Saturday, November 20, 2010

Ed Hooks Lecture Notes

Ed Hooks Acting for Animators Lecture Notes from Jan 2008

Ed Hooks introduces the idea of his main acting principles.

1 Thinking, Emotion, and Physical Action.

Thinking tends to lead to conclusions.
These conclusions lead to an emotion. (Automatic Value Response)
Emotion tends to lead to action.

2 Empathy is the key (not sympathy)

3 Theatrical reality is not the same as regular reality.
Theatrical reality has form.

4 Acting in pursuit of an objective while over coming an obstacle.
You have and action until something happens to make you play a different action. (an obstacle)

A character must always have an objective, you must always know what they are doing.
Ask your character 'What are you doing?' If you can't answer that question or don't know it, the audience won't know either.

When animating ask 'what does the audience need to know'

Types of conflict or obstacle for the character to overcome.
1 Self
2 Situation
3 Another Character

The sound of ma.
The sound between the clapping.
If ma is filled with empathy and emotion it can be extremely powerful.

Paul Ekman Human Emotion Study
7 basic human emotions:
sad
angry
surprise
fear
disgust
contempt
happy

Power Centrers
Higher the power centre the quicker the rhythm of the character.
Lower the power centre the slower the rhythm of the character.
Power centres are usually just below the naval.
You can shift power centres around. They can be light or heavy, be pushing or pulling.

The purpose of Movement is Destination

Status Transactions - how one character responds to another according to their status and relationship. (Keith Johnson)
Each scene is a negotiation.

Adrenaline – the reason why we remember something and not others
Adrenaline moments are scenes characters remember for the rest of their life

Psychological Gesture (Micheal Chekhov)
It can be an illustration of the spoken word (gesture) or an illustration of the subconscious thoughts of the character.

Heroes and Villains.
A hero is a regular person who has to overcome unbelievable odds to achieve their objective.
A villain is a normal person who has a fatal flaw.


Recommended Reading

An Actor Prepares – Constantin Slanislavsky
Improv - Keith Johnstone
On The Technique of Acting – Michael Chekhov
Study of Human Emotion - Paul Ekman

Recommended Viewing

City Lights
Gold Rush
Modern Times
- Charlie Chaplin

A Streetcar Named Desire
- Marlon Brando

No comments: