 Welcome back! Today is Thursday and that means acting analysis for animators and today I'm going to take a look at the Netflix show Maniac. I absolutely love the show. I wish there was an art of book to look at all the cool designs when they're in the real world. There's so much good stuff. The music is great. The performances are awesome. I have so many clips to look at. So let's not waste more time. Let's get straight to this. Alright, so first up we're going to have this here where he is kind of preparing his testimony and he's always kind of quiet. And you can see this here. We're at the very beginning. He's like this. You only see the top part of the character. And then as it continues, again, we only see this. But the cool thing is that as we go down and it reveals his fingers and hands, you can see that he's using this and he's doing something else while talking. And I thought it's not that you have to do this where you have to do a camera move to reveal it. There could be something where you see the character from the back and you see maybe it's a shot or you see the front. Then it cuts to the backside of the character and you see who they're talking to. But the character has his or her hands behind their back and they're doing something with that. Maybe they're again doing a nervous fumbling. So I thought this is a cool moment where you can show how a character pretends to be one way. But then the hands kind of reveal what the character really feels. And this could be just by nervous fingertips or by using a prop or doing something. And this could be just through a cut or like in here, like a camera move. But sometimes animation, especially in classes, they kind of discourage camera moves. So maybe you want to stay away from that. But I thought in terms of character reveal, that could be cool. And it could be shown through a cut where a character is seen from the front and then you cut to see the back. I mean, there are many options to reveal that. Next up is the scene where the character blinks a ton. And as if you've seen a lot of my acting analysis clips, you know, I'm a big fan of, you know, you know, eye lines and eye gaze and how long do you look and how much do you blink. And in this case, this is a really long sequence and look at how many times he blinks. And it's kind of at the beginning, but then towards the end, look at this. So it starts and it blinks and it blinks and it blinks. There's so many blinks there and it continues and continues and continues. Now, what's the point of this? It's a really long scene and a lot of blinking. Now, you wouldn't have a shot like this on your reel or I wouldn't encourage a shot like this as an exercise because it's just so long. But it goes back to if you have your character talk, maybe if you add a lot of blinks, then it will look like it's a deliberate choice and it will make your character look either nervous or insecure or kind of crazy, whatever you want to do. But it goes back to think about every time you do something with your character and especially blinks, you got to be mindful of do I blink here or there is a half blink and how many blinks. And again, it tells us something about the character. Next up is an awesome interaction between Jonah Hill and his dad in the show where there is a very awkward hug. So if you look at this here, they're kind of done. So he's done talking to him here and he got that moment. I love this how you can even see a little bit of the beginning in his expressions there, how he's ready to move on. Okay, all right. It's almost like a little gnaw to himself. All right. Well, I'm done with this and now hugging that. It's so great. He does not react at all. I was like, oh no. And I loved how there's no movement in his arms and he has that hug and stops a bit and then continues. And again, he doesn't quite commit. Should I hug like this? Okay, I guess not. Yeah, we're done. Such a cool moment. And this is a great moment for even a technical point of view of character interaction. It's not easy to do the compression, the whole, the tapping and everything. You might have to work with constraints or not. From a technical point of view, it's very tricky to do all the contact points. But also from an acting point of view, it's interesting how one character wants to do a hug. The other character just stays put. And then how does the other character react to that? Well, do I just stop the hug right away? Or do I continue with something? Every time I change it, I realize it's really awkward. So you only get into specific changes and you hold only for so long and then you back off and you stop. So again, an awesome, awkward moment. And I thought something that could be interesting that let's pretend you do have an assignment and those exist where you have character interaction. Next up is another one where it's about holding gaze. But I thought it's interesting how he's not able to look at her and how he changes. How he starts to kind of look away in different ways. So Ashie tells him, all right, now pay attention. This is my last question and I can scrub through this a little bit. And he says, okay, and then he waits and he looks. And again, it's not like it's a stare. He has to blink. But after a while, he can't hold it anymore because she is not blinking. She is staring and staring and he realizes that's kind of weird. So he has that first little look over, looks back and then looks down again. You can see how he has those multiple blinks here. It's just so awkward. And he waits. Okay, all right. Well, is this where is the last question going? And she keeps on staring at him. And then he does it again. And every time it's a bit different. So he has a little bit of a look over to the side. Then he says, well, when is the question going? And then he technically passes the test as we see here. Spoilers. But as you do this, as you have blinks and moments where the character looks away, you don't want to repeat yourself. And I thought this is a good way of showing what I can do like this. And I can have a couple of blinks down and look it over. So it's all very subtle, but it goes back into you don't want to repeat yourself. You don't want your animation to be timing wise the same, action wise the same. It needs to be contrast. So it looks a bit more organic and lifelike. And of course you can always stylize it and caricature the whole moment. But I would just make sure that you don't repeat yourself again in terms of timing and action. Next up again is a prop usage. But this time it's more kind of a timing thing for just comedy and entertainment value. And then another look and how long do you look while another action is happening? So two of my favorite things. So as he is kind of passed out, all we need is a little bit of a drool here. He's got some drug problems. And she's trying to tell him to wake up and it's a bit more frustrating. It's time to get up. And he has this moment of... This is not something that he initiates. Just something that just happens. And obviously this doesn't have to be a headphone thing that comes down. But I think it's interesting thing of you can have props that are on a character or something could be on a table or someone doesn't move and swipes whatever object. And that object has a specific action because of it. That could be stylizing, cartoony, caricature, but there to either emphasize the moment or just be there for entertainment value. There's nothing wrong with just animating things so it's fun. And as he does that, as he gets up straight and realizes, yeah, I got to do this. She has this moment of we got to do this and get ready. He says, yeah, I'm ready. Now look at her. Long look and she starts to get up, but she still has that look a little bit tilted with the head, but she keeps on looking until she exits frame. And again, that goes back in. So if I get up, do I get up right away? Did I get up while looking? Do I get up, stop and look again? All goes back to every move has to be intentional and will tell us something about the character. And I'm repeating myself, but still I like finding new examples for, again, for different ways of showing that idea. And the more examples, the better so that you can again, not repeat yourself or just be more original. And this can all be inspiration for your own special acting choices. Back to prop, but I thought this time it's really cool where the character's head specifically is out of frame and all we see is the prop first. And I think it's a cool introduction to a character where sometimes you only see the prop, which actually reminds me of a clip by Cameron Fielding where a character sits down and another character is offscreen and that character handles newspaper or magazine and just a timing of the movement. All that tells us something about the character, but it's a cool additional thing that you can show in your animation. But in this case, I thought it's cool as a character intro. So if your shot starts with your character offscreen, just the head, he or she could hold something specific that will already inform us. It's almost like a character anticipation in terms of what the character is. So in this case, you can see this here, and I've got a little bit of a TV warning here, rating blending in here, but you can see how we just see this. Okay, the character is a smoker. Then this comes in, we can see, aha. And then the character leans in and we can see the face. And it's also interesting the way of how she gets up. You can tell that she's kind of tired. Again, every move is important. It tells us something about the character. Next example is actually pretty much right after this, the same character in somewhat the same action. And I'm going to talk about a little bit of a tweak of that scene. So let's take a look. So we can see her with the drug usage and then so we can see what she's doing. And then she gets offscreen and then the hand comes in and so on and so on. But my thing would be, well, if you have this, what if your shot starts here? It doesn't show any of this. We're starting here and you could have this here. It doesn't really matter, but I think at this point, imagine you just have, again, just legs and the torso and then the hand comes in here, but it doesn't have to be drug usage. It could be whatever you want, right? It could be food. It could be whatever handling of a prop, but as an audience you go, that's interesting, what are they doing? And then only after that, you can see the reaction to whatever they're doing here. They're doing this and, okay, obviously she took drugs and that's the end of the scene. But this could be where you can bring down a fork with the ginormous piece of cake with the bite taken out of it. And then the character goes down and goes, it's all happy eating it. But I thought that was interesting. You can show just different type of animation techniques where it's finger animation is very tricky, right? So you can show your attention to detail and the handling of a prop. But again, what the character is holding and the offscreen interaction with that will tell us what the character just did. It's kind of, again, an anticipation for the audience. Oh, there's food, the character just eat this. Or again, whatever prop you have. And then the character comes into frame and then reveals, okay, and maybe confirms the audience's suspicion or their thought on the character. And something would be kind of a cool intro to a shot. So it's not always just character in frame doing their thing or just showing different stages and it's almost kind of a reveal to a character. And sticking with the sequence because it's again, it's the same moment at the beginning, same character. It's something where it's prop usage, again, but a variation of what the body does. So you're not stuck to, I have to drink. In this case, it's a drinking example where a lot of times students would just have the prop and then drinking that set. And my point with this example would be, well, think about what is the character doing while drinking. You can have, in her case, she's straightening up, but you can have drinking and maybe deflate depending on what the drink is and again, the state of the character. What's also cool is that as she is ready to do something else, she has that action and there's the overlapping action where she is doing something else while finishing that first action and then doing something else. But anyway, let me show you. So she wakes up after all of her drugs here and then right away goes, okay, well, I need to drink, I'm thirsty. So you could argue, well, I'm going to do this and glass goes up and she stays in that pose. But in this case, she straightens and you might argue she straightens so that the water comes down easier, you know, whatever reason you're going to have. But A, I like that. I like that it's interesting that you have contrast in pose and you don't start and end with this. This is your A pose and you go towards your somewhat B pose. So there's some progression and contrast. But then what's cool is that as she continues and the camera adjusted a little bit for that framing, she already with her eyes goes, all right, well, I got to do this next thing which is over here. So as you finish this A move, right, you go straight into B move here and that can signal that, you know, she is busy and she wants to save time and do all of this. But it's interesting secondary action as the character does all that stuff here. You can combine this with, not that she can say a line while drinking, but it could be something where maybe the character says a line and there's a pause and you can drink but it just, for me, it's an example of not going compartment wise of I got to drink and then that's it and I got to say my line and that's it and I got to do something else. To me, it's interesting how the character does one thing, does the next and continue. It's just, it's more, it tells us something about the character. There's interesting overlapping action or the mechanics wise introduced interesting just from an animation point of view. And in general, I'm just a fan of a character performing an action usually while doing a dialogue scene. But just in general, like you as a character, you're always doing something, be it at home or wherever you are, it's not going to be just you sitting here delivering a line to the camera. Again, unless it's on stage and there's specific reason for it. So my thing is always what I encourage my students is that have your character be an environment where they are doing something. And of course, is the environment familiar or not? Is the action familiar or not? But all that will change the acting choices, the timing and the moves and so on. But I thought in this case it would be interesting the change of drinking and getting up and then after that already moving on to the next action. Next up is a very, very subtle head move which I'm also a massive fan of, which is head accents. I'm such a fan of this. And in this case, you have this character asking her why she wants to do the drug trial. And she gives her one answer why she thinks about it first. And again, this could be also interesting in terms of holding that pose but then just reacting with eyes, stopping to look at her and then thinking and then saying the line. Also, how long do you hold a blink? You can close your eyes for quite some time and then open again. Again, this is not something that people frequently do but it's something to think about. Do I just do a blink because I got to put in a blink? No, think about how long do I close my eyes? What is the effect on the audience if I do that? But anyway, she continues here, says that thing and she goes, okay, well, that's not really why you're doing this. And then she tells her, well, what do you mean, why? And then look at this. Oh, so good. So good. Look at that. It's so subtle. There's just a blink, a slight adjustment in the head but even from here, hold on. Let me go back here from here to here. Oh, I missed it. Hold on. Let me see. So you have this look here. So I'm going to mark this so I can see this on my screen and then she turns into this look. I'm going to mark this again so now I can go back and forth. Look at that. It's so subtle how the upper eyelids are just slightly closed. The mouth is ever so different. It's super subtle. It's almost not there. But look at that. That slight adjustment. But there is a slight difference in her eyes but it's so good. Holy moly. But I love this. This could be your pantomime thing or maybe your dialogue. Again, where I say that you don't have to animate the dialogue that's being spoken. So the dialogue is off-screen and in this case, the character you see over the shoulder and the character you're animating is listening to that and I love that moment of her just looking and going, really? So good. And speaking of listening, here's a cool example of multiple characters listening in different ways. And some examples are just very still. Again, not that it's something that you would use in your reel but if your character just kind of looks and does nothing. But maybe it would be exactly this where you see multiple characters acting and reacting in a different way. So in this case, this is a fantastic thing. If there's one thing you should watch of the show is that tape, that explanation tape is so good. But as it continues, right? It explains you have this type of reaction of just looking. Then you got this type of reaction with blinks and processing things the way he usually does. Hmm, reacting to something I just heard. That is a little change in the face but also with the smile. Yeah, she's happy about what she's hearing and confirming. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds all good. Again, not sure how you would do that in your animation. No, no, maybe it would be this exactly where you see someone say something and then you have multiple characters listening to one person. Then you can show off character traits, how each character listens to another character or a TV thing or a radio thing, whatever it is. But something to think about, what if you do have a multiple character scene and they're all babysitting, want to standing, say something that's your lip sync piece. Then you cut to multiple people and only is a headshot reacting and then you can show off how you can animate different personalities doing the same action. They're all listening and reacting but since every character is different that thing you're showing in terms of listening will be different and that could be an interesting display of your acting skills. And I'm actually continuing right away with this where we continue with the tape and it's prop usage and again, it's used to show how awkward the character is. So as they're done here and he just in through is so good. The way he holds this, come on. This is not the moment but come on, how he has that slight turn, so good. But then he's done and then clicks this and he tries to open the pocket to put that in but he can't and it kind of holds and it doesn't work and it's kind of awkward how he puts it down here and the tape finishes. So good, it's such a good moment. Yep, thinks he's done and then, nope, doesn't work. He holds the look. It's so good. I'm sorry, this is so good. But if you do have a prop, again, it's not just there to have a prop but it could be something where it tells us how confident the character is or in this case, how awkward the character is. Next up is a character that says something without the odd. It's just mouthing something in this case, you know, something inappropriate but it's a cool moment that, again, is rarely used. You can see this in movies so many times. So in this test, it tells him it's ready to come in. They're all waiting and he's the one that has to get in there and just told him that we're all screwed. We're gonna get kicked out of this test and look at this here. Look and then we are effed and that's this and it's a combination of mouthing this and it's so big and obvious what he's saying. Then on top of that, you got the gesture. We're done with this and then the eye roll of how annoyed he is. So if you think of a pantomime piece it could just be this. It doesn't have to have audio in it, right? It could just be him going, all right, we're screwed and then that's it. Next example is off-screen influence. I think we talked about before with True Detective where Woody Halston was sitting and someone comes in and gives him a cup of coffee and you only see the hands come in and he says, thank you, well, I think, I can't remember. He just grabs the coffee mug and it continues. But it's cool because it kind of opens up the world. It's not just the character, you know, by themselves in the scene. There's other stuff going around and it's not that much. Your anime just have to bring in a hand holding the mug and it's a prop interaction type of thing. And in this case, they are the party so you have characters out here so he talks to Joanna Hill here and it's this moment of he wants to ask him and it's a bit uncomfortable so you can argue that him right here saying hi to people outside and it continues. Maybe he does that to stall because he is a bit uncomfortable asking and then he does this and it's a small thing but to me, it just opens up the world. It might be tricky to animate a whole background scene of characters moving or you could have them really blurred out. It could just be kind of a cycle of people holding glasses and just kind of swaying around. It could be a simple thing to add in the background but I thought it could be, again, it could be used as just opening up the world. They're talking like, hey, maybe someone passes by or they want to say something and then maybe in your lip sync, in your audio piece there's a pause and you can have the character pause and because they are maybe insecure or nervous they can kind of look around and go hey and then say the line. So it could be used multiple ways. And sticking with the sequence as this continues the discussion gets a bit more tense and this again is this thing about looks and darts and blinks that I'm always a big fan of and in this case it's him telling him you got to do this he kind of jokes around and looks this way, right? But what's cool is that he doesn't blink now look at the action here he looks over doesn't blink and looks back right there and it tells him you're going to do this right and it's to me it seems very threatening, it's very intense that he doesn't blink and holds and holds and holds and then he makes the joke and continues and you know breaks eyeliner and does all his thing and he's also fantastic in that sequence and on top of that there's that little thing of ok bye and does this very inappropriate thing of but it's just being a jerk, it's just jerk people do that where he makes him it embarrasses him, it's awkward for him not that you want to do this potentially in your scene depending on where you want to send you demoreal but it's something where again it's a character interaction but think about what they do maybe it's like an exaggerated tap on the cheeks or maybe it's at a party and the other person has their hairstyle in a specific way and the character says ok bye and does a little hair thing right almost like with a pet that screws up their hair that would then embarrass them but it would show that that one character is just a jerk and does that to the other character and then as he exits so again it's character interaction that can tell us something about the character and before that it's if you look away and then look back if you look back with a blink like this or if you look back like that that has a completely different meaning and again something to think about has to do your acting choices of blinking or not blinking and eyes and even how open your eyes are how much white do you show above the pupils next up is a great reaction by Emma Stone where she puts in a code into a door and it's just kind of a the sound is off-screen of the door opening and it's just her the camera is on her reacting and that to me would be a great example for a like a pantomime gear change so if you look at her even that face already concentrates on this and you got this useless thing of having the code here then she puts in the code right and this goes back into like off-screen gestures or actions and you can see how the body reacts to that punching in and then you hear the sound right as she pauses here and you can hear if you listen to this there's sound of going to an opening and then she has that reaction I guess it worked such a great moment and it goes back into gestures they're off-screen so things you do even though it's not framed it will still affect the body in terms of body mechanics and just a great moment of concentration and then the reaction to the door this one is very very short and it's a bit tricky because sometimes you see actors do something and it's really really funny or potentially really sad whatever it is but sometimes when it's really funny it's extra funny because it's an actor doing something that we're not used to seeing from him or from her and maybe that's why it's so funny so if you would apply that same action to just your animations or whatever rig maybe it's not that funny so this is a tricky thing but I still wanted to point out it's super short and it's I loved it so he puts on the lip balm and does that move here and then this at the end this cracks me up I love the timing slow to fast fast fast fast fast and again I mean I still think this action applied to any or any rig any human or whatever animal thing that might use lip balm could be funny but again Kavya it could just be because of him I only know him from the leftovers mainly so to me I see him as a serious actor so seeing him do this is extra funny to me even though most of the stuff that he's done is comedy related but anyway small thing something to think about but still regardless of who's doing this and whatever again it's a timing thing of slow slow then fast fast fast contrast and timing and the texture of that timing that that difference in timing is also just really important for whatever you do going back to what I said before where you don't want to repeat yourself in terms of action but also timing and this last clip is again super super short and again it's a prop thing and it's again something where I wouldn't say it's super crucial it's something to think about when you're done with the shot right when you have everything's there the pantomime the body action lips in there is acting is strong and now you're thinking in terms of presentation maybe you want to put some set pieces around that maybe tell us something more about the character and kind of goes back to the camera fielding clip that I thought was really cool in terms of the setup the colors the you know the just the whole set every single piece that I think was cool that adds a certain flavor to the shot and in this case it's a shot after this one it's not this but it's this and then of course it cuts to her lining up another cigarette which he does so many times in the show but just this part could be passage of time or someone constantly needs that cigarette fix or whatever prop you have it could just be something where it tells the audience more about either what happened before or maybe what might be happening or it's in general what the character does and maybe it could just be your characters in the room and they're just piles of letters or piles of piles of books or you know maybe that person reads a lot and that's why there are books everywhere or here she's a hoarder and this is all kind of stuff around or watch a ton of movies and you know cases of blue rays or DVDs or whatever you have I think sometimes it could be interesting to kind of plus out your scene your set design and kind of the production value in terms of what does the audience see and will that give us a better idea about the character again is I don't think it's crucial it's again I would not hire someone if I'm in that position because there's not a prop in the scene obviously it's all about the acting the performance you know the animation obviously obviously I mean the thing is I say this because I have fun with that I like doing that if I were to a shot and hopefully do a shot soon a personal shot and I'm going to think about set pieces and I'm going to have a lot of fun animating the set pieces if the character interacts with you if there's like a stomp on the table will that affect the pieces on the table and just anime that stuff is for me just a lot of fun but again it's not something that you have to do it might be that extra level the extra one two percent to polish the shot maybe that will impress someone because you took the time to be you know that extra invested in it I don't know I don't think that should be the crucial thing in terms of hiring but I still wanted to mention it because it's something that I like and if you like this then hopefully these examples were helpful in terms of okay maybe I can do this or this could be an idea for something else so obviously all the things that I mentioned here are not for everybody but just in case even if it's just one person and it helps only one person I did want to mention and that's it's a long clip it's also a fantastic show I didn't cover everything there's a lot more but then after a while I just got too sucked into it especially something where I'm not gonna say too much or two their elves in the show one character portrays the elf and to me that character look very believable and then the other character portraying the elf felt like an actor in a costume but also the actor was aware and played it like this so there's more I could talk about this and the acting choices there but again this is a really long clip already I would just say if you have Netflix watch the show if you hated it comment let me know I'm very curious about different opinions but I absolutely loved it I love the music again the acting was great the production design was great just the look of it it was so good such a fan but that's it so I don't want to make this even longer thank you for watching thank you for spending those extra super valuable minutes and dozens of minutes and potentially half an hour watching this I appreciate it and I will see you tomorrow if you will for my FNA for part three of blocking and this time it's about planning