Animators are Actors

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Advice for animators who don't want to record themselves: try putting a gaiter mask over your whole head and throwing a hoodie on. You'll still have enough vision left to face the camera and you can enjoy all the benefits of reference footage without the cringe of your own face. Works wonders.

That boss baby example is WILD. You got this hyper animated character just BEGGING for hammy delivery and then the VA's like "oh uh hey whats up"

Filming your own reference is VERY underrated especially in beginners, my professor had us taking an acting class so we could learn how people act in different emotional states and It helped me improve immensely!

7:44 Head Swaggle is peak character animation

The best example i can think of acting in animation is the Genie from Aladdin, where they listen to one of Robin Williams' sketch comedy and imagine what his body language was like. I also love the video of animators they release on their twitter makes it's more real because the Movement of the character or action has to come from somewhere ❤

"Head Swaggle" is 100% something that I have seen people of Indian descent do naturally. It is a bit unusual seeing it on more western coded characters though.

3:19 In defense of the Rapsittie Street Kids crew, they had actual professional animators, but they were forced by the producer to use a very rudimentary 3D software (3D Choreographer) that wasn't meant for TV production, which is why most of the film's animation consists of stock animations provided by the software. It's essentially the equivalent of forcing a Disney or WB animation crew to make an animated film using only GoAnimate.

I always catch myself making faces whenever I’m drawing faces, I guess I was subconsciously trying to get a feel for an expression to help me convey it in the drawing. I feel seen with this lol

I was astounded by him bringing up Hoodwinked. It's stiff animations was part of its charm for me growing up

I think one of the best examples of animation = acting is a YouTube animator named James Lee. He doesn’t just use reference footage, his animation IS the reference footage. All of his poses were done by himself in real life, and edited in a way that feels realistic, yet cartoonish at the same time (i.e frame rate drops, exaggerated poses, stunning effects, etc.). It’s extremely unique.

I love seeing reference footage animators will record, it’s literally putting themselves in the character’s shoes to get tiny little details to shine through

One thing that blows me away is when animators are limited by their character and still manage to give them expressions. Carpet from Aladdin is a perfect example. No eyes, eyebrows, lips, not even a head. But we know what Carpet is thinking. And your little avatar - all you're technically doing is squashing and stretching the glasses shape and wiggling a moustache doodle. But it is so expressive! Even without your voice on top, I get a lot of nuances telling me how you feel about a scene being shown beside you. You're all so good!

i feel this is especially supported by the fact that in many animated works, different animators will work on specifically certain characters, rather than just each animator taking different scenes. Such as hobbie brown in spider verse. but this is also a thing in 2d animation such as with lion king they had specific animators for scar im pretty sure

I enjoy looking at videos that were used as references for scenes because how seeing the tone of a scene portrayed by actual people is interesting to me. But also seeing people doing funny cartoony actions tickles my brain.

The acting out a reference segment is such an eye opener. Now I have a completely new angle and appreciation on an episode 2 Pomni animator video. Also… 7:22 BURY THE LIIIGHT DEEEEP WITHIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!

I’m gonna DOODLEEEEEEE

new favorite vid of yours

The video immediately caught my attention when he started talking about James Baxter, one of my favorite animators.

From animating, to acting. Next step is cinematography. I still remember stories of old artists always observing and drawing people, places, etc to expand their skills. Nowadays artists just have to look at another screen portraying what they need for the moment. This is probably why old animation always seem to have this charm to them that most modern animation tend to miss out on.