"An animator is an actor with a pencil", goes the oldest and truest animation cliché. Not "a draftsman that acts", but first and foremost - an actor. If you're trying to tell a story through a character, inevitably you're an actor. The only question is whether you are a good actor or a bad one.

My feeling is that in the past few years, while there's been great progress technology-wise, the art of acting in animation has been abandoned. Compared with the acting quality of characters such as Shere-Khan (The Jungle Book), Captain Hook (Peter Pan) and others, today's characters are pale, dull, and lack personality. In better cases, an exceptionally interesting voice-talent saves the day (Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin); but usually the script alone is responsible for providing the characters with some sort of personality.

In the various internet forums one can find threads concerning software, design, textures - some even talk about movement - but it's rare to read something about acting. I haven't yet seen a comment saying something like "the animation is good, but the character has no personality". It seems that the level of expectations is so low, that it's enough for an animator not to make technical errors. Would you consider praising a writer simply because he made no spelling mistakes?

In the following article I have put on paper my thoughts considering acting in animation, which apply to any form of character animation - including 3D. The article is not meant to provide a "good acting in animation" formula - simply because such a formula does not exist. Every animator has his personal attitude, every film has needs of its own, and undoubtedly there are other ways of getting good acting. The goal is to propose a "toolbox" for the actor/animator, and maybe raise - even a little - the animators' awareness of acting in animation.

What is good acting?
When I ask my students what they think good acting is, the first answer is usually "believable acting". But credibility is only one side of the story. Good acting is believable and interesting. In my opinion, these two attributes wholly define good acting. With this idea as an axiom, we will try to separately analyze what makes acting believable, and what makes it interesting.

I. Believable acting
In the life of an animator there are short and rare moments of true magic. Those moments are the reason I became an animator, and they are the reason I still am one. I'm talking about a moment in which you look at the animation you've just created, and suddenly you believe your own character. Suddenly it's alive, it's there in its own right. Those are the moments of believable acting.

Believable acting holds a great power over the viewers, because the character they're watching gets a sort of meaning. Every man has meaning to us - even if we don't always think about it: If a total stranger sitting next to you on the bus suddenly collapses, you will not be indifferent - because the very fact that he is a flash and blood human earns him that meaning. This is why we feel sorry when Bambi's mother dies: we believe her and we believe Bambi, and both of them mean something to us. On the other hand, the characters in South Park are anything but believable, which is why there's no problem killing Kenny in each chapter.

(This might be the right place to reemphasize that the animator is of course not solely responsible for contributing meaning to the characters - script has an important part in it too. This article, however, is dealing with animation).

Believable acting means that the audience feels that the character's actions are the result of its own inner motives, and not the animator's inner motives; that the character feels, thinks and reacts consistently according to its personality and mood. I emphasized the last sentence since it encapsulates many of the ingredients of convincing acting:

Feel.
The aim here is not just to portray clear and defined feelings (happy, sad, etc.) but to look for a kind of inner feeling that we have in us all the time - maybe it can be called "consciousness". Try to "feel" your character when you create animation, not just move it around according to the principles of animation.

Think.
Your character shouldn't always act on immediate instincts. Look for opportunities to show thinking process, which leads to decision and action. It will enrich your animation with depth, complexity and believability.

React.
Acting is actually more or less a series of reactions - the character reacts to its environment, to other characters, to stimulus. Every action must have a reason. Make sure you know what your character is reacting to, and that the reaction is reasonable (in other words: it's reasonable that this particular character will react in this particular way).

Consistency.
Retain a consistent attitude to your character's reactions. A shy character (small, timid movements) that unexpectedly acts in an extroverted way with no clear reason, will suffer great damage to its credibility.

Personality.
The character's personality dictates its reactions - i.e., its acting. Again, we are not necessarily talking about a definite personality such as "arrogant", "grumpy", etc. Try to get to know your character the way you know a family member or someone you work with. What makes him tick? What is he afraid of? What are his problems?

Mood.
Mood resembles personality - it, too, dictates the character's reactions - but unlike personality, its effect is temporary. For example: a guy who's hurrying to work acts and reacts in a very different way than the very same guy as he calmly walks his dog in the evening.

* * *

Reading the above notions, one might think - "hey, all those things belong to the script and storyboard! Reactions, personality, mood - I can't control that! I'm just the animator here, my job is merely to move the character around and make sure there's a lot of anticipation!". My answer is in the following example:

The storyboard shows a character entering the frame, and looking angrily at another character. You're assigned to the scene, and the questions that should arise are: does the character enter slowly? Quickly? Determinedly? Hesitantly? Does he stop suddenly or gradually? Did he know the other character would be there, or does he spot it in the scene? Is he furious, or merely dissatisfied? What sort of anger is it - helpless (like a child's anger towards his parents), or superior (like a parent's towards his child)? And so on and so forth.

The actor/animator's task is to carefully read the script, study the storyboard, and try to "get into" the character. In other words: to find the character's inner feeling and to "wear" it for a while as if it was his own - so that he can get to know and understand the character. A good actor doesn't invent his acting - he discovers it. And still the animator faces the tough challenge of putting the experience into his animation, keeping the principles of motion. It isn't easy, but the reward - that magical moment of believable animation - is worth the effort.

1.
Be Good.

You don't have to be good at everything, of course, but your career will not take off until you get really good at something. You need to show professional level skills in at least one area, such as modeling, character rigging, effects, character animation, shader development, texture painting, lighting, or compositing. Several skills are better than just one, but you need at least one to be hired as a pro. The best way to learn is to start by going through the whole process, and then go back and focus more on the areas where you feel most confident or have the most fun.

Studios hire a diverse range of people, with a lot of different backgrounds: degrees in Illustration, Film, Fine Art, Architecture, Philosophy, Physics, of course lots of people with Computer Science degrees, and people with combination of useful degrees and previous job experience. The only thing tying them together is that somehow they each became really good at something that feeds into the production pipeline.

Being good at what you do is my number one piece of career advice to anyone, and in the end it's the only one that really matters.

2.

Network and Promote Yourself.

Computer Graphics is actually a very small industry; you keep running into the same people over and over in different contexts, companies, courses, and conventions. It's actually fairly easy to make a reputation for yourself (good or bad) that will precede you at any company where you are seeking work.

Focus first on your reputation with the people around you, in school or your current job. The people who have actually worked with you are your most important contacts and references, they can let you know about jobs or help you get into different companies. Make a website for yourself, first with obvious elements such as work samples, but expand it with information for other 3D artists. When you are able, make helpful posts on internet discussion groups, do some speaking, writing, teaching, or other constructive things to get your name out into larger channels.

If you are speaking a second language, focus on language skills as a higher priority than 3D. If you can't communicate well with your boss or director, then all the artistic and technical skills in the world would be worthless, because you still wouldn't be producing the graphics that the director wanted.
3.

Fully Explain your 3D Skills on your Resume

As companies cut back on things like on-the-job training (which has always been something of a myth anyway), explaining your specific software skills becomes more and more important. A lot of students seem to type a block of program titles into their resume, including some that they have used little or rarely, and perhaps one or two in which they are experts. Without professional experience using any of those packages, those little software lists are almost meaningless. Instead of just listing program titles, you should document what you've actually done with each program. For example:

For each program, the main things you want to explain are: how much you've used it, what you've done with it, and what you're good at doing with it. Alternately, you could also flip this format around, and list your skills in boldface, with the software and techniques outlined underneath. For example:

Either way, you are being clear and specific about exactly what you can do, not just providing a vague list of skills or software titles. This kind of skills description is vital if you are a student or just got out of school, and you don't have a lot of professional experience to list on your resume yet. After you have worked on more productions and have more professional experience, you might want to shorten this section of your resume and make more room for descriptions of the specific jobs you've done.

4. Do Some Research.

Learn about the companies you apply to, so that you can customize your resume and cover letter to highlight the most relevant of your skills. You want to print small quantities of resumes at a time, and edit them to highlight game-related skills on an application to a game company, echo language from an advertised job description, or customize them for a situation such as adding your local contact information while you are at the SIGGRAPH conference.

If you are invited in for an interview, study everything you can about the company beforehand, so that you can ask intelligent questions at the interview, or mention specific examples of the company's work that you admire or feel that you could contribute to.

Find out as much about the industry as you can, so that you can find opportunities others might have overlooked. It pays to apply to smaller and less well-known companies, instead of just the biggest and most famous companies that everyone applies to. Read the credits of movies, TV shows, and video games to find out who is doing work on projects that you might be interested in. Read magazines like Cinefex and Computer Graphics World, and go to conferences like SIGGRAPH and the Game Developers Conference, to meet more people in the industry. Stay in touch with old friends and co-workers who can be the source of job tips. Quite often, the key to getting a job is finding out about it.