Acting!

So, yesterday I sent the scene 2 storyboards to a recruiting rep at Disney who I met last April. I said I wanted to re-apply this coming April for their "Talent Development Program" and asked if he could take a look at the boards and see if I was going in the right direction.

He replied pretty quickly and said that the loose drawings and the staging were good and clear. He said I should work on the 'acting', saying that they like to see "strong, specific acting" that would be clear to the animation department further down the pipeline.

This made sense (or at least I think so).



In the scene 2 boards, I tried to make their expressions and body language clear, but I also have a tendency to keep the expressions very simple, using dots for eyes instead of full circles, and pretty vague anatomy. They would be probably be considered "generi-spressions" by *tracyjb. I still have a preference for more Miyazaki-esque design, but I could definitely work on giving the characters more structure and stronger, more specific expressions.

So, I'm making a new plan for getting better at acting:

1. I'm reading this book on acting "Acting A handbook of the Staniskavski Method" (I happened to buy this book at Strand bookstore in NY over the weekend, on a whim. I hope its good!)

2. Watch arrested development (and other shows) study the expressions/body language and make drawings.

3. Design more structured characters and give them different expressions/body language

4. work on a new scene to storyboard. (Doesn't have to be even a full scene ... 1-3 beats is fine.) I want to show that I can clearly show different emotions on different body types, so choose a scene with two characters who are a pretty different from each other.

5. Go to the zoo, draw. Go to the art museum, draw. emphasize shape and form. (While I'm there do some drawings of staging/composition ... I've wanted to do that for a while now ...)

6. Sign up for acting classes (?!) (so expensive!!)

Anyway, that's my update ... I thought this info might be interesting to you ... Also, if you any ideas that have been helpful for you, I'm all ears!