 Welcome back it is Thursday and that means acting analysis for animators and today I'm going to talk about episode 2 of season 1 of Succession. I just finished season 2 it was amazing I loved it so much material to talk about but let's dive into episode 2 right now. First I have a sequence where Greg is trying to comfort or say some comforting words to the wife of Logan who just had a stroke and it's this moment here. She doesn't really react to all of the things that he says he's kind of leaning in he's trying to say something but you can see that she's not engaging. She's not really looking at him she has enough problems and this is the moment I want to talk about here is that when he gets up. It's interesting to that division here but as he gets up look at what she does here how she recoils straightens up adjusts her hands. It's a subtle thing here and look at her she doesn't look at him but she notices that oh boy was out of her peripheral vision here. She can tell he's getting up and then she tenses up. She kind of looks away he has a comforting touch here she just looks at it there's no change in her hands doesn't want to engage. So I want to point that out because it's when you have multiple characters let's just say two and whatever that character is doing make sure that your other character is always aware of it is either reacting in terms of visually looking at things or recoiling or audio wise or they might say something but it's always a thing of when you have two characters it's pretend this character is doing something this character will react if that person says something they will listen and react. It's always acting is reacting so there's always something going on when any character is doing anything make sure that whatever movement happens with this character here that it relates to this. No that doesn't mean that your character always have to move around when this character is moving. I'm saying that if this character has a sudden move or addresses this person with whatever line but if there's anything that this character does that this character would technically be aware of I will make sure that in your animation the character is reacting to that and that can be subtle that can be just a bit of a look away that can be actually addressing and looking at it. It's the same thing when I talk about props or something there's a big sound and then if your character doesn't have a wins or looks or reacts to that it just feels weird when the character is not aware of the environment and the environment can include a character or not but they're not aware of that then just makes it kind of fake and just kind of copy pasted in that scene and also if you have a character to be aware of the surroundings be it environments or actors or whatever it adds more believability to the world that the character is part of that world but it also offers you more ideas and acting choices because of that. I'm gonna stay with her where she has almost the same reaction but I like this as an entrance too so watch this. This is your setup imagine this is your scene so this sets the stage she's leaning towards the character she's concerned and now you have Tom coming in here I love this comes in slightly you know not sneaking but kind of light on the foot not to disturb he's kind of whispering he goes knock knock and he brings her the coffee now she looks at him again she's aware of I'm obviously talking to her but she actually makes the effort of looking she leans towards him to grab the coffee you can see that he just leans over using you know the pivot of this leg here just kind of like they're not fully engaging together there's still a bit of a rift between the two but he gives her the coffee and steps away and you can see she looks away he steps away and I love this he goes back a bit he waits I should actually get in alright let me make him the move and then now when he gets in look at her she realizes oh he's coming okay leans away and watch this leans more away and you can see this he gets closer to make his move to say something that she doesn't really like that and doesn't really engage so this goes back to really having your character react to whatever's going on there and you can make this very subtle where it's like hmm I guess she doesn't really like him or she doesn't want to engage at this point but it's a great opportunity for you when you have multiple characters to add those subtle things where if someone says hey how are you doing like hey how are you doing you lean in or is it yeah how are you doing and then you lean back all those little body cues that body language helps give your shots and the character acting just more layers that you can imply some subtext there's just so much you can do so when you have multiple characters in the sets and everything like I said use that to your advantage you can use that to add more subtle cues where she could be maybe take a step then behind the chair to add a physical division between the two and of course this scene would also work in an empty room so when he steps close and she kind of steps away the body language is clear too but with an extra set and the environment and just kind of the context of that you can use all that to kind of push those feelings more potentially this one was interesting because this is part of a character this is just something that she does at this point but you can bring this all the way back to an animation exercise and it's one of the reasons why I do this work I mean this show to me has a lot of really great acting a lot of great subtle acting but it's also a lot of stuff that's context based as part of the show some stuff that's kind of hard to replicate in animation if it's just for a shot so as always in my acting analysis I look at elements of what can I take out of this moment where you can apply this to your exercise to your shot in class because I'm assuming a lot of hopefully students are watching this or people are interested in lessons or kind of ideas and how to take the shots further so this to me is this is something that's within the shot within the scene within the character in the show but technically what she does here is to sit down assignments now how can you make this more interesting is by instead of just walking around and sitting down she has that the mechanics of putting her leg over there the other one sliding down at pounds so you can sell the weight of this then she has a little adjustment and lays down like that now again this tells us something about this character the contrast between the two the whole family with the brothers I mean this helps us within the show but again this is just a separate moment of this is an interesting way of sitting down now on top of that let's pretend you're not focusing on a sit down and you had some lip sync and they were talking whatever and this is something where you can end the scene if you look at him there's no line he doesn't say anything but he has this moment of and good I love this is great so imagine you had a lip sync whatever it is whatever is going on in the scene this is a way to end the scene where a third character or maybe they were talking but this is how he ends the scene with that and this goes back to what I said in previous clips where just because your lip sync ends doesn't mean that your shot ends right you can always add something at the end add a little button something that character does that either changes the whole mood of the shot or just something where you add more meaning to it or something so whatever you want to do but it's tricky when your audio actually ends and it suddenly silence it's kind of a bit of a harsh stop and then you add more acting it's kind of sometimes I know it's very subjective but it kind of is weird to me so if you have extra ambient sound or room noise or anything maybe add that to kind of make it more seamless but I just like the idea of adding your own spin to it because again when you have your lip sync you're tied to that rhythm you're tied to that content and so on and so on so when you have pauses or you add something at the end you can make it your own you make it more original you make it more creative and it's more of a reflection of your personality and your skill set that you want to highlight in your reel and to get a job and so on and so on speaking of adding more to a scene this is something that's commonly used in movies but you have this thing of someone looking in the mirror for some reason it reminds me of the devil's advocate with Ken Reeves doing his his smile there but you have her she gives that yeah I'm fine but then it's immediately undercut by this with that throw that's not a nice throw she's angry she's frustrated and you can see right away the mood has changed and you can see this too as she walks out like this is her actual mood but then she has that moment of okay well I gotta pretend I gotta be nice I gotta go outside it's just a great little moment and this is something for you you can just again add different layers of emotions just the subtext of it just you can just add more to your shot this one I thought was really interesting where he proposes and then she says this is not the right moment and he goes okay yeah I understand it was the wrong moment and we tilt down to see this and I love this little interaction with the ring but it's mainly this watch how he closes it just that it's that little bit of a it's very gotta be careful not make too much noise and it still wants to really take care of it and this is something where I talk to students about every single thing in your shot has meaning so if you have a blink a blink like this tells us something about the character but the blink where you hold eyes and they're close for a couple frames that tells us something else about the state of mind of the character so one frame close, two frame close, three frame close all of that changes the meaning and the emotion and how we as a viewer see the character so every single thing has meaning now for you as an animator then tell us something about the character so if he's frustrated you can do like a quick close and a snap of the box because he's frustrated but she said no or you can do that very delicate closing and that tells us something else that he is disappointed but he still cares or I don't know I don't be cares but at least he's just not angry at least it tells us he's not frustrated and closing this in an angry way so every single move everything that you do with or without a prop tells us something about the character just if you can and now it's tricky that when you start animating you got to worry about arcs and pops and just general mechanics but once you kind of pass that and you're more comfortable with the animation think about then timing and how timing tells us something about the character the emotions, the way just everything you are in control of that so really use that to tell the audience this is how my character feels now actually continuing in this sequence is that even though she said no she says well but you know when you're going to propose again in the appropriate time I'm going to say yes and he goes yes yes and I love this he's so cute in that reaction and I love this here I love how he runs forward and he has those fist pops look at this I love that he got a hand pose here he's so ready as he runs he does he does this yeah yeah yeah look at that he got the fist pops she's getting ready for this and then he grabs her and lifts her up so A it's a really cute character moment like the very interesting way and different ways of showing how he excited he is look at this like the beautiful lines there and how he goes in there and to bring it back to just an animation thing is this is your weight assignment right so imagine you go to class and the teacher says homework weight assignment well okay well I don't want to make it just look like an exercise I want to make this character driven and kind of like a shot so it looks like it's something taken out in a movie or TV show or whatever so I'm going to use the opportunity to do a weight lift because I'm excited and I want to grab whatever I'm excited about and lift this up and this could be an object this could be a character but I thought this was a cute little thing of taking an exercise and making it more character driven and you can see this here as he lifts her up it's not to be too long it's a cute contrast too of all that excitement lots of movement contrast contrast contrast and lots of fast timing and then coming this down with just a kiss and then that it's cute this would be a really cute shot and speaking of contrast he has a very specific way of moving around and sitting in weird ways in this show I just love the acting choice that he has but in this case he's always very tense he's not always so comfortable it's a great display here I mean there's more stuff here but already this how straight he is and he always has those lines even how he is like this and you can see this here he straightens up right straightens up and a bit more tense like he sees the opportunity there and he's a bit more nervous but definitely more tense about what could happen and then look at how he is standing there how he's leaning against it those expressions and then you can see it again here very straight while he is just leaning with a curve even just very quick and fast tense moments there and he goes oh okay it's kind of adjusting his little cuff here and then same thing again here where he just has the little thing I love this he has that little pose with holding his hands and then just that like a roach like you know there's something where he just like wait what happened and I love that just that choice of just bringing out those fingers but again it's tense it's direct very sharp lines while he has all of that going on here like yeah come on come on all the way down to here where they actually agree on things and he's still so straight and you can see if you go back here constantly so the reason why I'm saying this this being awesome and I love this it's just again if you have multiple characters different give them contrast this could be in posture or just gestures and poses and fingers facial expressions and use that to your advantage where again when you have multiple characters you want to make it more interesting and change the scale the outfits the look but the movements the posing the posture unless of course you want every character to be the same and then suddenly one character changes and that the sameness and now one character changing that contrast makes it more interesting but that contrast would only work if all the characters are the same the main thing is contrast to use contrast to your advantage in order to highlight emotions and thought process and all that good stuff that you can put into your shots and speaking of good stuff if you think that this was cool and interesting that's really neat I want to take this and put that into my shots you know I have a workshop you can sign up at any time we can talk together about all your shots and implementing all of this to make your shots better so link in description you can sign up at any time but that's it from me if you're still watching as always thank you so much and if you don't want to miss anything that I upload you can subscribe if you want to hit that bell button to get all notifications you know the YouTube spiel but that's it from me episode 2 we're gonna move on to episode 3 and more there's so much to cover but until then I will see you in my next clip