The animator's sensorium: The impact of acting and animation experience on creating reference performances
Researchers: Jason Kennedy
This article presents an initial investigation into strategies for creating reference performances for animation. Here, reference performance refers to recorded physical and emotional acting from which elements of an animated character’s performance may be derived. Since Max Fleischer’s invention of the rotoscope in 1915, recorded performance has been used to enhance the believability of animated characters, understood here through Pallant’s concept of believability as the reconciliation of realism within the animated form. Although many methods now exist for capturing reference, its usefulness still depends on the performer’s ability to deliver a convincing performance. In practice, however, reference is often created by animators with little or no acting experience, while smaller studios may rely on supervisors, found footage, or no video reference at all. This study examines whether acting experience improves the quality of animation reference by comparing three participants: an actor with no animation experience, an animator with no acting experience, and an academic with experience in both acting and animation. It also investigates the use of head-mounted cameras as a way of capturing expressive detail more fully and consistently. Using ethnographic and autoethnographic methods, the study compares the creative choices of each participant and their ability to generate meaningful facial expression, gesture, and movement for a short auteur 3D animated film in a predominantly realistic style. From this, the study gauges each participant’s maximal performance utility. While limited in scope, the findings suggest that acting experience is a significant precondition for producing useful reference in this style of animation. The article also relates participant strategies to Ivana Chubbuck’s acting theory and Bloch et al.’s theory of emotional effector patterns, suggesting that both may offer practical value to animators producing their own reference.
