Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks

by Ed Hooks

Ed Hooks is Stanislavsky for animators, but fun! I advise all my animation students to read Ed's amazingly insightful book. - Dave Quesnelle, Professor of Animation, Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators was the first book on the subject and is still the best. His analysis of character motivation and expressing emotion is the difference between animating and just moving furniture. - Gene Hamm, Animation instructor, Academy of Art College, San Francisco Character animators, using pencils and/or pixels, will discover a wealth of information about how to make their characters express empathetic emotions in the revised edition of this book. . . . Highly recommended. - John Canemaker, Animator/Director of Animation, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University If I can't figure out what is wrong with one of my characters, I can pick up Ed's book, scan for just a short while, and come back with my direction. It's the I Ching for animators. - Matt Brunner, Director, Xbox Wonderful teaching! Ed Hooks is fascinated and fascinating. - Michael Dudok de Wit, Winner, Academy Award, Short Animation, Father and Daughter Animators need to know a lot about acting, but they dont need to know everything. Acting for Animators sorts out the acting theory that animators need, presenting it in a form and with references that are more relevant to the animators world. It explores the connections between thinking and physical action, between thinking and emotion; it provides the steps for an effective character analysis and the dynamics of a scene. Using references to animation and live action, acting principles are highlighted and explained. Plus, the accompanying CD-ROM provides explicit examples, including videoclips of improvs based on the seven essentials of acting and highlights of Rudolph Labans movement theory.This revised edition is illustrated by Paul Naas, an animator and director whose work includes film, TV, video games, location-based entertainment, and Internet animation. He was one of the first animator/instructors hired by the Disney Institute.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference, Art Design, Education

Mass Market Paperback

First published September 2, 2003

About the author

Ed Hooks is a professional actor, acting coach, and writer. As an actor, he has appeared in numerous commercials and television shows.

Reviews

[Janne Janssens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read for my master thesis

[Frog · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has helpful points, but it wasn't as good as the articles I read by Ed Hooks in which he analyzes the acting in recent animated movies. Perhaps it's because in this book he doesn't mercilessly rip movies apart. (I think you learn more that way). Oh well.

Extra star for mentioning Aristotle's Poetics. Animation and philosophy are my two favorite things. (Especially philosophy of storytelling).

[PandoramicView · Rating 1 out of 5]

Caveat: the version I read is from 2000, and I know it's been revised. However, the revision notes all seem to imply that nothing was removed, only added, and so I feel the majority of my critique here will most likely stand.

tl;dr: skip it
This book feels like it was written as a college essay with a minimum word count that could have been a 'recommended reading' pamphlet, because anything useful was a cited quote from some other source and the rest was repetitive bloviating, hero worship, and shilling his personal world view, far removed from anything specifically useful to animators. He spends a lot of time condescending the reader and social signaling, to boot, which leaves me with the impression that (all things considered) this book cornered the market because it was the only one with all the keywords in the title for the first ten years of its shelf life.

There are plenty of excellent books out there on developing characters, body language, cinematography, and acting theory that you could read instead and get more out of. If you're enrolled in animation classes, most likely they've already covered the basics of performance touched (lightly) on in this book.

Here's a short list of prominently featured sources:
- The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
- Various papers by Leslie Bishko about the application of Laban Movement Theory to animation
- On the Technique of Acting

If you really want to read it, here's the highlight reel:
- Skim the numbered headings of Chapter 1 (Seven Essential Acting Concepts)
- Start reading from Chapter 5 (Movement and Body Language) to 9 (The Form)
- Skip to the acting analysis
- Make a decision about which sources sounded useful along the way, and move on to reading one of those

[Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen libro, te hace ser más observador al ver peliculas, analizar cada detalle, angulo de cámara, vestuario, postura del personaje, iluminación, el porqué de las acciones de los personajes, en que están pensando, muy interesante. Recomendable.

[Hector · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great analysis of the psyche behind a character's actions to create a believable animation.

[Byron · Rating 2 out of 5]

A useful yet incredibly problematic book with women reduced to being baby making machines. If you can put the beaten out dated notions aside there's the occasional useful tip.

[Andrea Bøe Abrahamsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super interesting, I was hooked from the start. I want to read his other book now.

[Paola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice introduction into the world of acting for new animators. Has a nice pacing and covers most of the basics when talking about how to make a more interesting shot.

Wouldn’t consider this an indispensable read for animators. But is a good guide for beginners who feel lost and don’t know where to start. (Not so much a tool to improve your skills once you already know the fundamentals).

[Rafael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Structured in a way that anyone can understand it even if you are not an animator and with a lot a practical examples this is a great tool to improve your character development or story telling skills.

[Elena]

This was real step up in my HND year. Great guidance for beginners.

[Matt Diamond]

Great insight in to intentions behind action and response, my highlighter went dry as Ed reminded and taught valuable lessons in animation directly relating to Animators.

I was also lucky enough to see a lecture by Ed in Bangkok when he was there, great speaker, and full of knowledge. This books a keeper.