Studying body language

This task (song & dance) has really opened my eyes to the importance of body language. I am trying to achieve a emotional performance in this piece and to show this I need to use body language along with facial expressions to really "sell" the performance to the audience. I want to show the character as a person who loves the attention he gets on stage, that he knows how popular he is and that he is confident in what he's doing. I came over this video on a animation blog called "tea time animation club". They posted a video a couple of years ago on the subject and I thought I'd share it with you.

The clip is three "storm troopers" having a drink while discussing the anniversary of the death star. (from the star wars films). It's a comedy-clip made by college humor, but it's not just a humorous clip to watch, it's really good for studying body language since they are having a discussion with helmets on.

The clip is denied for embedding, so you'll have to use this link and watch some advertisement before the clip starts. Sorry about that.

Here is the clip:

Stormtroopers '9/11 - Video - IGN

I especially found the situation from 1:45min to 2:00 in the clip interesting. You can tell by just his body language that he is making a point and trying to get through to the other two. He is in denial and refuses to hear what the others are saying, he just goes on and on to make his point while the others just have to wait until he has made his point. And the two others are clearly embarrassed by his act and they show it, but he just goes on and starts to confront the other people in the room as well.

I watched it with the sound of and you can still see pretty clearly what's going on. The character making his argument uses "open" poses, hands out, turns back and forth and talks to the other characters, he points at the table to make his point etc.

The two others are in more closed poses, slightly turning away, avoiding eye contact and one even covers his face with his hand at one point. Clearly not comfortable with the situation.

This was a really interesting source of reference.

The original blogpost was found at:

http://aauanimationclub.blogspot.com/2009/10/inspiration-post-body-language.html