 Welcome back. It is Friday. That means FNA Friday for new animators. And today I want to talk about overanimating and overacting in animation. So this week, one piece by Isobar. Isobar, I still don't know how to pronounce this. Posted a comment on one of my clips asking, please could you one post about how to avoid overanimate? Basically doing a post about overanimating. So I wanted to clarify and I did ask, do you mean just in technical terms or acting? So I do want to break it up into those two sections, but it's mainly just the general how to avoid overacting and kind of the ideas behind it and kind of how I look at it in terms of overacting, because it is kind of dependent on your style and whom you're doing the acting for, what the audience is and so on. But generally what is overacting? So if you look at the general definition, it's exaggerated or over theatrical acting. Or if you look at Wikipedia, they would define it as overacting also referred to as hamming or mugging refers to acting that is exaggerated. Overacting can be viewed negatively or positively. It is sometimes known as chewing the scenery. So again, it all kind of comes down to style and preference, but sometimes you have actors that it is almost their style to be somewhat exaggerated, that kind of comes with their type of movies or some actors have kind of a reputation of dialing up emotions to 11 and going a bit further. And maybe they are known and they want to do it on purpose. And it's kind of something like you're looking forward to those moments. And with a lot of things, it's also subjective. So for some people, a certain style, a certain actor might be, oh, that's just too much. It's too much for me and others just really, really like watching specific movies of a specific actor. And sometimes you have a specific style that you would think that is overacting, but it is part of the character that is the character style. And it's kind of the humor in the movie to have a character perform and do things in certain ways that might stand out when they're put next to other actors. So again, sometimes it's also a matter of style is that one actor doing things completely over the top, but it's consistent with the tone of the movie. And other actors around him or her are doing the same thing. It's kind of an ensemble type thing that is the style of the movie. But it does break apart if there's only one actor doing this and the rest is a bit more whatever the style is naturalistic in terms of acting. And that just kind of stands out. But again, it kind of depends on the style. I mean, with film, you have close ups and you can be very, very subtle. Sometimes not moving at all, not doing a lot with your body, your face gives it a certain contrast. It can make it creepy for some actors. And there's there's a lot more you can do with a camera that can go really, really close to your eyes and really far away. This is more range. And your acting style will be different compared to someone that's on stage in theater where you have to act towards the front row and the back row potentially a balcony. So you have to project your voice differently. You have to your posture is different. So we've got people in the back and read it. So I kind of again, it kind of depends where you're doing something, the style of it. So it's not to me, I don't look at it in terms of that specific thing is overacting across the board, like wherever you are, whoever's doing it, it's always bad. It just kind of depends. But still, generally, if something draws attention to itself, it's probably in the realm of overacting. Or if you show emotions instead of really feeling them, ideally, you want to be in the moment and act it out in an honest way. And especially for animation, if it's like, you don't want to act out words. And there's some rare occasions where you can do it or someone could say you go to sleep, like in Monster's Inc. But generally, you don't want to really act out words and just be very on the nose in terms of gesture. Some common ones that I talked about before, and all the clips that I do, like the I'm uncomfortable or I'm kind of nervous or it's just some classic things where someone is waiting or trying to be nonchalant, kind of like, I don't really care, find something dirty and those that type of thing, that is kind of overused looking at a watch or tapping feet when they're impatient or there's just some common gestures and things that especially in animation just kind of stand out. For instance, the W pose you should avoid for many reasons, not just asymmetry, but it's just it's so overused. And to me, arms in general are overused in animation where there's always something where, oh, I don't know, and this, you've got that turn and that and there's lots of pointing and just every bigger accent or a word or something that's more important has to be a gesture with one arm or two arms. It's just sometimes you just want to do again less is more where you just want to bring down your arms and see how much can you tell just through facial expressions or to a head tilt. So as always, it kind of depends on the style and the content. And you can have fantastic actors that sometimes go a bit further than a scene that someone has done before. So if you look at Khan when Chekhov goes Khan and Khan's reaction is basically just an eye flare is a bit more subtle than what Cumberbatch did in Into Darkness where it's just a bigger intro to who the character is. My name is Khan. And at the same time, something this subtle in Star Trek 2 can have another scene that has become very classic and is, you might argue, is a bit over the top where it's really dialing up the emotion to 11. But it has become classic and I love that moment. I love that scene. So again, a lot of times it also comes down to subjectivity where I think that's okay and where other people might go, no, this is horrible and I don't like that. But so how would you avoid it just to go back to original question? How do you not overanimate or overact? And again, this can be hand in hand kind of the same thing depending on what you're doing. So for animation to make this a bit more actionable to what you're doing, if you're an animator watching this, for me a lot of times when you shoot reference, so if you use reference for help, if you find reference online, but mainly to me it's important that you act out your own reference. You know how it feels, you know how the character would move in the scene and it's not just looking at another actor and also you can avoid copying someone else's performance. If you shoot reference and you've acted out yourself, or at least have an animation buddy that you can film and then direct in the scene, at least it's there more your ideas and you can kind of explore something a bit more original and find different versions until you find that that scene that one moment I want to do this for my shot. So if you do this, one of the things to me at least is that you shouldn't pretend. And it's very obvious if you do classic animation exercises like a weight lift. So when someone just pretends to lift something and goes like that, I'm just kind of like, okay, maybe you can look at it in terms of reference of general posture and maybe facial expressions as you do something, but it's not going to help you a lot in terms of body mechanics if you're just pretending. Because if you have something really, really heavy, you're probably not going to go and move around because it's so heavy, it's going to be pretty locked in lots of little quick steps that kind of go against your initial instinct of who I want to do this. But again, it depends on the style. I mean, you have something super cartoony and stylized, you want to go further, and it might even be so stylized that you can't act it out that you just have to kind of make it up and go with your instincts and the prints of animation kind of get a general thing and mix that soup together into an awesome shot. But generally, I would try to not pretend. So if you do shoot reference, place the camera the way the cameras in your shot have the same props. If your character is sitting, have a table, if you talk to someone that's taller than you, put tape on the wall and look up so it changes your posture, it changes your look, you will have some restrictions in terms of how far you can look around because the character is really tall or really small and so on. So I would say just don't pretend, really try to be in the moment. And on top of that, I'm a big fan of a character doing something have some secondary type of action where someone is in the kitchen doing something or someone is cleaning up somewhere or have a kid prepare the backpack for school while delivering a line or doing your pantomime action. So it's not just a character sitting there pretending to do something in an empty room. There's nothing behind is no set is not the character because a lot of times in reals, it ends up being kind of the waist up cliche shot of lots of arm gestures and then that's it. Obviously, there are very good examples out there that of course going against what I'm saying, but I think generally, at least a set or just secondary action stuff for your character is busy doing something will give you more ideas that will make you feel a bit more natural. And speaking of natural, I mentioned that before in a previous clip is that if you're acting something out to audio and it's a two character thing and you're listening to someone, that listening is key. Listen to the lines and then react to whatever you're hearing. If you're just waiting for someone to finish the lines that you can start your line, that to me becomes into a very stiff acting and kind of overacting overacting in terms of going too far with your emotions, but it's almost like bad acting because you're just waiting for the cues. And again, it doesn't feel like it comes from an honest place. So if you are in that moment and you're listening or even if you just do something with pantomime and and you're just pretending to do something without audio, I would also look at what is the character thinking and feeling so that you get from A to B in your progression. So usually you want your character to have sort of an objective that character wants something, be it emotionally or physically or whatever it is. But I would also as you act this out, don't think about this is my scene and I need to do this at the end and you kind of rush through the emotions or the actions, give you character time to think and process things and go from A to B in terms of the physical aspects and also emotionally and intellectually in terms of what you're acting out. So don't rush it and don't go straight to the end because I think that's interesting to see in animation when the character has the thought process, when there's something happening to them and they got to process this and then make a choice. That to me is more interesting to watch in animation than just a physical one, two, three, four, five and I've gone through the body mechanics and speaking of movements. So to me, the two things are in terms of overacting where just don't go too broad with your emotions. Again, it all depends on the style of you might need it in your depending on the character or the style of anime. But if someone is sad or angry, there are different levels to this. So don't go, I am sad, you're tearing me apart, Lisa. Don't go too big all the time because then it's just too much as you're just really showing off the emotion and again, there's no aggression, there's no sense that it comes from an honest place of your character in that scene where something is happening and they're thinking about it, processing it and then having that emotion. But just generally, be careful how amped up you get in your overacting so that every emotion, everything you do is just down to 11 or 12 or more, just give it room and so there's some contrast and in terms of animation, if you don't feel like you have to put in every single principle of animation into your performance. So sometimes you might go, I need to show arcs and I need to have an anticipation in there and then at the end everything is kind of like big looks and arcs and all that stuff and then you get a very crazy, overanimated, overarching performance. This might be too picky in terms of terms, but I mean that could be, you might argue there's a difference between performance and behavior. Like performance, you might argue it's almost too much because you are performing. It's almost something you're pretending too much that you're performing for someone or to an audience, whereas maybe it's the difference between stage acting and film acting, but sometimes behavior can be more interesting how when you do something, when you hear something, when you react something, how would you behave in that moment versus how would you perform in that moment? Again, this might be, I might go too far into this, but again, I kind of look at it and generally don't go too far in your emotions and how big you make every single gesture and emotion and or bigger emotional change and all that. And in terms of a technical aspect, be careful that not everything has crazy arcs and anticipation and a big take and just all those principles crammed up into one ginormous performance. Now I'm not saying that I'm great at this, I just, that's my approach and my process in terms of approaching a scene like this, but also I need to study a lot of this, I need to practice this a lot and what I do, I like to watch a lot of off-camera with Sam Jones. I can do a lot of really interesting interviews with creative people where they might talk about their process. Film Courage has the same thing with a lot of interviews with actors and just generally about filmmaking that might help you with this. The Actors Roundtable by the Hollywood Reporter also has really interesting discussions where the actors talk about their process and way way back, back when I had cable before I did the court cutting thing, I used to watch a lot of Inside the Actor Studio with James Lipton, where they do talk about their process and how they get there and their preparations that at least to me was always very interesting and helpful. And specifically I'm gonna do a review about this later on, but this book Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks. This is an older version, there has been I believe a fourth or fifth edition, I don't know I need to check, there's a new one out, I want to get it and go through that and do a review about this. Again, this is a very different approach because you have your stage acting, theater acting, you have acting for movies and this is all very natural. You don't really think about it, it's more like you're reacting to things, it's obviously because you are in that moment and you're completely invested in that character. Whereas for animators it's different, we think about well when do I blink? For how many frames do I keep my eyes closed? When do I change my head angle and foot rule? Like all that stuff, all the details that combined make a specific performance and we have to think about that 24 frames per second or more depending on your style and it becomes very very technical. So it's not only just this is how I naturally would act, which you could capture if you do your reference, but then again it gets very technical. And again this book is really good at breaking this down, I highly recommend this and I believe there were also some guest articles on Cartoon Brew with Ed Hooks talking about certain movies. And if you've been watching my channel you know I do the acting analysis for animators, but that to me is just I pick out things in movies, be it an acting moment, a gesture, a usage in a prop, specific composition, that to me is always there as like a springboard for ideas. This is something that could make a certain move or a moment more interesting. But it doesn't mean that you always have to put all of that into a scene, sometimes again like I said before less is more and you don't have to just cram everything into your 5 or 10 second shot. So if you watch my analysis clips, thank you for watching them if you do and I hope that they're helpful in terms of ideas. But I do want to end this clip with Kevin Martel's tweet, he's an animation supervisor at ILM, he just recently tweeted, acting for animation tip, stop thinking about what you should do for the scene and instead believe it's actually happening. And I think that's a really, really good piece of advice because if you don't believe in it then it's gonna look fake and if it's gonna look fake and you have to pretend to be angry or sad then you might go well I need to compensate and really just showcase that and then you dial up your acting to 11 and then it looks overacted. So yes ultimately if you don't believe in that scene in the moment in your character whatever you're doing then it's gonna feel lifeless and flat and more like pretending. So there are lots of things to think about so when you do your animation think about the style of animation again depending on the style you might have to exaggerate things because that is the style. Think about the audience who is going to watch this if this is for little kids you might have to amp it up to make it just clear for them but then again kids pick up on a lot of subtle things to don't just go too broad just because it's for kids. But ultimately if you do have a performance that you record like Kevin says you have to believe in it, it has to be an honest performance where you believe in what the character is thinking what the character is doing. On top of that to me if you want to make it more interesting you have the ground structure of that performance that is awesome but what could you do around that character that could make it a bit more original and that's why I think about adding a set or thinking about whether influence is on the character something being really cold or really warm whatever it is I think that might add an extra layer to performance so take this where you believe in it but now what else could I do that would change my acting and even if it's simple things like something I mentioned a while back where your character is not on the flat surface but is on an angled surface and this could be for creatures or humans. So because of that already it forces you to be in a different pose which will give you automatically a symmetry. So I think in those terms when I look at my acting for analysis clips where these are things that can give you extra help new ideas or almost like a preparation for your scene well I know the set I know how cold it is or it's going to be super rainy and have specific props now that you have all that structure now you perform and again you believe in your performance but with all the surroundings that might give you more ideas or different approaches to a scene as opposed to doing something in an empty room and just performing. So there you go hopefully one piece that was an answer to your question a an answer that helped you if any of this is unclear and again I'm always kind of watching things and trying to learn and get better at this I don't have a clear answer because for me it's still a process I go through all those elements and I learn something new and I try to apply this and certain ideas that I had I will change and reform them so this is not the end all be all but currently right now this is my take on this these are my ideas and that's my thought process when I look at performance if you have any other links or things that you watch or books that you've read that you feel like oh that's really cool that helped me let me know in the comments let other people know what has helped you other than that that's it from me if you watch this whole thing till the very end you know what I say and you know that I appreciate it give this a like if you feel like you might give this a like and if you haven't subscribed yet feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button so you get all notifications for all my uploads that are almost daily and again thanks for watching and I will see you in my next clip