1) General emotions common to all beasts: Humans have certain basic expressions that are common to all animals
Happy
Pain
Hungry
Boss
Fear
Lust
Mad
Kill
Pain
Hungry
Boss
Fear
Lust
Mad
Kill
2) Specific to Humans
and then certain emotions, interests and traits that are unique to us as a species.
Indignation
Sarcasm
Laughter
Music
Art
Dance
Laughter
Music
Art
Dance
3) Gender Specific
Specific to women or men-all women have certain basic emotions and expressions in common, that are different to men.
This is where animation separates from live action. Animated characters barely get past the gender specific level. Once in a while maybe, but hardly ever do animated characters come off as individual characters.
5) General Character Types
Types are a level more specific than male or female, but belonging to a type is still not individually specific.
Looney Tunes is as close as we ever got to personality, and even they only slightly got past specific types:
Wiseguys,
bullies,
Jerks,
buffoons,
etc.
In a cartoon, you can have an asshole blowhard character-like PegLeg Pete, Stromboli and a million others.
Warner Bros. had some more specific variations of this type-like Foghorn Leghorn or Nasty Canasta.
In live action, the variations of any type are much more specific-Archie Bunker and Ralph Kramden share some broad general characteristics but come off as totally different characters with their own packages of expressions, gestures, voices, "character designs" and quirks.
Live action actors, start with huge advantages over animators:
1) Human actors actually are individuals. Every person is different. in real life.
2) They don't have to spend a lifetime learning to draw. They can spend their time learning to act.
3) They have a medium that is based on individuality. The star system. You like certain actors because they look unique, have charisma and or have very unique mannerisms, expressions and voices.
4) Animators have to draw every single frame to fake life. They have to learn a ton of physical things that actors don't:
Weight
Mechanics of motion.
Squash and stretch
Live actors do all this naturally and in real time. They don't have to figure out how to walk convincingly.
By the time animators get to the problem of acting, they usually rely on expressions, mannerisms, gestures that they have seen in other animated cartoons.
5) All real people look different. Most cartoon characters are repetitions of designs already created.
6) It's really hard to draw real specific expressions and then wrap them around cartoon construction. An actor doesn't have to think about what muscles to move to make an expression. He just makes one.
How then can animators break away from formula animation acting and enter the realm of fully realized individual characters?
A TYPICAL ANIMATION SASSY GIRL-SMARTER AND BETTER THAN ALL MEN
If an animator has time left over from learning to draw and animate to learn how to act, or even care about it, he has to ignore most animated formula acting and study real people and great actors who all have interesting and specific expressions and mannerisms.
5) General Character Types
Types are a level more specific than male or female, but belonging to a type is still not individually specific.
Looney Tunes is as close as we ever got to personality, and even they only slightly got past specific types:
Wiseguys,
bullies,
Jerks,
buffoons,
etc.
In a cartoon, you can have an asshole blowhard character-like PegLeg Pete, Stromboli and a million others.
Warner Bros. had some more specific variations of this type-like Foghorn Leghorn or Nasty Canasta.
In live action, the variations of any type are much more specific-Archie Bunker and Ralph Kramden share some broad general characteristics but come off as totally different characters with their own packages of expressions, gestures, voices, "character designs" and quirks.
Live action actors, start with huge advantages over animators:
1) Human actors actually are individuals. Every person is different. in real life.
2) They don't have to spend a lifetime learning to draw. They can spend their time learning to act.
3) They have a medium that is based on individuality. The star system. You like certain actors because they look unique, have charisma and or have very unique mannerisms, expressions and voices.
4) Animators have to draw every single frame to fake life. They have to learn a ton of physical things that actors don't:
Weight
Mechanics of motion.
Squash and stretch
Live actors do all this naturally and in real time. They don't have to figure out how to walk convincingly.
By the time animators get to the problem of acting, they usually rely on expressions, mannerisms, gestures that they have seen in other animated cartoons.
5) All real people look different. Most cartoon characters are repetitions of designs already created.
6) It's really hard to draw real specific expressions and then wrap them around cartoon construction. An actor doesn't have to think about what muscles to move to make an expression. He just makes one.
How then can animators break away from formula animation acting and enter the realm of fully realized individual characters?
A TYPICAL ANIMATION SASSY GIRL-SMARTER AND BETTER THAN ALL MEN
6) Individual Character Specific
Each individual woman for example, on top of her basic shared woman expressions has her own personal specific expressions and mannerisms. And this is what separates real people from animation people. Specific versus generic.
A good actor takes what's common to all and then adds what's unique to the individual.
Alice is a "sassy girl" but a very specific individual one.
Alice's sarcastic reply to Ralph about her dress...
Jackie Gleason covers every level of general man and beast traits to a very specific unique version of a loud mouthed asshole.
Ralph acts like he's not suspicious of Alice...
These are not expressions or poses you would ever see on a cartoon model chart.
And he has a million more in his repertoire. This is just one scene!
Norton's reaction expressions are very specific and entertaining too.
