Acting For Animators on 13 August

Sarah Perry of Shapes in Motion is returning to Escape Studios to teach a one-day "Acting for Animators" workshop on 13th August with our short course animators.  Sarah is an expert on teaching acting skills to animators, having taught acting classes at MPC, Framestore, and many other UK animation and VFX houses.  To find out more about the class, and about Shapes in Motion, watch the short video above.

Sarah Perry

Shapes in Motion
Shapes In Motion is an acting school run by classically-trained actor Sarah Perry, offering acting and movement classes specially tailored for animators.

Animators are actors. Although 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
One of the key techniques we teach here at Escape Studios is to use live-action reference to inform character animation, filming the action and then finding the key poses to make a believable performance.

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) teaches students at Escape Studios

Movement Analysis
Sarah introduces animators 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.

Shapes in Motion - Official site
Visit the Shapes in Motion website at http://www.shapesinmotion.com/ to see more about their work and what they do.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2019, follow this link.