Animated Performance: Bringing Characters to Life

Animated Performance is a comprehensive guide that teaches readers how to bring characters to life through animation. The book explores the ways in which character movements can reflect emotional and narrative contexts, allowing them to seemingly ‘come to life’ and ‘perform’.

Nancy Beiman, a veteran of the animation industry, provides numerous tips, examples, and exercises throughout the book to help readers harness the flexibility of animation. By doing so, they can create a limitless variety of characters while ensuring that no two performances are ever alike.

Unleashing Creativity

In this book, you’ll discover how animated characters need not be constrained by human limitations as species, weight, and design affect character actions. You’ll learn about the many ways in which a character’s movements will vary according to their situation’s emotional or narrative context.

The book features over 300 color illustrations demonstrating how animal and fantasy characters can live and move without losing their non-human qualities. Additionally, interviews with Disney animators Art Babbitt, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Ellen Woodbury provide unique insights into bringing an entire world of characters to life.

What’s New in This Edition?

The second edition includes a new chapter with introductory exercises aimed at beginners looking for an entry point into animated acting. It also features dozens of new assignments and examples focusing on designing and animating fantasy and animal characters.

“If you want your drawings to come alive on screen or on paper,” says Nancy Beiman in her introduction to Animated Performance “you must first understand movement.” This book gives students all the tools they need–and more–to master this elusive art form.

– John Canemaker. Author of Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men & Their Lessons for Success

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