A talk by Jason Schleifer

Posted this on the MA-group a while back, but haven't gotten around to writing anything about it on here yet.

So, here's a video of a talk that Jason Schleifer did for TEDx. Jason is a very talented animator at Dreamworks and has worked a lot of films, for instance; Madagascar 1 & 2, Over the Hedge and lastly he was head of character animation on Megamind.



He tells the story about how a spider "taught" him animation. It sounds a bit odd, but his talk is really entertaining and interesting way of telling us how he got interested in animation.

But the parts I found most interesting were on how we makes and shape characters personalities to create the best performance possible on screen.

"We want to create an experience, an emotional performance. Not just movement, it's about character." - Jason Schleifer

I especially found the example about the two superhero-characters "Titan" & "Metro-man" interesting. The character-profiling of the two are really a great example of why it's so important to know the character's back-story before you do anything else. This makes it all more believable, not just the way they move but also how they act, react and interact.

The two characters has the exact same powers, but the "how" is what's important here.

So HOW did they get them and HOW do they behave in a situation where they have to use their powers?

Metro-man (the good guy): grew up with his powers, so he knows exactly what to do with them, he's familiar with them and has adapted to them.

Titan (the bad guy): Just got his powers, so he has not fully understood how to use them and for what purpose he should.

Really a great talk and a lot of useful information on characters and their stories, personalties and how it causes them to act as they do.

- It was really helpful and it will hopefully help to improve my work in the future.