but then you also have him within the door frame so a frame within a frame type of thing framed by you know maybe the responsibility of of the character or just like a nice homage i just like that framing a lot and in terms of animation it's also a nice silhouette because when you get to moments like these it's a nice profile silhouette you got color contrast with the red and the white and with the light here you have a nice little outline here but it's it's a nice setup i like this how it's just like his the future roles you know like the destiny or the the success that he has it's really cool stuff in there and then it goes back into he needs some time he needs to prepare and this is cool too where he goes from to this here right where he has more of a happy line like it's something for you in animation could be your audio is always very positive and happy happy energy and everything but either in the audio the character stops talking or you find a way to kind of cut and stop and then you can do this right so it's kind of like the audience that pretends but that's kind of it's a visible subtext there of like i'm not ready more calling us and come in and this here yeah it's kind of a it's a bit more serious but it's an interesting setup where you would only if you only hear the audio it will be positive but then if you watch it you can see the struggle in the character i think that would be really cool setup for a lip sync piece as well and then it goes up here there's another thing i want to show you is this here again props where you might have a character pretend to be happy but then the character holds on and holds these very tightly squeezes them so the face lies but the body tells the truth and through props you can see the squeeze for the subtext the subtext is visible through the squeezing of this he doesn't do this but he does this all right but it's second extension of that like all right shaking hands or arms out i'm ready i'm ready with this let's relax let's stretch a bit again props i always like the costume props or whatever props you have and then he forgets this here more impressions here are really really fun and then that's kind of that so anyway my very very subjective impressions of what's going on here but as a clip there's so much awesome stuff in terms of subtle acting those moments here are really really great so go and watch the whole thing without my rambling and that is that for a different thing on thursdays and hopefully i'll see you in some other clip all right thanks