 Welcome back to another acting analysis and tips for animators and today I'm going to talk about the movie The Darkest Hour. There are five sequences that I want to talk about including how characters are in the sets, with gestures, hidden gestures and status symbol and all those things that I talk about in my acting analysis clips and just in case you don't know what I'm talking about. Hi, my name is JD and on my channel I do acting analysis clips like these, I do animation analysis clips, I do rib reviews, I do prog reviews, animation news lectures, all kinds of things. Feel free to browse around and if there's something that you like feel free to subscribe, why not and let's go to those sequences. First up we have this here and I'm going to screw up through this you can see all the crazy commotion that is the sequence and why am I sharing this it's because of how you want to lead the audience somewhere. So you have a lot of movement right into the frame there are people shouting and yelling and gesturing this paper waving around and shaking his head and even as a point here let's go over there and then tell us the camera go over there. Now why am I sharing this because of this as we go and we have so much to look at it's all kind of the same color maybe it's a bit of a highlight here but you don't quite know where to look and then this character is not moving at all so there's contrast so when you have something where a lot of people are moving well how do you have a focus there well nothing is moving there so now because all of these people are moving and you can see later on you know their heads are turning here and they're yelling and all that stuff they go especially here to go everybody's gesturing and shouting I mean of course it's very clear that I want to look at him he's massively huge on screen but again you can see all of that and he is not moving and I love that little just that little look here and go hmm all right well what does this guy over there think so if you have multiple characters and you want to make sure that the audience knows where to look especially since they are dressed the same they kind of look the same well then you can do a lot of movement and not a lot of movement lighting wise is not a huge difference so again it's not like there's a spotlight on this character but look in terms of contrast of how people are moving now as he looks up there's another variation of this again this character is the one we want to look at so what happens here is that even though this character is nicely here in the third in my crappily drawn thirds this character is more in the middle not super center but still centered now how do we know that we need to look at him again it's not lighting wise a huge thing and this character is covered by a huge set piece because this character is more of a hidden character maybe kind of a secret thing so what you can do here is have your set piece obstruct the eyes because as humans we want to go to eyes you want to look at things now you might say this character has clear eyes is in the shadow but generally this post is hiding this character this piece is hiding this character and this character is fairly centered so it really gives us a helpful guide as to where to look at this point no eyes this character is looking down so it's really this is the character we need to look at and when you go back when he switches to the other scene you can see again lots of movement lots of movement fairly centered and this character is not moving at all so again look at contrast to draw attention to itself and sometimes less is more so in this sequence they are meeting here for the first time and you have that classic gesture here oh you gotta come here come here and kiss my hand why am i showing you this it's because of what he is doing right after it's this it's not extremely subtle i'm sure he noticed this and as an audience we can see it's also nicely lit because you got the highlight here so you can really see the color contrast when all of this happens it's nicely staged there and as always i'm assuming it is not that you copy this but in terms of a springboard of ideas so let's pretend your character is not really saying no and even in the lip sync maybe i like this maybe the character is at a birthday party like i love kids but the character is a neat freak and doesn't want to be touched or anything and the kids are messy it's the young kids love me a kindergarten party whatever and it's no i love i love kids and then as the kids hold them and touch them like yeah you're fine you're fine and then the character does this and wipes his hands so think about where you have the character portraying one thing and through a gesture you actually realize oh the character actually thinks this and that's the truth that comes out of the character through that gesture because gestures usually are overdone you got the w pose you got this it's always kind of the same ones and i always recommend to my students at least in your first couple takes when you act things out and film yourself a reference put your hands behind your back then you can see how you act with your shoulders or your chest or your head arms are just kind of overused but if you do want to use them i would recommend use them with a purpose it will reveal character by doing this and there's another example afterwards again that reveals that reveals something about a character through the gestures it doesn't have to be just the random flailing of one arm with two arms and it's in this one so they are celebrating here and yeah yeah yeah and you can see he's old so they're bringing him the glass they're making sure it's okay doesn't fall so she has that hand almost underneath the glass to make sure it's okay then when they're done here she's holding the hand she's putting the hand underneath so all those gestures show i want to help this character these are not random gestures she wants to offer help this tells us something that she wants to be helpful and because he's old and again she tries to help well here's another one watch what he's doing and let go so in his case maybe it's just grumpy doesn't want to be healthy doesn't want to look frail doesn't want to look weak just something where it's a gesture that's not something where it's the classic thing but it's more like leave me alone it's it's a deliberate gesture that tells us something about the character and it's creepy like i said someone's grumpy or just let go of me or i need to be seen as someone powerful so don't help me so get away because i need to come across as powerful i don't need help visually blah blah blah so many ways you can use this for your scene but if you do add a gesture think about is this something that will tell us more about the character and expand our ideas and our perception of this character not just random things so that the character just moves speak of movement i have this one as the next sequence and it's a long one i can scrub through this is what's happening here again this is about gesture but this is not what i want to talk about it's not this it's actually this it's the wall it's where they are so the couple things here as he laughs he holds on to this wall but the couple things you can do let's pretend like i said before the character is old and this character doesn't want to reveal to this character that he needs help maybe needs a cane or whatever he's kind of weak so as he walks you can see how he uses the wall now this is not a moment where it's about weakness but again i want to show you this as an idea as a springboard for ideas so maybe you can use confined space where a character can use this maybe it's a bit more hidden it's visible to the audience but it's hidden to this character because of this hand it's being blocked by the body but the character needs help and he's using this you can do something where let's say the characters are talking and this character is a bit more forceful in with a threat this could be an ellipsing they could say something and this character is uncomfortable and moves back and now this wall doesn't let the character go further back to evade this character and again this could be in all kinds of situations where maybe again it's the it's the guy or whoever at a Christmas party or at a birthday party and lots of kids and the character doesn't want to deal with kids and moves back and then it's stuck in a corner like all right i guess i'll play with you blah blah blah so again this can be used in many many ways but i like the idea of the confined space so if you have your characters think about where you will put them is it going to be a big empty space maybe that will give the character room to evade another character and that's the whole point or it's a small space where it's threatening because there's no escape or maybe the character wants to come off as more relaxed and then thankfully there's a wall right there to be laying here like this maybe the character hears something devastating and they're going oh and they almost faint and then they plop against the walls they don't fall back right away which gives them the other character time to hold the character so they can enjoy the interaction how much they like each other how much their support and so on and so on but to me again that's why i love props and sets because that it gives you opportunities to do something different with the character and to reveal something else about the character and again if that's something that you want to do for later on a job in a movie chances are the characters are not going to be in an empty scene they're going to be in a environment in a set in a could be in a jungle could be in a house whatever it is but then think about well all of this is around me how can i use this to tell the story and to tell us something more about the character and speaking of character in this one she comes in and sees how he is alone and you can see this is kind of reflecting his mood at this point all he's sad he doesn't have confidence anymore and the reason why i'm showing you this is this moment here so if you have a character that is sitting i mean the character also be standing could be sitting on the ground and this kind of goes back to the invisible man scene where she was sitting on the ground he comes over and sits almost sits down he's squatting but lowers himself towards her and that's the same case here he needs help he needs emotional help so she's not standing here talking down to him where he's old and you can see how hunched over he is he would have to get up and look up and it's a strain physically it wouldn't be helpful so she can choose to sit next to him but because of that he would still have to turn a lot again physically it's a lot to do so what she chooses here is to sit down here it's in front of him and it's lower so all he has to do is this that's all in terms of the physical strain and the physical demands that's all he has to do and it's very helpful she knows that if i do this that's all he has to do and she can just talk to him and this goes on you can see the sequence has to do this and once they're done i mean it is his wife she knows how he is and what he can do you know she has her sassy responses here standing again so it's cute i like their relationship there but again if you have someone that's that wants to be empathetic someone that wants to listen to someone someone that wants to feel like i'm listening i'm here for you let me talk to you let me help you think about how you position them are the high same level or lower are the next to them or in front of them and if it is a character that wants to help this character then you can add something like this where it's just a bit more gentle they can do this here for a bit more sensitivity and i like this too it's almost like i'm holding you i'm there i'm there for support i can prop you up you're okay you're not alone and then that'll tap tap for confirmation it's okay and she leaves him back into this pose here and this can be within a set this can also be with characters in an empty scene again i've seen many pieces where animation is awesome the character stuff is awesome and there's an empty scene i'm not saying you have to have a set all the time but if you do and they can sit they can stand think about where again where do i place them and this is not like the other one where it's confined it's an open space but it's important to know where you put them like i said same level lower in front of them so as you have multiple characters this will be different for one character but if you have multiple characters in your scene think about that think about obviously the context and if there's lip sync what they're saying what the story is and what interaction is but then use the sets and use their positioning are the close are the further away does that emphasize the moment maybe in the lip sync or in the pantomime if they're further away or closer just think about the spatial relationship of the characters and how as an audience we then get to learn more about their relationship and how they are based on where they sit where they stand and how they interact with each other speaking of interaction if you want to interact with me i guess this works as a segue i have workshops so i can work with you and i can make your awesome shots even more awesome so you can sign up link in the description as always with all the information my workshops are always open for sign-ups and if you liked what i was talking about here feel free to subscribe so you don't miss any of my uploads because i do upload every day except weekends other than that that's it and if you're still watching as always thank you for your patience and thank you for watching until the very end and that's it from me and i will see you in my next upload