 Welcome back to another Acting Analysis and Tips for Animators and today I'm going to continue the Mayor of Easttown series and we're going to take a look at a lot of clips including character interaction, character reaction, prop usage, composition, body language, and much much more. It's a hacked episode this time so let's go. And this upload is going to cover Episode 4 with one clip from Episode 3 and it's actually, it's a lot of clips but it's a compilation of a lot of little things. Like little character moments, reactions, a lot of cool little tips and tricks that you could use in your shots but before I continue and if you're ready for the first time, hi my name is JD and I do Acting Analysis Clips like these. I do Animation Analysis Clips, I do Animation Lectures, I do Rib Reviews, Product Reviews, Workshop Feedback and all kinds of stuff on this channel. You know it, this is the pitch so browse around, check it out. If you like it, subscribe. If you don't like it, watch it and maybe then you like it and if not, thanks anyway for watching and that's it, that's the pitch so let's get to the clips. And I'm going to start with that Episode 3 clip where she prepares the garbage bag and also just a little interesting side thing of holding this. This gives you an immediate asymmetry with that lean, holding something there. I'm always a fan of props as you know, but the thing is that she prepares the garbage bag to go in here and she throws it in there and it's her reaction. And the reason I'm showing you this is that if you have multiple characters, even if it's one character and one character, you know if that's the edge of the screen and maybe the hand just comes in to drop something in but if you put your character in an environment, set the props and people doing things, make sure that your character is aware of the surroundings. It's something that's going to be in this episode, but it's something where if someone does something, it's probably going to affect the other character. And those are the moments that are silenced where you don't need the lipstick. This could be in a pantomime piece, this could be in a lip-sync piece, but this gives you the moment of I'm going to do something really funny or dramatic or interesting before you continue with all kinds of lip-sync. So all those silent moments, you can use those where one character does something to someone else, to something that affects someone else, a lot of options, a lot of creativity options. And now we're starting with episode four and this is about them and their friendship. And it's, for me, it's the distance where they're friends, but something's going on. I'm not going to spoil it too much, but something's going on. There's a visual distance between the two. And as it continues and she asks, are you going to still be with me? Are you still friends? And she says, yes, we're going to do this. You can see this. It's the lean towards the character and that again, it's done in silence. I think it's really sweet. And if you have multiple characters when they sit, think about how far apart do they sit? What does that mean? Does that show us something about their relationship? And then you can use that gap to do something like this. And even afterwards, she gives a little kiss on the head. You can see there is a very sweet relationship between the two. So if you have multiple characters, think about the composition, think about their relationship and their spatial relationship, so that the audience understands a bit more, like it's a hint at how they feel towards each other and, you know, other subtle details potentially. This is about props because I love what he does here. He's got the toy and he shovels the cereals. It's great. And why am I showing this? It's because I a lot of times mentioned to my students that when you're never real, you need kids. So usually it's used to be a male adult. Now via female rates, it's much better. But then they're usually, you know, male female in their, what, 20s, maybe 30s, but you can have really older people, really young people in a different scale, all and so on. So, but if you have a kid, you got to be aware that the kid has to move and react and act like the age appropriate kid. Because a lot of times you shoot reference and then you act things out and would you do things like that? Not in terms of ideas, but in terms of movement, just be very aware of how, you know, not coordinated. They can be how clumsy and what they would do with certain props. Again, I love the combination of props with the kid and what the kid would do with it. What I also love is when Mayor comes in, ready, comes in and she's going to start looking into the kitchen and there. And now she sees the kid and she, that's it. And that's the reaction she just looks. Okay, whatever. That's what he usually does. Now she's on the mission and she tells everybody there's a family meeting, so she's not distracted, but she wants to do something else than deal with this. But this is also something you can think about. One person does something crazy. Gets really dirty, really loud, destroys something. And then a second character comes into the scene looking at what the first person is doing. How is this character going to react? Again, that could be something funny, dramatic, interesting, but it tells us something about her that this is just like whatever, it's just one more thing that he does. So if you have multiple characters, or even if your character is alone and sees something that, you know, whatever, if the laundry thing opened up and all the water comes, like whatever, whatever reaction you would have in a house with this character, how is this character going to react? And that reaction is going to tell us as always something about the character. This is a moment where, actually, this is the family meeting, where she tells the family that she did something not so good. And as she said it, when she's done here with the lip-sync, she has that moment of pause and then, yeah, it wasn't so good. And then she continues, including the reactions. Yeah, that's not so good. So I'm showing you this because of that. Now, this might be tricky. You might not have those facial shapes, frame by frame, finger stuff, compression, all that can be very difficult. The point is that you have lip-sync, right? So in your timeline, you got your lip-sync, pause, lip-sync. What are you going to do during that pause? And that's what I always think is very interesting because if you have a lip-sync, as I always say, and it's always talking, hopefully, with some contrast, you're still bound to that rhythm and what the character is saying and the energy behind there. But if you have something where there's dialogue and there's nothing in the dialogue, again, this is your moment to be creative and then you can do something like that. Or it could be a look, it could be looking down because she's ashamed or embarrassed or looking around because she's excited, all kinds of things, but this is your moment to be creative and to be on your own and really put in your personality and your ideas for the shot. This one is actually more about composition. It's kind of, you know, I'm gonna sloppily draw my thirds. I can put an overlay there. And if you go through this, you know, they're fairly traditionally composed in the thirds as I'm drawing this and hopefully the grid is gonna be a difference. Now, sometimes it changes, she's slightly off-center but it's also a moving shot. There's still someone in their thirds and so on, she's a bit more center but that's sort of kind of the relationship through most of the shots, generally in classical framing, kind of like that. What I like about this is that she is going for therapy, she's gonna help her. And she goes, all right, well, let's start. And as she says this, mayor moves over and I love the shot. She sits down and she goes, let the healing begin. But she is completely center frame. So to me, this is like after all the classical framing, this is not about her. She is at the center. This is about her and her healing. And I like that she is now framed like that versus potentially here or the other character over the shoulder here. So when you have compositions like that, multiple characters are just one, think about what that could mean. Does it have to be like this or would it be more interesting to do a center frame? This is about prop acting. They have a discussion, he is a cop. He's somewhat challenging this guy and he's getting a bit nervous. So he starts to kind of walk away and it's this. So when you have an umbrella, right? And you have another character. Let's say this is your partner, girlfriend, wife, husband, whatever you have and it's a big umbrella like this. You might hold this in this hand, hold it like that so that the umbrella is like this and then your friends can get closer. So both are protected from the rain if rain bothers you. But in this case, he is not. He's actually holding it in this arm and it's even uncomfortable to hold this and the umbrella because he could hold the bag here and the umbrellas. It's almost like a double thing of nope, I'm holding this away from you and this is all about me. And you can see this is doing this with the rain this kind of walking away. So I might of course, as always read way too much into this, but my point is that if you have an object that can be used to protect, to help, to do something and to be nice to another character and the character here is not doing it. As always, it tells us something about him in this case, their relationship and so on. So this is why I like props. So the props can always reveal something and give you acting ideas and acting, different choices that you can use. It's just not just there to have your character hold something, there's some constraint you gotta put in. This just is to me an interesting display of, ah, okay, well he's gonna use this ginormous umbrella just for himself. This is more about reactions when you have, again, silence in the dialogue. So as he asks her, like, oh, what's going on? What are you doing? Is everything okay? He asks her, are you taking care of yourself? And you can see her reaction here. She listens and then has, well, and then he continues. There's no sound in the TV show when she says, all this, there's not even like some grunt things or anything, it's just silent. Again, this goes into lip sync. Pause, what are you gonna do with this? She could just stare. Imagine he's going, well, are you taking care of yourself? And then it's just this. That would be completely different thing versus, well, she wants to say something but you can clearly see that because she has no answer. No, actually, she is not taking care of herself. There's no one else taking care of her and that is just something that, again, you can add to doing the pauses. So you want to be intense like this. Do you want to do something like that where you almost anticipate a sound but don't deliver on it and so on. So as always, silence and pauses between dialogues, to me, really interesting. And we're back to props. She tells her mayor, well, you know, I just wanted to tell you that I get my popcorn. He's got the reaction of, oh, okay, right. All right, then she gets the popcorn and it's hot. You can see this here. She tells her here, hot, throws it. I love her reaction too. She knows it's hot. And he goes, oh no, hot, hot, hot, hot and so on. So why am I showing this? Yes, it's because of props. Also because she has an awesome thing of at the end. She looks and goes, this cracks me up. She just cracks me up all the time. But the reason I'm showing this is that if you do use props, right? Because I'm constantly annoying you about the usage of props. Be aware of what a prop is and their property. So if it's glass, right? Let's say it's a cup of tea. Well, and it's a hot tea. Your liquid might be up to here. So if the character grabs the cup like this, which reminds me of a scene in Sputnik, I would highly recommend you watch this. Anyway, that's the hand, that's the arm. Then it makes sense because this part won't be as hot as this part here. You grab it here, but if the cup is like this and it's really hot, you can see the steam and everything, but the character's just holding it like this anyway, then you're going, wait, are they not bothered by the heat? And you can use this to your advantage for a certain acting choice. Now, in this case, comes out of the microwave, it's hot. So if you do use a prop, as always, be conscious of what is the property? Is it hot, cold, slippery, wet? Is it comfortable or disgusting to hold? And so on. So don't just use it, but use it to your advantage in terms of the properties and how a character would react to it. Continuing with the theme of looks between silences, he tells his mom, hey, we're just talking about you, Mayor. And he goes, oh, she's like, hey, yo, hi, nice to meet you. This is when he says it. And she goes, oh yeah, we were just talking about you. And she has that look, really. And then back. And I love this. It's just such a great look of how stiff she is. And then kind of looking down and then at him, but then continuing to look at him, like really, what were you guys talking about? It's just such a great moment. I love it. There's no crazy arm flaring. It's just her, the blink, the look. She has no blink. Oh, there it is. It's just so good. And she goes, all right, well, you know, I don't have time for this. And we do blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever the scene is. But as always, silence. What are you gonna do with it? She could just again, just stare at him all the time. She could just stare at her. She could look down, being embarrassed. But it's just this awesome moment of looking at him. Just that, and that continuous look there. Love it. This is more about body language. As they're sitting back interrogating this girl, as I'm scrolling forward, it's here. And they ask her a question and she goes, no. But then there's a swallow. So also rarely using animation. A lot of rigs don't actually have a swallow control. Kind of nervous. She swallows and looks away as if embarrassed or, you know, potentially hiding something. And Mary picks up on it and then leans forward. It's a simple thing. But in your shop, if you're character, let's pretend there's the chair, whatever. If your character is like this and then starts to lean forward, like wait a minute, looking at something or listening, that's a certain thing that will, you know, tell the audience is there's interest or whatever you wanna do. So for me, it's contrast and body posing. And it's for a reason. So they're leaning back. She's always like this. She's kind of nervous and stiff. That's why she stays like that. But is this gonna be an important moment of, well, I'm gonna change my pose and lean forward. It's like, here is something and here's Mary. And by leaning forward, she gets more interested, right? She's going towards the object of interest. So think about that, about your posing. Is it important that she's always leaning back? Is it important that maybe she's leaning forward and that I won't point leans back just because I'm interested now, eh, I heard what I wanted to hear. I'm not interested anymore. So think about that in your general body posing. And again, a small little moment, he hints at a date. He talks about something where he actually wants to have a date with her and she gets it. At one point, she realizes, wait, what? And after all those years, you can see this here. I don't know if she's nervous, but it's a blink. She's processing all that information, realizes, wait. He's asking me for a date. And what I love about that is how clearly she communicates that to the audience. Ready? She goes, huh, really? Squint. Are you asking me for a date? That's great. And this is just a great moment of, I'm looking at you. That's A, looking over, B, I'm thinking, realizing, and then it's, you know, that the wheels are turning and she goes, oh, I get it. Blink, squint, and then C, ah, you're doing this to me. It's such a clear communication visually. So something like that, as always, you got lip sync, pause, and doing that pause, she goes, all right, I just love this. I love how decisive those head turns are. So like little things, again, you don't have to have crazy arm gestures. It's just the look, the tilt, the timing of the head turn. So good. Tiny little, it's a tiny little squint. Let me know if you can see this here. You can see the shapes here. I mean, you know, on the rig would be the shapes pulling up there. Just great, great little moment. This is coolest because it's about secondary action. So basically, I'm always a big fan when whatever character you animate is doing something within their environment. So right now, he's doing his laundry. He's folding and putting things away. So then the other guy comes in and you can see this, he continues. So throughout this whole dialogue, he continues to do things. Now, he has to tell him some bad news. Goes over, he has to listen. Some people have contacted us, blah, blah, blah, blah, look at the other guy's reaction. And the look, and then he continues. Now, you might argue the guy's over there and he might see this reaction, but I like this idea in terms of what if your other character is here? This is your composition. Maybe they're further away leaning on this here. They're listening, but they can't see this guy's face. And then he or she says something and that reaction here, this character wouldn't be aware of it. So here you can add, you know, like a frown, a worried look, a smile, even though he's supposed to be sad maybe turns around and pretends to be sad. There's so much stuff to do, you can do here. And I like this idea of a character here, not seeing this person's reaction to whatever this character said. The other thing too is that in order to hide his concern, he continues with the business, right? He's still doing stuff here, still putting it over there. He continues, he has that lean now, right? The lean of interest, they're going, hey, so I'm telling you this, this is maybe not so good. And he keeps tracking him, you see this, he watches, watches for a reaction. But he continues. So this is why I like about second direction as well. If you continue with that business, it's there to potentially hide whatever they're thinking. If it's something really tragic or something that's alarming, you might think that the character is going to stop whatever they're doing. But then continuing and pretending that everything is okay, again, it's some cool moment that you can use for your character in your scene. And this is an awesome thing about what she's doing, but she is old, right? So when she's old, you can't run, you can't really do things. She was really looking forward to doing something. And this character's interrupting it and she's kind of, you know, a bit annoyed that she can't go back. But she finally is able to tell it, go over there and you can see that look because she's waiting, is she gone, is she gone, is she gone? Okay, now I can go back to what I wanna do. But she can't run. She's old, it's gonna be difficult, you know, it's gonna hurt, but she wants to go upstairs. And I love that she's doing this and that. So what can you do to show urgency with the character that's old? I mean, there are obviously many, many options. If it's a young person and I'm in a hurry, you're gonna run up the stairs, but she can't run. So she's doing whatever she can within her limitations of mobility and age to communicate, I wanna get up there faster. And this is why I love sets, this, all of that, right? So this is basically, the stairs is the conflict. This is what I tell my students a lot. If you have a character, it's interesting to present the character with a problem or conflict. And the character who sees this then has to make a choice to fix this problem. And those choices reveal character, oh, whatever you wanna do in terms of just the interests of this. And I like this, so this whole set, the setup of the stairs and her wanting to go up there because she's in a hurry, now this is giving you the option for, you know, asymmetry in your posing to something funny. It's just really interesting in terms of options that sets and props and give you them. This is why I'm harping on this on so many of my acting analysis tips that I just love sets and props because of the opportunities that it gives you in terms of the characters, their choices, their reactions, posing. This is to me so much more interesting than having a character in an empty scene. As always, there are many shots out there, animation shots where characters are in an empty scene and it's a fantastic shot. I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you're looking for inspiration, more ideas, a springboard to do something else that's potentially more creative, I will look towards sets and props. And speaking of looking, if you looked at this and thought, that's cool, that's interesting, I want more of this and you want me to help you with your awesome shots to make it even more awesome. You know the drill at the end is the segue into my workshops. Link in the description for all the information you can sign up at any time. And speaking of time, as always, thank you for watching till the very end. I appreciate your patience that you went through the whole clip till the very end and that is that. And now that you watched the whole thing and you feel like that's kind of interesting, I don't wanna miss the rest of those uploads. Hit that bell when you hit subscribe so you get notifications about all my uploads and that is that. The pitch, you know how it goes. So thank you, thank you for watching and I will see you in my next upload.