Acting and Performance for Animation

Chapter 5

Principles of Performance

In this chapter, we take a look at some of the underlying principles governing a performance and an audience’s reactions to a performer that we need to understand to create a character that will engage an audience and be believable. We will be looking at the idea of Empathy and its importance in helping to create an identification with a character and how this might be achieved and at what motivates a character and how that character’s needs and desires work their way through into their behavior. Understanding the forces that motivate a character helps, create the “hinterland” that makes a more rounded character with the power to make the viewer laugh or cry.

We also examine the question of what the director ...