Aude GlonduActing for animators: a day with a Gobelins teacher
A one day workshop organised by Ubisoft with a teacher from Gobelins, to act better in the video references we shoot ourselves.
Ubisoft Annecy organised a one day workshop on acting for its animators, led by a teacher from Gobelins in Annecy. The goal: help us act better in the video references we shoot ourselves.
It took place while we were working on the multiplayer of Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag.
A morning of acting
The morning was all about acting exercises: improvisation, body work, intention and rhythm. We filmed ourselves too, the best way to see what actually comes across.
As in theatre, we paid attention to keeping our gestures visible, so that the silhouette reads clearly against the background.
From reference to keyframe
In the afternoon, we put it into practice with an audio clip from the 11 Second Club website. Each of us shot a video reference acting out the dialogue, then animated it in keyframe.
One afternoon is far too short to animate a shot properly, but that was not really the point. The interesting part was seeing the morning’s lessons show up in our own references.
What I took from it
Day to day, we rarely animate in keyframe, so I did not bring much of this back to the animation itself.
Where it really helped was the video references we prepare for the mocap actors, who perform everything we capture. I came out of the day with better keys to show them clearly what we need.
A short day, but a useful reminder that acting is not only the actors’ business: knowing what makes a performance read helps at every step.