 Welcome back to another acting analysis and tips for animators and today I'm going to take a look at the Disney plus movie Mulan. I'll be covering five sequences but before I do hi my name is JD and if you're new to this channel I do acting analysis clips like these I do rig reviews I do prog reviews I do animation news I do lectures and I post my feedback I do all kinds of things so feel free to browse around my channel and if you like anything you can also subscribe if you want so you don't miss any of my uploads but now let's continue let's go straight to the first sequence first up we have the sequence and I thought this was an interesting moment to change up your lip sync so imagine you have two characters right you got character one character two they're talking but the whole thing is done through this now I know squeezing the throat is going to change the vocal performance of this character or you know whatever character that you have but I thought this is cool I like this that we just kind of see this cool costume design as well and then you can do something where as the character talks again this would seem that this character is in trouble but then you can have potentially a reaction where the character starts smiling or a lean in you would think that it would kind of go back and try to free themselves but maybe they are so powerful that they would lower the heads you mean everything's a bit more and then lean forward you can see a tight grip there so it's a bit of a grip but not the choking so that the character can talk and this sequence here continues with them talking and he does kind of have this a slight smile and you can see how the lids here they kind of tighten much as it goes in nice and subtle a bit of a whining here as well a little subtle stuff there lowers the head and then starts talking and it's cool because again even here you have a little bit of movement there it almost seems like he's pushing in so I think that could be interesting and it doesn't have to be obviously something like this it could also be I don't know right now nothing actually comes to mind but it could be something where you traditionally have one or two characters talking but one character is doing something to a character without really interfering with the audio quality so it doesn't really change you know the performance that you want it to do but I think that just adds an extra neat element and for the character then to behave with a smile this on your throat and smiling would be different and then moving forward towards the threat that does this would also add some interesting character stuff on top of delivering the lip sync second sequence is this as Mulan comes in and you can see she's super busy when she comes in opens her door and talks and this is all about secondary action and just business stuff that the character is doing so it's not a character in an empty scene talking either to no one or another character in an empty scene what I like about this is that you can use the sets and the props for contrast so watch this she comes in she's busy she walks around she talks to all of these while walking she's busy she goes around they're doing their thing you know as for contrast they're very calm they're just sitting there doing not much except some handing over things she grabs this and busy busy busy you can see this busy busy busy not busy at all they realize you gotta tell them something you can see in the back here busy busy busy busy and then they say okay listen she knows something's gonna happen and already we found the matchmaker and even then here look at that still busy still busy and because of that constant movement that constant busyness when she does this ready and matchmaker you can read that on the lips and then she goes oh it just adds extra weight because if she's just standing around and doing nothing sure you could do something where the shoulders were slumped the facial expression would change all of that would also help with contrast and noticing that wheels are turning or she's shocked or something has changed in a thought process instead of mind but here you can do all this through all of that you can show busy happy all of that stuff and they realize oh this is not something i want to bam stop and hold and they continue and then here's the contrast she is locked now nothing's happening shocked oh no and then they continue with their business as if nothing happened as if it wasn't a big deal to her okay let's let's eat and it's going to be okay so that's what i always like you know that's what i also recommend to my students maybe put your characters into a scene into a set and then use props because then you can use that especially secondary action for contrast to in order to to showcase that something has changed and you can do that by stopping doing you know with whatever business that the character was doing here just like here speaking of contrast here's something else as they discuss things and she wants to say something you can see the reaction of her father and and there's something where i mean this would be a pain to animate every single thing but i like this i like that you have a moment where they're talking and this would be a cool setup too for a four character where you don't really have to go any lip sync or maybe they're just listening but it gives you a bit more framing maybe it really frames them and boxes them in or you can have any type of reaction with head turns but i like that setup and then you can see as she's trying to say something in a nicely contrasted profile here you have they and you have this is moving that's moving obviously they are reacting but if all the pieces moving and they could be something where as he does this you can see the pause long pause and then they start talking and also you can see that reaction as he starts talking here but this is something you could potentially stylize and go even further when you want this to be serious but maybe still with some contrast and maybe not contrast but some funny elements where maybe some of these just keep turning turning turning turning turning until maybe he will put another hand on it to really stop it you mean you can you can exaggerate you can ask like that whole situation and do more with it but this is again why i like props you can do something where this could be with more pieces less pieces stuff that falls you could have maybe even in the background a little a bird in a cage that would stop and do something we have there's something where this character action this um this high contrast moment could affect all kinds of things around in the set with the props and then you can push that to a bit more comedy to make this a bit less serious or make this more serious and so on and so on but i always kind of like that moment with the props next up we have something where it just every little move counts so if you have your character walk watch this she's ready to talk to him and then she does the stop and a bit of a looking down she's contemplating she's waiting should i do this i'm gonna do this and this is for anything that you do in your shot is what i tell my students all the time any type of move any type of pause any type of look is the gaze down is it up is the head down or not does the character stop or not all of that tells us something so as we continue she has that pause goes in and then the other part is this how she enters comes in like this that to me is very quiet is very potentially respectful depending on what's going on in the scene and who she's meeting but it's not a thing of hey and this whole thing flies around so look at your entrance if you have a character enter a scene this could be through a door this could be a curtain this could be i don't know whatever you have there think about well what's the speed of the entrance you can see how she's kind turning put her leg forward she's turning with her body to go through that she doesn't want to move too much i mean it's also a lot of respect towards this character so think about that how is your character entering the scene and how is that telling us something about this character also like this does nothing to do with the entrance but i like this as they talk she is in a box he is in a box he is in a box they all have their roles to play they're all kind of boxed in and the thing but kind of like that how it's framed there but anyway that's that and then here's another one about movement and how you interact with characters so as they are going up here this is the whole test and you just can't do it you can see their strain he was all right i got hesitation i'll pause in the leg and then i can't do this and bam now after her transformation she comes in and walks past and goes blah blah blah and they're all realizing whoa she can do this this is what struck me is okay how is she going to pass this character and you can see that she turns she doesn't want to hit him with this but at the end she still does and i don't know if that was there's not enough room or if it was a bump on purpose get out of my way because she's not looking and maybe that makes it more arrogant or this is just me reading into something you know that is not really the case it just happened to be something like this but i like that idea like that element so imagine this is a competition and this character basically lost can't do it now this character is passing the other character do you want to show it as in i'm going to use this to push it out of my way i'm better than you maybe with a little bit of smile maybe a quick glance or something where it's not really acknowledging like a half look over like not i having eye contact and then head up and being more arrogant continuing potentially in this shot the push and maybe looking down like oh what are you doing or you don't do it at all and you can you realize that all right he lost she's going to pass she's going to go in and in and i'm better but then she doesn't then she gives him room and in this she doesn't touch it she really makes sure that she doesn't touch this character and then follows up with this but there's no contact where she knows she's going to win but she's so concentrated and it's not a competition to her where she feels superior she's still respectful to the other person and then passes by continues so this is to me just an interesting moment something for you to think about if you have multiple characters if one passes another how is that are they holding something what's the context is it a competition or is it not is it just entering a store is it a sale in a store where they both want to buy the same thing and are they competing or are they saying no you can buy it or you you can buy whatever the context is think about how those characters relate and this could be through props this is again why i like props where you can use this or just body language or looks or you know however you want to construct the scene but to me all of that is important because any of these moves will tell us more about the character so if you do something like this and it's super arrogant or not i know more about this character and then i know more about this character how he reacts to that move he doesn't go and rip the thing apart he doesn't yell at her he just looks at her oh yeah she can do this now it's a bit of a disbelief but also probably a little bit of respect of okay she can do this now there's something going on in him and you can see this too in how he has that little look down slight frown and then look over so to me all of those elements are triggered by this moment and now i know more about her and i know more about him and this is why i like analyzing scenes like this because you can use elements now it doesn't have to be with props or within a set even though i like that a lot it could be also your character just an empty scene but every movement counts every look every look you hold or you don't can you look and how long do you blink you look away how's your posture we talked about in a previous FNA about your character pose is your character starting off the shot like this or more proud or more arrogant or is more confident or not all of that matters all your posing and the timing of the movement going past someone using something looking at someone all of that tells us something about your character and the relationship between another character if there are multiple characters in your scene so i would really pay attention to every single thing that you put into your shot and speaking about attention if you want me to pay more attention to you and your shots and make your awesome shots even better i have workshops and you know the drill all the information is in the description feel free to check it out you can sign up at any time my workshops are open and speaking of time if you're still watching this as always thank you so much for your patience and for watching the whole thing till the very end and if any of this is potentially helpful to you and you feel like yeah i don't want to miss more of those uploads you can subscribe and hit that bell button so you don't miss any of those uploads and that is it i would say thank you again and i'll see you in my next clip