Acting for Animators in London from Sept 24

Sarah Perry of Shapes in Motion is teaching an 8 week evening class in London, titled "Acting for Animators", starting on Monday 24th September.

The course runs from 7-10pm once a week, for 8 weeks, until Monday 18th November.

The class is a practical, physical workshop in acting skills, aimed specifically at helping animators to  create more believable, authentic acting choices in their work.

Sarah Perry

What is Shapes in Motion?
Shapes In Motion is run by classically-trained actor Sarah Perry and offers acting classes specially tailored for animators.

Why should animators learn acting?
Because animators are storytellers. We act with a pencil or a mouse - not with our bodies - but what we do is still acting, and it needs to be done well. Bad acting looks just as bad in animation as it does in a live action performance.

Video reference
Many animators shoot video of themselves acting out a line of dialogue, or a bit of pantomime acting, as reference for our animation. If our acting isn't up to scratch, then the animation performance is unlikely to be any better.

Sarah Perry (bottom right) with students at Escape Studios

What do the classes involve?
Students get introduced to the fundamentals of Laban Movement Analysis, which is to say "the analysis of character in terms of body, effort, space and shape" which can be used for both human and creature animation.

Animators learn to observe and analyse a range of physical qualities, so as to develop character, and understand character "from the outside in".

Sarah helps animators to look at character types, but also to understand subtle gesture performance choices too. The class is a combination of theory, practice, games/exercises, play and group work.

Official site
Visit the Shapes in Motion website at http://www.shapesinmotion.com/ to see more about their work and what they do. To sign up for the course, follow this link.

Start Date: 24 September 2018
End Date: 18 November 2018
Course Duration/Format: 8 weeks, 1 evening per week (Mondays)
Location: Escape Studios, 190 High Holborn, London, WC1

Price (inc VAT): £495

Content

• Introduction to Stanislavski and "The Method"; what drives the action, subtext, script analysis, character development...
• Introduction to Laban; Kinesphere, movement analysis - what are we actually observing when someone walks, sits, etc
• Use of Efforts in gestures/movements - exploring physically the various efforts of; space, weight and time
• Facial expressions & mouth movements
• Expression of emotions
• The relationship between voice and movement
• Lots of acting games/exercises to aid storytelling
• Creating a believable/truthful character performance
• Observation exercises.
• Creature/Animal movement analysis/characterisation

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days, take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK.