Customer Reviews

Acting in Animation: A Look at 12 Films

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is strictly a companion to Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators. It shows how the author's principles of animated acting are (or are not) applied on a DVD chapter-by-chapter basis for 12 animated features. Similar to the breakdown of The Iron Giant at the end of the original book.

Hooks' teachings are great food for thought when it comes to not just creating a quality animated performance, but in the writing of the scene the performance exists in. The films examined cover a fairly wide range. Mostly recent films, but a few older ones. Largely Disney, but also some Pixar and Studio Ghibli as well. All the films (with the possible exception of Pinocchio) are fairly easy to get a DVD of.

The only peeve I have with this book is a few instances of poor proof-reading when characters are referred to by the wrong names. In Monsters Inc. Sully is called Randal a couple times, Woody is twice referred to as Andy in Toy Story 2, and in Tarzan, Sabor the leopard is called a tiger. (Not as big a problem, just annoying.)

If you haven't read Acting for Animators, don't get this book just yet. If you have, this is the perfect way to see Hooks' lessons in practice.

As the reviewer before me said, this is a direct companion to Acting for Animators, Revised Edition: A Complete Guide to Performance Animation. It's very good for animation, acting or just plain movie enthusiasts to see how the rules of acting are applied in several popular animated films ranging from Disney to Studio Ghibli. It's very well organized by movie and discusses moments by movie scenes according to when it happened so you can use the book alongside watching the movie, not just before or after.
There were a couple things that bothered me about the content. One thing I will say is that this book was not entirely edited/proof-read well. There were several cases of character name mix-ups and misspelled locations. They didn't hinder the ability to understand what he was talking about too much, but it certainly brought down my level of credibility for him. The other thing that bothered me was that his opinions were very obvious in comparison to his straightforward analyses, so be on the lookout for those and don't mistake them as a means to an end. Though most of the scene analyses were thorough and spot on, there were moments where in those analyses that were hit or miss, especially regarding the correct emotional response from the character, so it's good for the basic of basics, but beyond that is up for debate.

For anyone really serious about making animation this book is a great resource. If you haven't read "Acting for Animators," also by Hooks, I recommend actually picking that up first as it lays out a nice breakdown of the same process he uses to pick apart the 12 films high-lighted in this book. The list of films Hooks has picked out are for the most part, still easy to find and of good variety.

The book is meant to be used as a work book coupled with the 12 films. It asks the reader to buy, rent, or borrow the films, take one, watch it, enjoy it, then read the section about in the book while going back to take a look at it the film scene by scene, pausing where needed. It helps the reader to pick apart the films and analyze them in a way that
it's easy to figure out what to do and what not to do with a character to make him or her believable. You'll gain lots of knowledge to help you create a successful story. You'll also probably find yourself taking a second look at many of the other animations you've enjoyed in the past as well.