I read a neat little piece on acting technique in Ed Hook's book, "Acting for Animators". The book is useful for animators as well as those writing for animation and is full of great insights and tips.

The one in particular that caught my attention is not to set up "stereotype" acting. Now this is something quite new to me since I tend to come from a cartoon/comic strip background. Basically, in comic strips you only get a few panels to get the point across, so you use a lot of stereotypes. Robbers have striped shirts and carry bags with dollar signs on them. Heroes are strong jawed and dress in white. That sort of thing.

Now, while you may still have a stereotyped character type (Mr. Incredible, Bomb Voyage, Buzz Lightyear, etc.) there is no need for them to perform stereotyped actions.

Say, for example, I wanted to indicate someone was cold. How would I draw that? Just have them wrap thier arms around themselves and give them chattering teeth. There ... cold in a single panel.

But would I animate someone who is cold in the same way? No.

Since the point of animation is the motivation and the acting of the characters, you can indicate they are cold by having them react to the cold. They can go and put on a jacket, or go and turn up the thermostat ... any action that lets the viewer realize that the character is cold, and is now acting on that stimulus.

No one in their right mind is going to be cold and then just stand there and just BE cold. They are going to do something to alleviate their discomfort.

This simple point was quite an eye opener for me and hopefully I will carry this forward with me in my work. Cause you know, my stimulus is my desire to learn ... so I go and learn.

It's not like I'll just stand around with a ... book ... on my head ... or something.

Hmmm...I hope the next chapter covers analogies.