Acting and Character Animation

1

Acting and

Character Animation

Acting and

Character Animation

The Art of Animated Films,

Acting, and Visualizing

Rolf Giesen and Anna Khan

CRC Press

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v

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Authors xi

Introduction: Neverland or No End to Childhood xiii

Part I The Story of Actors & Acting in Animation

1 Time for Creation: Homunculi 3

2 Chalk-Talking on a Vaudeville Stage 5

3 Magicians and Masquerades 9

4 An Actor’s Vision of Optical Poetry 11

5 Shadow Plays and Silhouette Films: The Adventures of

Prince Achmed 13

6 Rotoscoping: Dave Fleischer as Ko-Ko the Clown 17

7 The Peak of Character Animation: Walt Disney 21

8 Shamanism and Totemism 25

9 Famous Cartoon Animals 29

vi Contents

10 Animators to Become Actors and Actresses (Sort of)? 35

11 The Flintstones and the Age of Television 41

12 Reason & Emotion 45

13 Theories of Acting 49

14 Voice Actors 53

15 Pixilation: Animating Actors or Becoming Animation 59

16 Dancing with Animation 65

17 Acting with Animated Characters 69

18 The Puppet Masters 75

19 Animated Characters around the World 91

20 Of Heroes, Antiheroes, Villains, and Men 99

21 Comedy and Comedians 103

22 Acting Against the Odds of Visual Effects and Animation 109

23 Avatar and Beyond: The Idiosyncrasies of 3D Animation

and the Art of Performance Capture 113

24 A Nod to Computer Games 123

Part II Creativity Training for Writers, Producers,

and Animators—A Practical Guide

25 Surprise Me! 131

26 Writing Animation: Role Profiles 135

27 Contradictions: The Key to Great Characters and Stories 143

28 Intercultural Differences between East and West 147

29 Preconceived Characters 157

30 Animals and Anthropomorphism 163

Contents vii

31 Animation, Toys, and Merchandising 167

32 Design, Posing, and Facial Expression 171

33 Understanding Body Language 177

34 The Eyes Have It! 185

35 It’s Personality That Wins 189

36 The Score 193

37 Psychological Projection 197

38 The Role of Producer and Director 205

39 Feel at Ease While Animating 207

40 Computer Graphic Characters, Performance Capture

Techniques, and the Future of Acting in Animation 211

41 Perceptions Exercises 217

42 Game of Imagination 219

43 Visualization Techniques: Creatures of the Mind 221

Part III Q & A

44 The Animation Film Historian: Giannalberto Bendazzi 235

45 The VFX Artist: Robert Blalack 237

46 The Creator from Italy: Bruno Bozzetto 241

47 The Replacement Animators from Argentina: Alberto

Couceiro and Alejandra Tomei 245

48 The Spanish Animation Producer: Manuel Cristóbal 253

49 The Stop-Motion Animator and VFX Director: Jim Danforth 259

50 The Belgian Animation Director: Piet De Rycker 263

51 The Game Expert: Thomas Dlugaiczyk 269

viii Contents

52 The Artist from the Zagreb School of Animation: Borivoj

Dovnikovic’-Bordo 273

53 The Animation Scholar from Hong Kong: Daisy Yan Du 279

54 The Disney Expert: Didier Ghez 285

55 The 3D Animator from Germany: Felix Goennert 289

56 The European Producer: Gerhard Hahn 295

57 The Stop-Motion Historian: Mike Hankin 301

58 The Late Stop-Motion Legend Himself: Ray Harryhausen 305

59 The World’s Leading Performance Capture Expert: Joe

Letteri 317

60 The German Animation Producer: Tony Loeser 321

61 The American Expert in 3D Scans: Karl Meyer 325

62 The Managing Director from Hungary: Ferenc Mikulás 327

63 The German Puppet Animator: Heinrich Sabl 331

64 The Animation Student from Romania: Veronica Solomon 339

65 The Czech 3D Producer: Jan Tománek 343

66 The Experimental Stop-Frame Animator: Grigori Zurkan 347

Selected Filmography 353

Bibliography 363

Index 369

ix

Acknowledgments

In researching the topic of this book, the authors had the chance to talk to and

interview at various times Forrest J. Ackerman, Ray Bradbury, Linwood G.

Dunn, John Halas, Ray Harryhausen, Dr. Ronald Holloway, Antonín Horák,

Paul Christian Hubschmid, Nathan Juran, Sir Christopher Lee, Stanisław Lem,

Per Lygum, Dr. William Moritz, Lester Novros, Hal Roach, Curt Siodmak,

Dušan Vukotić, Albert Whitlock, Ferdinand Diehl, Gerhard Fieber, Wolf

Gerlach, Gerhard Huttula, Heinz Kaskeline, Dieter Parnitzke, Thilo Rothkirch,

Karl Ludwig Ruppel, Ernst Joachim Schienke, Herbert K. Schulz, H[ugo] O[tto]

Schulze, Professor Bernd Willim, Jürgen Wohlrabe who sadly are no longer

with us, directors Luigi Cozzi, Roland Emmerich, Terry Gilliam, Peter Jackson,

John Landis, Steven Lisberger, actors Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Andy

Serkis, VFX supervisors and assistants Volker Engel, Dave Gougé, Joe Letteri

(Weta Digital), Richard Taylor (Weta Workshop), Karl Meyer (Gentle Giant

Studios), Dennis Muren, John Nelson, Douglas Trumbull, FX make-up artist

Rick Baker, 3D FX animators Frank Petzold, Phil Tippett, animation execu￾tives, producers, directors and artists Hans Bacher, Peter Bluemel, Bruno

Bozzetto, Heinz Busert, Alberto Couceiro and Alejandra Tomei (Animas

Film Animations), Manuel Cristóbal (Dragoia Media), Jim Danforth, Piet

De Rycker, Pete Docter, Borivoj Dovniković (Bordo), Robi Engler, Dr. Hans

Michael Fischerkoesen, Ari Folman, Frank Geiger (brave new work film pro￾ductions/Little Dream Entertainment), Professor Gerhard Hahn, Herbert

Gehr and Neschet Al-Zubaidi (Hahn Film), Rolf Herken, Werner Hierl, Jeffrey

Katzenberg (CEO, DreamWorks SKG), Professor Barbara Kirchner, Raimund

Krumme, Ralf Kukula (Balance Film GmbH), Tony Loeser (MotionWorks),

Richard Lutterbeck (Trickstudio Lutterbeck), Ferenc Mikulás (Kecskemétfilm),

Mark Osborne, Maya Rothkirch (Rothkirch Cartoon Film), Dr. Michael

Schoemann (Benchmark Entertainment), Georges Schwitzgebel, Nelson Shin

x Acknowledgments

(Akom Production Co., Ltd.), Rainer Soehnlein, Stefan Thies (nfp animation),

Jan Tománek (Art And Animation Studio), Wolfgang Urchs, Aygün & Peter

Voelker, Tony White, Richard Williams, Juan Pablo Zaramella, our Chinese

colleagues Cai Zhijun (CCTV Animation, Inc.), Chang Guangxi, Dong Hang,

Wang Borong, Wang Liuyi, Zheng Liguo (President, Jilin Animation Institute),

Daisy Yan Du, Gavin Liu, Juan Zaft, Professor R.P.C. Janaka Rajapakse

(motion capture specialist, Associate Professor, Tainan National University of

the Arts), voice artists Peter Krause (Germany’s Donald Duck voice), Oliver

Rohrbeck, fellow writers and scholars Klaus Baumgart, Giannalberto Bendazzi,

Bob Burns, Dr. Michael Flintrop (Cineways Festival Braunschweig), Dr. Ralf

Forster, Joseph Garncarz, Didier Ghez, Jeanpaul Goergen, Mike Hankin,

Ed Hooks, Daniel Kothenschulte, Dr. Arnold Kunert, Carsten Laqua, Peter

Maenz (Deutsche Kinemathek/German Cinematheque Berlin), Annick Maes

and Gerardo Michelin (Cartoon Brussels), Raymond Pettigrew, Dr. Volker

Petzold, Nadja Rademacher (Deutsches Institut für Animationsfilm Dresden),

Florian Schmidlechner, J. P. Storm, Caroline Hagen-Hall and Christel Strobel

(who granted access to the estate of late silhouette film artist Lotte Reiniger),

Professor Ulrich Wegenast (International Trickfilm Festival Stuttgart), Thomas

Dlugaiczyk (Games Academy), Professor Ulrich Weinberg (Hasso Plattner

Institute), Jutta Diebel, Professor Frank Gessner, Professor Felix Gönnert, Dr.

Veit Quack, Veronica Solomon, Professor Christina Schindler, Benedikt Toniolo

(Film University Konrad Wolf Potsdam-Babelsberg), and Ulrike Bliefert.

Images courtesy of Animas Film (Alberto Couceiro and Alejandra Tomei);

Little Dream Entertainment (Frank Geiger); Manuel Cristóbal; Jim Danforth;

Deutsches Institut für Animationsfilm (Nadja Rademacher); Film University

Babelsberg; Felix Goennert; Hahn Film (Gerhard Hahn and Herbert Gehr);

The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation (Vanessa Harryhausen and Connor

Heaney—www.rayharryhausen.com); Jilin Animation Institute (Gavin Liu);

MotionWorks (Tony Loeser and Jana Wernicke); Primrose Productions Ltd.

(Caroline Hagen-Hall and Christel Strobel); Sabl-Film (Heinrich Sabl): J. P. Storm

Collection; Benedikt Toniolo; Weta Digital (Dave Gougé); and Grigori Zurkan.

Special thanks are due to Rainer M. Engel, Schrift-Bilder GmbH Berlin, who

assisted with formatting images and stills.

xi

Authors

Rolf Giesen Berlin-based screenwriter who specialized in animated feature

films and film historian. For more than 20 years curated the stop-motion col￾lection of the late Ray Harryhausen, worked with directors and artists such as

Roland Emmerich and Albert Whitlock.

Anna Khan Took acting classes and enrolled in dramatics at Free University

Berlin. Experienced actress and director who later got specialized in acting for

animation.

Both authors were invited to lecture in universities and academies in China and

Taiwan and prepare exhibitions devoted to animation.

xiii

Introduction

Neverland or No End to

Childhood

Animators should focus on the acting… make the characters think and act… start

with the body first, next focus on the eyes, and last focus on the mouth. When review￾ing reels we look at the acting first.

John Lasseter*

A mosquito flies into the picture. It looks like an insect and at the same time

like a human although it wears only a human hat and carries a bag, with big

eyes that are neither human nor beastly but are part of the world of caricature.

Interestingly enough, the character on screen, like many great cartoon stars, was

based on a comic strip where it looked less human, had no hat, no bag: completely

insect-like. “Its” or “his” cinematically changed personality is created by the way

of acting, lifting the hat with one leg to introduce itself to the spectators, look￾ing around gleefully for a victim that appears in the person of a well-clad, fat,

tired, not really likeable gentleman. In anticipation of our spitefulness, we know

that what’s going to happen serves this man right. The insect follows him to his

apartment and gets inside an open door window to the man’s bedroom. While

the unknowing man sleeps, the mosquito goes to work, sharpens its needle. The

man snores. The mosquito sucks blood. Half-sleeping the man tries to catch it

but the mosquito is persistent and escapes the man’s hand. Finally, the mosquito

* John Lasseter, Pixar Lecture at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles

on November 4, 1996.

xiv Introduction

is sucked full of blood, its body a balloon. But it hasn’t had its fill of body fluid.

It’s still greedy, sucking more right under the man’s nose, scratching its head.

The balloon circles above the man’s head, landing again, doing a handstand

on the man’s nose, boisterously performing its antics for the audience expect￾ing applause, sucking again and—exploding: boom!, having overdone its job.

The whole animation industry as we know it today is based on that little picture

because it’s the first time that not the novelty of movement and metamorphosis

counts but the unique character itself.

Not done by a computer but by ink and paint: consisting of more than 8000

drawings. Five minutes of first-class animation, more than a 100 years old and

surpassing most of nowadays’ standardized animation. While the few animators

in other countries, like Émile Cohl in France, were satisfied to have their sim￾ple Fantoche characters just moving around, pleased just by movement, Winsor

McCay, the creator of Little Nemo (New York Herald, October 15, 1905) who

did the mosquito in 1912, aimed for good caricatures, drawn in perspective, and

above all personality. How a Mosquito Operates, a little silent film, nothing else

than pencil and ink, never misses its effect on the audience up till today.

The art of acting through animated characters lies in detail, in gesture, in

little unexpected things that make a character memorable even after 100 years,

maybe not so much the acting itself but rather personality. And these tiny ges￾tures and unexpected movements reflect the personality of the animator as well.

Let us quote the late Darlyne O’Brien, widow of the animator who brought King

Kong to eternal screen life: Willis O’Brien. She told that she would recognize

her husband in every gesture of the famous giant gorilla. Having been close to

O’Brien’s protégé, stop-motion artist Ray Harryhausen, we only can confirm this

sentiment. Having known Harryhausen for 35 years, we watched him mimic in

a church in Bologna, Italy, and pounding against the huge gate like mighty Kong

against the entrance of the native village of Skull Island. It was imitative behavior

inspired by an unforgettable childhood experience. Sometimes, in very private

moments, this great animator showed an infecting sense of humor and copied

people. He was a fan of comedian Stan Laurel and revealed that at one time he

and his lifelong friend and buddy Ray Bradbury planned a pilgrimage to Laurel’s

home in Santa Monica.

Germany lost a fantastic Hungarian actor in 1933 when the Nazis came to

power. His name was Peter Lorre (1904–1964). He was the child murderer in Fritz

Lang’s M and toward the end of his life acted in Edgar Allan Poe films directed

by Roger Corman. Colleagues described him as a brilliant scene stealer. When he

would walk over a bridge in the comedy version of The Raven (1963), accompa￾nied by two other old timers, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, all eyes would be

on him, not on the fellows.

Lorre was born with a face. It was director Howard Hawks who once said

those actors make the best stars who are easily to be caricatured. Just see the cari￾catured star portraits (even in animation) of Clark Gable, complete with over￾sized ears, Katharine Hepburn or Peter Lorre who, alongside Bugs and Daffy,