preparing for this month's 11 Second Club Competition. This month's line of dialogue is very short, just a woman's voice saying "what's happening?".
The rest of the eleven second clip is made up of sound effects - the spooky sound of a siren wailing and distant rain.
All this makes for a very open brief - the scene could be about almost anything, and this permits a great deal of flexibility and creativity.
An open brief can be a good thing - it allows for plenty of invention, but it also presents a challenge - what is the scene really about? And how do we interpret it?
Start with Your Character - Who Is It?One solution to this problem is to think about character - who is this person, and what do they want? Animators are actors, which means that we must think hard about our characters wants and desires.
Stanislavski 7 Questions
The great Russian actor Constantin Stanislavski suggested that an actor to should ask seven questions to understand the nature of a character. Stanislavski is considered the father of the "Stanislavski System", which heavily influenced "The Method", the acting system whereby an actor immerses themselves into the character in order to create a truly believable and convincing performance. Stanislavski suggests that there are seven questions that an actor (or animator) should ask themselves to understand who their character truly is:
- Who am I? Start with the basics and then fill in the gaps with your imagination
- Where am I?
- What time is it?
- What do I want?
- Why do I want it?
- How will I get what I want?
- What must I overcome to get what I want?
School Run by Lee Caller
Who am I? Where am I? And what do I want?For practical purposes, we can boil this down to three essential questions: Who am I? Where am I? And what do I want? Answer these three questions and you are well on your way to creating a scene that is meaningful and interesting. Remember this basic point: if you don't know what your scene is about - your audience won't either.
Victoria Bailey 11 Second Club Below is Animation Apprentice Victoria Bailey's take on a past 11 Second Club entry.
