Because of that class, I rented all three of those movies with my girlfriend. We frame by framed a few parts, but most often I was so into the story I would forget to look for arcs and gesture.

A couple particularly well animated sequences we did notice (all the scenes were well animated….) were the crazy mad gesture stromboli makes when he shakes the caravan, and the Alice and Wonderland moment when she finishes falling down the hole and gravity reverses.

Really good stuff. I hadn’t seen any of those movies in 10 years. They really knew how to set the bar higher.

Thanks for this nugget of information. I remember those scenes vividly.

Just a foot note,
I think we should use voices that work for the characters, and not for the sake of box office sales.
So tired of Robin Williams.

You know an Actor goes home after work, but an animated character lives in the film. There is no private life. I just think that it’s time to move on with the who’s playing who line up of actors to sell a film. If it’s crap it’s crap and no actor in the world can save it. I just feel HollyWood has been dipping into the same old well and coming up with the same stereotypical stuff it’s been leaning on to sell a ticket for way to long.

A few days ago I started pre-production on a 1 minute short film project at college. All of my previous shorts were either dialogue heavy that used editing to make the lip synch work minimal (quite a few reaction shots) or had some kind of voice over, and that was probably because I saw myself as a writer as much an an animator. But now I’m approaching things a little differently after I came across a short story by Ernest Hemmingway that was 6 words long that he claimed was his best work. (”For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”) I was confusing good exercises in writing with verbosity. I’m looking at the short film format as a challenge in brevity now, and it’s really helping.

Been loving the blog since the get-go, it’s been really insightful and helpful, and I’ve shown a few posts to my lecturers, and they’ve been very well recieved. I also look forward to seeing more work by your students, it really inspires me to get my own act together.

-Daniel R

Thanks for your question. I don’t think one type of acting should be avoided over another. It all comes back to what the story demands. I agree that there is a tendancy nowadays in animation to be dialogue heavy, but I think that is a case of bad film making rather than bad animation. I’d be hard pressed to believe if you’d pose the same question concerning a live-action film. A dialogue driven performance in live-action is not less valid than one done in pantomime. It’s about what the scene needs and how does it fit the story you’re telling. Also, I think it’s more wise to shoot for universal appeal as opposed to “international” appeal. Once you start spending energy trying to please everyone who might see the film, you end up diluting the vision and end up pleasing no one. Be as honest as you can with what you’re doing and hope people embrace it.

Adam

I’ve met a few others in my course who absolutely hate dialogue, and not just from a difficulty view. Some of them feel it isn’t ‘pure’ animation if it’s conveying dialogue, and others simply say it limits a piece’s international appeal. Just curious, what’s your opinion? Which is more fun to work with, verbal or non verbal? And should dialogue be avoided in animation?

-Daniel R (Will soon get a blogger ID… someday)

Give the guys a break and stop pestering them or in future I imagine we wont even get a sniff of the good stuff they might have planned for us!