 Welcome back to Akina Alice's Tips and Tips for Animators, and today I'm going to take a look at Episode 4 of the Disney Plus series Endor. Star Wars Endor is awesome and fantastic. I want to take a look at it. I'm going to talk about body language, eye contacting, eye visuals and processing, props and costumes, placement of characters within a scene. There's a bunch of really cool stuff to talk about, so let's go. And if you're new to this channel, hi, my name is JD and I do Akina Alice's Tips like these. I do animation Alice's Tips. I do animation lectures. I do reviews with a bunch of stuff. And for these Akina Alice's Tips, it's basically, I'm looking at scenes from movies and TV shows and other things where I talk about the ideas behind or at least my interpretation of those ideas behind those scenes and how you could use that in your shots. So it's not copying this one to one, but it's taking the idea and the situation of those shots and what the actors do and their handling of props and all that stuff and how you could take that and maybe as a springboard of ideas and use that in your own shots. And what am I talking about? So let's go straight into the first sequence. I picked this one just because actually with the assignments that my Academy students have for pantomime and also lip sync, it's this moment here. And I'm talking about if you have two characters, right, you can multiple characters, think about the distance between the two and what the posture is. And in this case, it's how the distance is changing and the posture and how they are relating to each other in terms of the body language. So basically, he's trying to convince Endor about something and he has his body is pretty open to him. He doesn't really waver. He talks to him. He stays open and Endor most of the time at the very beginning because he's skeptical. He has his shoulder more turned towards him. It's almost like away from him. He's not quite into the whole situation. He's not super convinced. And he made his final case like, yeah, it's going to be good for you, blah, blah, blah. Don't want to spoil too much in case you haven't watched it. And look at what he does here. Takes a step towards him and opens himself up. Now, you can imagine this could be in two ways. A, I'm trusting you. So I'm turning around. I'm opening myself up and I'm closing the distance. I'm a bit more personal. I'm in. I'm listening. I'm interested. You could also take this in terms of a threat where he is ready to kind of block it or something. And then he's ready to fight. He goes, all right, I'm ready to fight. So you can use this in different kind of situations. But in your shot, if you have two characters, think about the distance between the two. Why is it close? Why is it far away? And does the character have to get closer or take a step away? Turn away or turn towards the character. There's a small things, but they open up the shot to more interpretation and more interesting acting, where it's not just a character standing in my usual, where they do like the W pose and fanning of arms. Think in terms of, am I standing like this while you talk to me? How does that feel? Is that rude? Am I interested or not on top of that to kind of look away, you know, kind of turn away? Or when I do this, how does that feel? I'm now interested. I'm opening up towards you. Is that something that you can use potential in your shot? So think about that if you have multiple characters, two or more, and how they're placed, closeness and openness with gestures and body language and so on. The second one is about eye lines and eye contact and how they blink and do not blink. So he has a statement to make, you can check his eyes. You know, they're fairly, I cut this off here, but he's fairly static. He doesn't really blink. He's very confident in what he talks about. So this guy, this guy just had some problems. Now she is listening and she has a lot of staring and little darts because she's intently listening to what's going on, but she's not processing anything crazy. So think in terms of when you blink, when you do not blink and how their eye darts are not, but she's intently listening, he is ruling the whole thing here. So he's fairly relaxed and his looks and everything. Same thing with him, even if his head up, his nose up a bit, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's okay. And as he continues to talk about this, there's something that piques your interest. You can see this in a slight raise of the head. And I love stuff like that where it's just very subtle, just a little bit of a raising. Wait, did I just hear? Slight opening of the mouth. You can see how the eyes are now going down and processing. She's not even looking at the guy anymore. She's looking down. She's thinking about something she just heard and is processing in. They're going, wait a minute, right? Lots of intense staring. And think about when you have looks where the body's not moving, the head is not moving, but just the eyes. That's very concentrated. Now, as this continues, she realizes, wait, this is something that I heard about before. And she goes here. And I also love showing all that stuff here. The production design on this show is bananas. Anyway, she looks for things and she finds what she was looking for. And I look at her eyes in this case. Up, dark, dark, looking around. Now it's all the processing, including some clenching here, the jaw tightening here, all that stuff. So think about when you have characters, when do they look? When do they blink? You mean is it's like a very intense stare, just looking around and processing things where it's more like, wait, what did I just hear? And not that many blinks versus an onslaught of information where it goes, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. So it's very specific in when you use eye darts and blinks and think about that. So it's not just keep alive of blinks or when a character turns their heads to protect their eyeballs and stuff like that. Really think about what does that mean when the character has a lot of blinks, a lot of eye darts or not. For this one, I want to talk about character placement within a scene. So this is a longer thing, right? As you can see here, this is going all the way forward here. So what I want to talk about is he changed the plans and she, she doesn't know. So they come together here and you can see there's a good distance between them, but they're not moving around a lot. This is all a small talk, you know, there's nothing going on. She doesn't know quite yet what he is proposing that might upset her. Now, as this continues, little side of them, but I want to include this. I love this here where he sees this and goes, what if I fly away right now? And he takes that little small step and is this robot ship robot? It goes, can I help you with this? The reason I'm cleaning is just because it's it's an interesting thing where when you have a human to animate and they have to go somewhere and you put in a conflict, so this could be a surveillance robot or something. I just like the idea just because it's fun to animate robotic things in terms of like the keys have to overshoot a bit and you have some mechanicals, you know, like overshoot and stuff. I know I like animating robotic things just so if you have as an idea, if you have a character, just the one pet spying thing, no dialogue, and they have to go somewhere and cannot go, maybe include a robot. This is a very specific, subjective, nerdy idea. But I don't like this. I just want to sneak that in there just because it's part of the sequence. But anyway, back to them. Look at him. He's very still. She is not. So he already explained what happens and she is not having it. And this is the inner turmoil of, ah, this is makes me nervous. I don't like this. She's pacing around. So part of what I want to talk about here is that think about when is your character moving and when is your character not? Just like before, when we are indoor standing close and opening up, think in terms of overall movement for contrast as well. Not moving, lots of movement, right? And even how this is framed, we're following her so we understand there's movement. But within this, and if I put on onion skinning here, right, I'm going to trace him and then go back and you can see how the camera follows him. Somewhat, but mostly it's not too bad through there. So we are showing that there is movement on her. But as it continues visually, he is still standing still, because he is steadfast. He is convinced that what he's saying is OK, and it's true. And it's, you know, right to him. He also has movement, his arms. He's a bit more moving in his, you know, in his upper body and head. And she has a lot of short movements leaning forward. You know, that's the only time she doesn't move because she's challenging him. So again, for contrasting about when they move and they do not move. And as this continues, this you can clearly see, she is still moving on upset and everything. And he starts to explain to her more and more what is going on, right? And I love this here because you can see that little tilt. It's a little puppy tilt. He's trying to convince her he's looser in the body language. And as he continues to talk to her, he goes, she's challenging him. She's not really listening or being that convinced. I love this moment here. He continues, he's much looser, right, in his body language. And she is kind of like whatever poking around with this. I'm not really listening. And that messes him up here right there. He goes, stop, you know, look at me. Like he is really upset. So now look at the contrast. She turns, she looks and look at him here. He's completely still in his anger. And that's something that I want to point out just because usually when we think about bigger energy or what I see commonly with students is that there's more movement with especially arms. There's a lot of flailing around, you know, the doubly poses or doing that and blah, blah, blah. But when a character gets really angry and they're like, don't do this, you think about how that character will tense up and actually not move. So there's a lot of sharp movement, which I'll show you later in the head, little accents and a little sharp, like energy bolts and the muscles in the facial and in the head accents. But it's all like, you have to listen to me. It's more like, listen to me. That's a very intense thing. So again, think about a contrast of it doesn't always have to be big to be intense and menacing. Sometimes it's just the stiffness and the intensity in the eyes and the muscles that can show the same thing. And I love for him the contrast of, no, no, this is good for you. Listen to me. And then as you can see later, he kind of loosens up again. So let's get to that. Quick moves here and go back again. Look at the head, the facial shapes. There's a lot of tension there, but within all of this, right? So this again, onion skinning on and let's go back. Look at that. Look at how contained he is within that line. But you can tell he is, there's some intensity in there, but he doesn't have to flare around a lot. And then, you know, finally she realizes, all right, maybe you're right. And you can see this here. He realizes, okay, he, you know, quote unquote one and he loosens up. You can see how he's a bit looser, straight or not in more tense, but the intensity was in the lean. And now he loosens up again. The inquisitive lean again. I want to hear you say, yes, I understand, blah, blah, and she does, she relents. And you got again that relaxation of, okay, it's going to be okay. So think about that next time you have two characters where they might start like this, right? They might end up really close. And does one character move all the time and the other character not or vice versa? What does that mean? How does that feel? So again, explore contrast in your characters in terms of what is the body language telling you sort of the actual pose, but also the movement within the scene. Now, speaking of staging, I love this here. As he is reprimanding all of these, you can see that's the setup here. There are three here listening and that is the environment. And I like this in terms of a setup where again, it's contrast where you have people standing and one character sitting. So if you're doing a lip sync assignment and you don't want to just do a character that just stands and flows, you know, their arms around and has a W pose, as I always say. Consider this type of thing here. And I like that he protests, like, but I wasn't even part of it. I like that it's not a big gesture right there in his arm. It's more like a little bit of a precisely. Yes, that's what I meant. And then you can go from something where a character sitting with a nice asymmetrical pose into, all right. And then you got to turn with the chair and the standing up. So within that lip sync, you can still add some body mechanics to show off weight, right? You can show off a couple of steps in a walk. Then you can go back to the more common waist up lip sync, you know, staging that you see on demo reels and in shots. So it doesn't always have to be everything like this. You can do a shot where you might start like this, sitting, just to establish where we are, where are the characters and what's the environment. Then you cut to a closeup or like mid like that. And then you can have him get up, show some body mechanics and then he close it to this. Also just quick, just because it's in there and it's funny. He told him to not say anything. Look at this guy. He still wants to say something, ready? And he goes, seriously? And I love the contrast of him luring that arm. And this goes to me just straight back into timing. Look at how, let's go back here. Look at how he, the body's tensing up. Like he's getting ready. Still tense here. The speed of this, the preciseness also nicely framed here. You got no tangents except maybe here. And then you can see the contrast of, oh, I can't say anything. Look at his face and look at the timing of the arm going down. See that? You see that little relaxation of, oh, okay, I guess not. But he's still slightly upset there. He purses his lips there. So again, timing is there. Look at the contrast between the first race and then the drop going down. So I'm gonna put that in there as well, just because it's part of that sequence. And because we are on episode four, you know I had to include this scene here. So this is what it looks like usually. He puts on all the stuff here and the wig. And just quick, I thought this was kind of interesting because we have here, it's right to left. And through all of this, it's the right to left. But I found it interesting that we're crossing the line here and as he puts on the wig, it's left to right. It's interesting to me, it's almost like he puts on the wig so he turns into a different character and that's over crossing the line here. It's a different character where this is what I am when I'm doing my rebellious stuff and this is when I'm pretending to be part of the elite. It would have been interesting to actually keep all of this in like that. Doing his pretending, we're still like this. But I also wanna show you this. I love that. He's practicing his pretending happy stuff and then he goes, whatever, and he's back to his grumpy walk. And that could have been interesting to almost cross the line and do this. He does all of this. And then when he cut back to that one, we're back to this crossing the line again. Why? Because he goes back to his old character. Just as I wanna throw that out there in terms of camera, camera language. But this is a classic thing and I love this. And this gives you as an animator, such an opportunity to go from one character, right? And clearly pretending and overacting on purpose to then go into that, but showing that transition between this, not just facially and posture and arms, but then also back into like a hunched over walk and just the weight of his decisions on him. I thought it was a really cool classic scene in this episode. We wanted to show that. So as you go into her, she is, spoiler, also pretending, you know? And what I like here is, you know, if you watch myself, I like props and costumes. I like this after all of this, the tension of pretending and talking to him. Look at what she does. And this is tricky. I know with rigs, you don't always have controls for all of this, but it's like that aspect of, this was tense. I need some air. When you can see her, even at the end, she does a bit of a... But this could be used again as a subtle thing when you have a costume thing, you know? Whatever controls you have, could be something on sleeves, could be on the collar here. Maybe you have a hat or something. How could you use that to show something where the character needs room, they need space, they need air, they need to breathe. It was tense, they need to relax. All that stuff could be used with a subtle tweak with the costume, right? It doesn't have to be crazy. It could be something adjusting with an opening, maybe a belt or adjusting or whatever you have. So if you do have a rig that has controls in terms of costumes, think of that in terms of, how could I use that to show something more in terms of character? Or maybe it's from open to close because they're getting into a specific situation where they need to be a bit more proper and so on. Speaking of which, I also wanna show you this here as she gets home. And this is something that you can use generally, right? So we got, she doesn't really trust this person. Within, you know, episode four, we kind of know that they can't really be trusted. She is skeptical of the people around them. So as she puts things back, watch her head here. She waits, love that it'll look back just in case anyone can see me. But what I wanna talk about is this, like she is, she gives herself some time. She has to adjust things, she's checking because she knows she has to go into an environment that she does not like. So it's that, okay, let's go. And she goes in and talks to her husband and there's a lot of conflict between the two. So this is a general note that I like in terms of an animation exercise where your character is, and I think you had that in a previous example, where the character is ready to go on stage. So for you in terms of pantomime, it doesn't have to be you with a lip sync. But pantomime wise, you can show someone who can come in, they have maybe their papers ready for a speech and they're nervous, they're doing something or like, you know, biting their nails or something. And then they go, okay. And then they go walk out onto the stage and do their thing. And I like that as a gear change. It's often an exercise for students to show emotional changes, visually, body language, facially, to show an emotional change we call a gear change. And I like that idea of a character that has to go out somewhere, they don't wanna go there, but they have to do it. Or it could be the opposite where they are. They are very confident, like, yeah, I can do this. And the moment the door opens and the character sees the amount of people on the stage, they go, maybe I should be more nervous about this. And that's the change. It doesn't have to be, you know, nervous to confident could be the opposite. I like that as a setup. And I think that could be a cool, just kind of cool usage for you in terms of using the sets as an environment that will trigger the character into a different stage of a thought process or headspace, if that makes sense. So I'm generally not a fan of putting a character into an empty room. Honestly, it's like body mechanics in practice. There's always a place for it. But if you're going for a shop for your real, if you work especially in movies and TV shows, the character's always going to be somewhere in an environment, in the room, outside, whatever. So use that to your advantage, right? You can use that in terms of the props, a wall, a stage to go in and out. Outside, there's wind, there's cold, there's uneven terrain where they have to kind of step over things. All that stuff to me is an extra opportunity to change your thought process and the acting and to make things more original. So it's not something that someone, you know, you've seen online before that a recruiter might go, like, ah, this is a general thing, this is nothing new. So take your character, think in terms of who they are. What's a personality? What are they facing in terms of conflict or situations? And then use, like I said before, the rig. What is something on the rig you can use to make it more interesting? Maybe they have straps on or something and the whole thing is kind of delivered like this. And they might just hold onto that and then do the acting more like this. So you have that asymmetry in your body. You can still do one arm gesture, but it's not the normal, I'm standing here flat to camera doing my thing. So think in terms of, can I use the costume? Can I use the set or whatever there is to give a more original performance? That's also where the character is aware of the environment. This is a whole other F&A that I think I did or I should do again, where characters are not magically aware of everything. And I feel like the slight criticism of what I'm seeing online is the movies and TV shows where the characters go somewhere and then magically know everything. They know where they are, where things are and how they're supposed to walk in a different environment, blah, blah, blah. There's never really the sense of the character being somewhere for the first time or not and how that is going to change the approach to the acting. But that's a whole different thing when I talk about it, probably in a different separate F&A, it's a long run that I always have. And if you like how I talk about users of props and sets and the position of characters and if you wanna position yourself in a better position for your reel, whatever, I'm trying to find tangents again. I have workshops and we can talk about that stuff for your shots. You can send me your scenes, your demo reel, whatever, and I can give suggestions and tips how to make your shots better. And you can sign up at any time. The workshops are always open. Feel free to check out description for the information about workshop and that is that. Thank you for watching again. I appreciate that you watch this till the very end or listen to it till the very end and hopefully I'll see you in my next upload.