Body language of Mime

Every look and every action is important way to convey the inner thoughts for mime actor when they performed on stage; therefore, the Mime actor should have a great ability to control their body language to make audience know what they thought. The Mime performance and the normal performance (movies or TV) have a lot of differences, Mime often required more precise, because the Mime actor without dialogue in the scene; in addition, exaggerate is the biggest  feature in Mime performance. Performers tend to enlarge body movements and more emotion to convey thoughts.

Combined with facial expressions and body language. 

The facial expressions

The different posture
There are some different postures between mime and normal behavior. There must be more exaggerated in mime performance.

                                   Mime                                                                                Normal

Research: The Art of Mime

What is the Mime?

The word ‘pantomime’ source for the Greek, meaning ‘imitator’.

A mime artist who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is to be distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a seamless character in a film or sketch.

The performance of pantomime originates at its earliest in Ancient Greece; the name is taken from a single masked dancer called Pantomimes, although performances were not necessarily silent. In Medieval Europe, early forms of mime such as mummer plays and later dumb shows evolved. In early nineteenth century Paris, Jean-Gaspard Deborah solidified the many attributes that we have come to know in modern times—the silent figure in white-face. [1]

The famous silent film artist – Charlie Chaplin 1989-1977

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.

Most famous mime artist – Marcel Marceau 1923-2007

Marcel Marceau was a French actor and mime most famous for his stage persona as "Bip the Clown." He referred to mime as the "art of silence," and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. As a youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II, giving his first major performance to 3000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. Following the war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris.

The presentation ' The Thinking Character '

The resources of project:

http://www.cgtarian.com/online-courses/advanced-animation-courses/a-thinking-character-animation-course-online.html

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/content/papers/antony2.pdf

http://www.thinkingcharacter.com/p/about.html

https://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation/principles/lasseter_s94.htm

http://thinkinganimationbook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/character-performance-workshop.html

It was a 10 minute presentation in Module 3. I got the topic ' The Thinking Character' and need provide a detailed analysis and comparison of one animation and one live action clip. I am ready to analysis two of my favourite films ' The professional ' and ' Wall E ' clips to discuss this topic. As we know, each film has its important roles, for example lead roles and supporting roles. However, each roles have the special character and personality, the successful interpretation of roles is very important for the whole film. So, i want to through analysis the performance of the character to analysis the inner thoughts of the character.

 

The prefessional 

Movie clips

‘The Professional’ is a 1994 English-language French thriller film directed by Luc Besson. The film is talking about revenge and redemption story between a mob hitman and a 12-year-old girl.

Details of the performance

Mathilda: Three times knock the door

 

First knock: grieved，scared

Second knock: Anxiously waiting，crying

Third knock: Fear of being killed，The heart to the verge of collapse.

   

About Leon's inner struggle

First knock :Very stressful, hesitant, wink and shake the body  

After second and third knock: Inner struggle, quick selection, stop Wink, touch the ears

Finally decided to open the door, Vigilant door

Finally, Leon opened the door. A bunch of sun projected onto the girl's face, which means the girl was saved. The girl stopped crying and calm down.

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 The other animation film is WALL-E. 

  

Movie clips

 

As soon as they land, EVE rushes WALL•E back to his truck, where she repairs him and recharges him. WALL•E wakes back up, but his memory is wiped clean and he reverts to his original programming and directive, oblivious to EVE and his collection.

Details of the performance

EVE attempts to help him remember, but when all her efforts fail, she becomes heartbroken and sadly holds his hand like he had wanted and gives him a farewell "kiss".

 

WALL•E recovered memories

 

WALL•E's eyes adjust, and he recognizes EVE, making her overjoyed. The kiss has rebooted his memory. WALL•E is surprised upon waking up to see that they are holding hands. 

 

Some good dialogue examples

just find some good 3D animation dialogue be the reference.

The practise --Two person dialogue

This is the work practise with two person dialogue. I got an audio from my tutor Penny, which is a short dialogue with 2 person. The time is about 8 second. For this dialogue practice, I need to present a coordinated body movements and the clear of facial expressions associated with the dialogue. So, before doing animation, I am going to the green screen studio to record some actions as my reference. My audio is a piece of humorous dialogue, so I try to think how to exhibit a sense of humor on action. According to the content of the dialogue, I envisioned a interview as the background, that a reporter's interview with the star.

 

The reference video

 

Step1. Blocking
After recording the action, I need to pick two people model to test and start to produce. First of all, I want to make the blocking of two person movement without the smooth action, just for planning timing and finish some key poses.

Step 2. Breakdown
After blocking, I want to add some details in the actions of two people. For example, the movement of the shoulders and chest, as well as simple facial expressions.

 
Step 3. Final work
After the breakdown, also need further refinement of the movement of two people, including details of some finger movements and facial expressions. In addition, adjust the curve carefully to make the action looks smoother and beautiful. 

Funny dialogue with good facial expressions

This is a funny dialogue with two people in a chat room who don't know each other might look like. The guy's looking for sex, the girl, something more. In a conversation, the facial expressions of the performers is very rich with inner activity. Especially about the subtext of performance, there are very subtle changes in the eyes and mouth. For animator, be sure to observe the changes of detail in life, and also can use television, movies as a reference. It is conducive for animator to make more good and real characters.

Research : Walking T-rex and Spinosaur

This is a deviant art work submitted by joel3d (Domain name), a walking T-rex with muscle system.

Unlike the Marching T-rex, this work is not a rendering animation, but video in the view of some 3d software (possibly Maya according to what shows in the link by the artist), and apparently it does not have music or sound effect. Nevertheless, it still shows high quality of modelling and texturing. And the extraordinary muscle system of this tyrannosaur is even more convincing besides the part this is just a simple walking motion. 

The artist of this work might have used at least 2 motion system to create the creature movement, a skeleton system for the general motion and a muscle system to control its muscles and skins. It is likely that this work can be used for films and animations.

http://joel3d.deviantart.com/art/Trex-muscle-system-323600952

An artwork also submitted by maccollo for Primal Carnage in deviant art. 

This video does not have atmosphere as the other work of Marcello’s does.  It is quite a simple walking motion of a spinosaur with several different camera angles.

Again the work shows the artist’s deep understanding of dinosaurs and fine skills of modelling, texturing and rigging. Yet compare it to the walking T-rex, this should be a work for games or animations of less realistic. 

http://maccollo.deviantart.com/art/Spinosaurus-walk-cycle-344172722

Research: World of Warcraft: Mist of Pandaria

The cinematic trailers of Blizzard Entertainment Corporation always have high qualities. And on the ground of this fine making, this one shows something different from other World of Warcraft trailers. Although magic is quite a common thing in this game, in this trailer people can barely find trace of any kind of spells or incantations, yet contains beautiful motions of characters, this is the very reason why I chose this trailer as my research.


Discard all the fine effect and atmosphere, I focus on the fighting scene in the trailer. First the orc fought against the human, then came the third anticipator, a Pandarian Monk. Unlike these two former creatures striking and kicking blindly, the monk fought with Kung Fu, it had a purpose what and where to hit, and the movement is fantastically fluent. Also unlike former World of Warcraft trailers in which characters are always quite strict, this one has abundant facial expressions. At the first sight of the orc, I can see something like “is that it?” and roaring when encountered with the human fighter; and the latter dude has an alert look and defying emotion when faced the orc. And both of them appeared quite surprise with still face and staring eyes. The Pandaria had a another look, though he had an animal face, he clearly showed confidence though.

The practice -- Tiger Animation

This is my practice's reference. The practise animal is a tiger, which include some basic walking and jumping as well as a roaring. Firstly, I use AE to make some useful references to clips together, which I can convenient see it in the production process.

 

The reference clips

step1.
I choose the model of tiger and test it, and then to make a blocking in MAYA.

The blocking curve

  

 

Step 2.

When the blocking is done, the next step need to add some details make the action getting close a real tiger. For example, add keyframes in the process of movement in the limbs；and then adjust the curve to make the action looks more smooth. On the other hand, also need to adjust the movement of the center of gravity of the tiger's forelimb and hindlimb. When the tiger's forelegs raised, the center of the forelimb would move upward. Similarly, When the tiger's hindlegs raised, the center of the hindlimb would also move upward. But there is one point to note that the velocity of the forelimb and hindlimb was not synchronized. Please refer to picture 1. In addition, do not forget to adjust the focus of the rotation of forelimb and hindlimb. When the Tigers go forward, the chest will produce offset with forepaws movement. The focus of hindlimb movement same as forelimb. Please refer to the picture 2.

Picture 1

 Picture 2

When animals doing some large range of action, such as running, jumping, etc., need to take into account the squeezing and stretching of the body. With reference to figure 3, when the tiger jumping and landing, pose1 and pose4 presented the squeeze state of the body; on the contrary, when the body is moving, the pose3 presented the maximum tensile of the body. In fact, this phenomenon has a lot in our life. When people doing exercise, such as playing basketball, the body will be presented stretching and squeezing state along with movement.

Picture 3
 

After the completion of the main part, but also need to adjust the tiger's head swinging, following the movement of the tail and roaring action. Actually, I want to let the tiger have a big roaring with dignity in the end of movement. Finally, create the camera and adjust the lens position, then render movement and output from maya.

The Research -- Tiger Animation

The tiger is a representative of the cat family. Tiger is the kind of prey animals, which have the  acute hearing, night vision, sharp retractable claws freely and stout canines. However, apart from the large size and strong muscle, the black stripes have regularly distributed on the fur, which could help hidden itself in hunting time.

I search  some live pictures of tigers from the Internet, including jumping, walking, lying down, standing and the roar of the state. It is easy to find some characteristics of the tiger, for example tiger usually a little lazy when nomal walking, but the speed is very fast when it running, the body's muscles can be a good cooperation together.

Different states of the tiger

Tiger roar

 Recommend some videos from youtube let us know more about the characteristics of the tiger.