Psychological Gestures: The Presentation

Did the presentation today, it seemed to go well. I only hope that what I said made sense to the class and that the presentation was ok.

I noticed that the other presentations had a lot of images and while I normally would put much more in mine, I intentionally left them out. My original idea was to pose Malcolm in various gestures for the back drop, however I realised that they were not specifically psychological gestures, just body language. And while psychological gestures are a part of body language, it's rather specific so I left it out in fear of confusing the subject.

Anyway, my presentation:
I copied my notes under each slide to give a rough idea of what I was saying. Also, for some reason, the video clips I inserted into the presentation refused to stay put so those slides are blank. I'll put the video clips under those slides.

MICHAEL CHEKHOV
#First person to coin the term and teach psychological gestures.
#Developed from Stanislavski's lessons on Method Acting.
#Defined character psychology as thoughts, feelings and the will (objectives and motivation).

ACTORS
#Method of preparation. 'Heart is broken' exercise by Ed Hooks.

ANIMATORS
#Tend to over-gesture (guilty!) By using the same exercises, we can get into the character and tone down the gestures.

ATMOSPHERE
#Affects gestures a character makes. Different places = different atmospheres. Car crash scene vs. your best friend's kitchen.
#People have different atmospheres. Happy vs. Angry.

RELATIONSHIP
#Jack Napier - Carl Grissom's (crime boss) second in command. Jack having affair with Carl's mistress.

BEFORE
#Jack was sent to raid chemical factory by Carl. Carl set him up to be arrested by tipping off police. Deflected bullet from Batman caused Jack to fall into chemical vat.

PRESENCE
#Large, threatening, confident. Hand behind back - power position - opens airway = more energy.

GESTURE
Flick of arm. Like crack of whip, wants it to sting like it stung Jack to be put beneath a woman. Allows himself to indulge in his rage. Intentional?

RELATIONSHIP
#Bo-Peep is Woody's love interest. Feelings are mutual. Woody and Buzz are rivals for Andy's affection.

BEFORE
#Andy has started playing more with Buzz and Woody is starting to feel replaced. He has just spent the night in the toy box instead of on the bed, where the favourite toy usually sleeps with Andy, as he had done until now.

PRESENCE
#Small. Woody is a Sheriff and lives up to that. Looks after the other toys and makes sure things run smoothly. Out of date compared to Space Ranger. Loss of influence and significance.

GESTURE
#Fluster of hands. Looks for place to put hands, cannot complete a gesture = cannot complete a thought process. Reveals fluster of mind. Caught off guard, does not want Bo-Peep to see him weak. No control over situation reflected by no control of himself. Cannot control Andy's love.

Not very similar other than:
RIVALS
#Watch two different characters deal with a rival. Woody does not deal very well, cannot cope with replacement. Fails to deal with Buzz successfully until he accepts him. Joker deals with what used to be a rival very well. Probably can consider them not even rivals anymore, as Joker is not competing because he's winning. Outright kills rival, because he can (part of his character).

CONTROL
#Woody has no control. Cannot control Andy's affections and unable to stop other toys being impressed. Has tried to downplay Buzz' coolness but fails. The more Andy plays with Buzz, the less influence Woody has, the more frustrated Woody becomes and the less control he has (over situation and himself).
#Joker has all the control. He walks into the room as he pleases and let's Carl talk as he please. Finishes sentences for him. Even when he allows himself an outburst, it seems control. He has not lost control of himself or the situation. Outburst may have even be deliberate because he wants Carl to know he's pissed off.

PREPARATION
#Actors = get into character. Take character psychology into themselves.
Animators = learn the same way but implement different. Put character into a rig, do not take it so much into themselves.
Both understand the same way and use it the same way. Just put in different places.

PERFORMANCE
#Understanding character's psychology = create more natural and powerful performances. psychological gestures shows audience more than they can be told.

SUMMARY

#Psychological gestures are small gestures that reveal what the character is really thinking/feeling or what their objectives really are. 

Big gestures can hide the little but very important things that make the character who they are.

Thanks for listening. I hope that was clear!

RESOURCES:
Books:
Acting for Animators ~ Ed Hooks
Michael Chekhov ~ Frank Chamberlain

Websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chekhov
http://www.michaelchekhov.org.uk/MCCUK/Home.html
http://chekhov.net/gesture.html

Movies (Clips):
Batman (1989) ~ Warner Bros. / DC Comics.
Toy Story (1995) ~ Walt Disney Pictures / Pixar

Images:
Jack Nicholson as the Joker and Woody from Google Images.

Toy Story - psychological gestures

I actually watched WALL.E first but as there is no dialogue and the main characters are robots, I thought it would be too difficult to demonstrate psychological gestures using a clip from that film. That's not to say that there's none in it, there are plenty but it would be much more difficult for me to explain as I'm still not confident I have it completely down. My understanding of it comes with dialogue too.

So I looked at Toy Story, thinking that Woody is bound to have lots of psychological gestures when he tries to hit the fact that he thinks Buzz has replaced him as Andy's favourite toy.

Before this scene, the audience know that Woody was Andy's favourite toy. His 'spot' was on the bed, a place that a toy is privileged to be as a favourite. It is established that the toys are fearful of being replaced, though Woody reassures them that this won't happen, and are even more so around Andy's birthday and Christmas. Andy gets a Buzz Lightyear for his birthday and crash lands the spaceship box on the bed, shoving Woody aside (who falls off the bed). The toys are impressed with Buzz's high tech features and think Woody has been replaced. Woody brushes it off but immediately feels threatened by Buzz. A montage shows Andy playing more and more with Buzz and the Woody merchandise around the room being replaced with Buzz Lightyear merchandise. At the end, we see Andy deciding which toy to take to bed with him between Woody and Buzz (while putting his toys away in a toy chest). The montage cuts to Andy sleeping with Buzz by his side and Woody peering out of the chest, rejected. This scene takes place the morning after. Woody has just come out of the box and watched a conversation between Buzz, Rex and Slinky where Buzz shows Andy's name on one of his soles.



It is clear that Woody does not like Buzz, it's not hidden from the audience. However Woody does hide it from the other character, particularly his love interest Bo-Peep.

Woody is very unhappy when he enters the scene and watching the conversation where Buzz reveals his 'branding' in permanent ink (new, fresh, up to date), he feels that he has really been replaced. He looks at his own branding (old, scuffed, dirty).
The bit I want to talk about in my presentation is just after this, when Bo-Peep enters the scene. She tells him not to let it 'get to him' and he becomes flustered. His voice tries to remain calm but he can't get a sentence out before he asks what she means and who. His hands go everywhere, trying to decide what pose would look best. His right (his right, not ours) hand first goes to place on his hip but doesn't get there, he shrugs and goes to fold his arms but doesn't complete that gesture either. He finds himself, puts both hands on his hips and asks what she means and who. I believe, though I'm honestly not certain, that the hands fluttering about is the psychological gesture. He's not just feeling awkward, he's trying to cover it but instead of doing so, he's revealing his thoughts are frantic and trying to find where to be.
Putting his hands on his hips makes him take up more room, an authoritative pose. He wants to be the bigger person and he certainly wants to be better than Buzz, he especially wants Bo-Peep to think so. He turns and looks around as if he hadn't seen Buzz, breaking eye contact with Bo-Peep because he doesn't want her to see him nervous about it. However when she mentions Buzz, the very name makes Woody cross his arms and roll his eyes. He's not interested and is fed up of hearing about Buzz. He shifts his weight a lot, looking restless.

Craig Caldwell

I asked my tutor for advice on how to go about looking for animated clips for my presentation.

She suggested choosing two very different clips and then comparing the difference between actors and animators in terms of process. Are there any animators that talk about using psychological gestures?

I hadn't thought about seeing if there were any animators that spoke of using psychological gestures so I did an internet search and came across Craig Caldwell.

Craig is a USTAR professor at the University of Utah, he has presented at conferences such as SIGGRAPH. He has worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation in Burbank and has also worked at Electronic Arts.

He speaks about psychological gestures a lot when he gives lectures about the secrets of animation. I found a summary of his talk from MundosDigitales 2011 - an international festival of animation.

He says on psychological gestures: "Making you character come alive. Psychological gestures are the movements a character makes that reveals their attitude and what they are thinking. These are the little movements that reveal the character; sniffles, wiping your nose, scratching your head, putting your hand in front of your face when you yawn…"

And apparently he showed some clips from Over The Hedge, WALL-E and Casablanca at this point. I shall look through some clips from those animated films and try and spot what he might have used (there's no indication of what part he showed). Watch this space.

A couple of interesting links:
Questions for Craig Caldwell
Secret to Animation is the Basics

Key Points to my Presentation

I'm going to outline my key points for my presentation before I actually put it together.


PSYCHOLOGICAL GESTURE

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL GESTURE?

# Michael Chekhov - first coined the term. Believes a character's psychology to consists of thoughts, feelings and the will (character's objective and motivation). A psychological gesture is a movement that expresses all of that at once.

# Preparation for Actors - a method to help actors get into character. Remind class of the 'my heart is broken' exercise by Ed Hooks and briefly run through it again. (Was going to have class participation but we did the exercise as a class last week so no need.) Doing this can produce a much more natural and powerful performance.

# Preparation for Animators - as animators, we tend of over-gesture, feeling the need to illustrate every word.

"Gestures do not always have to be illustrations of the spoken word. A gesture can express an inner emotional state that might even be in contrast to what the character is saying. A psychological gesture like this can be a powerful tool." ~ Ed Hooks

By using exercises such as the one from Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators book, animators can really get into the character they're animating and tone down the gestures. Enabling them to animate a not only more convincing character but a much more powerful performance. A small gesture can say much more about what the character is really thinking than a big gesture which can hide it.

# Atmosphere - Michael Chekhov also used atmosphere in a conceptual way. He believed that the atmosphere can affect the kind of gestures a character may make. Different places have different atmospheres (a character would act differently if they were on the scene of an accident to if they were in their best friend's kitchen - their behaviour would adjust). Even people have atmospheres. A happy person can bring a different atmosphere into a room than an angry one. My own dad is an example.

CLIP #1: JACK NICHOLSON: JACK NAPIER/JOKER

*show clip*



# Relationship - Carl Grissom is a crime boss who controls the city. Jack Napier is Carl Grissom's second in command. Jack was having an affair with Carl's mistress.

# Before - what happened before this scene. Jack Napier was set up by his boss (sent him to raid a factory, tipped off the police to get him arrested) over an affair with his mistress. Jack was knocked into a vat of chemicals after being struck in the face by a deflected bullet (deflected by Batman).

# The Presence - Joker blatantly pissed off with boss. Walks towards him in intervals, with one hand behind his back and the other by his side (hands behind back = power and confidence, exposes vulnerable parts. Good for posture and opens up airways = gain more energy, feel more confident). Voice is calm but has venom to it, projected to fill the room.

# The Gesture - A small flick of the arm by his side. He stops walking and tenses a bit. Keeping control of himself and situation, however he allows himself to hit boss with the word. Flick of the arm like a mini-hitting gesture or crack of a whip. Wants to the word to sting, as it stings Jack to know he is being put beneath a woman.

An over gesture, for example, would be to slash at the air (wanting to slash at Carl), point aggressively at Carl (accusing and directing all his anger at him).

Instead, this gesture reveals that Jack is bursting with rage, momentarily betray his calmness up to this point. However, he easily returns to his calm composure which is why I say he 'allows' himself this burst, a moment's divulgance to utter rage. It was probably intentional to make Carl feel threatened.


**EDIT** Added next clip and other half of presentation key points.

CLIP 2: TOY STORY: WOODY.

*Show clip*



# Relationships - Bo-Peep is Woody's love interest, the feelings are mutual. Buzz and Woody are rivals for Andy's affection.

# Before - What happened before this scene. Woody has seemingly been replaced by Buzz Lightyear as Andy's favourite toy. Woody has just spent the night in the toy chest (previously he would spend nights on Andy's bed) and has just awoken to see Buzz reveal his ink branding given to him by Andy.

# Presence - Woody used to have an important presence in Andy's Room, a sort of leader position. He would call staff meetings and make sure everything is running smoothly. However, since Buzz arrived, Woody's influence seems to be becoming smaller as the toys and Andy pay more attention to Buzz.

# The Gesture - Flustering of the hands. When spoken to by Bo-Peep, he startles and immediately starts looking for a place to put his hands. He speaks calmly but can't get a sentence out, losing control of himself as he seems to have with the situation with Buzz (he has previously tried to downplay Buzz's features and turn the other toys away from him, at which he has failed).

Woody generally over-gestures a lot, in my opinion, particularly when he's angry or frustrated. I don't know if that is intentional as he is a toy but there's not much build up to his big gestures. I suppose this could be considered over gesturing still, as his hands could be making smaller movements. On the other hand though, these are HIS small movements, I think it could be part of his character to move a lot.

The gestures could be bigger though. He could shift his weight more, he could have put his hands near his face or on the back of his neck, he could complete all the gestures he tried to do. He could have acted more startled or obviously bothered instead of as calm as he tried to be.

This gesture reveals the state of his mind when Bo-Peep catches him looking at his shoe. The panic of his hands reflect the panic of his thoughts. His hands trying to find a place to be shows us he is trying to find control of himself and some composure, as to show Bo-Peep he's not 'letting it get to him'.

COMPARISON OF THE CLIPS

# Rivals - The only similarity between these clips is watching a how two different characters deal with a rival. Woody is trying to look cool and not threatened by Buzz, staying in his character. The Joker on the other hand, does not feel threatened and outright kills his rival.

# Control - The scenes were both had an issue of control/dominance. The Joker had control of the scenario. He was not threatened at any point but he did allow himself to release anger in a short, controlled burst. Though it was an explosion of emotion, the Joker did not lose any control over the situation. Refer to presence.
Woody however, has lost control at this point. He ruled the roost previously but now the toys barely hold him in any high regard any more, a few make fun of him to his face. He has lost respect because the toys think he's jealous of Buzz and therefore lost the leadership position he once had. He reflects this by losing control of his body language to Bo-Peep, he doesn't want her to see his weakness. Refer to presence.


IN CONCLUSION: ACTORS VS ANIMATORS

# Preparation - As explained before, Actors use psychological gesture exercises to help them get really into their character, understand their character's psychology. They keep to their character's psychologies and draw gestures from that.
Animators use it much in the same way, though not necessarily through exercises but through sketching and exploring the characters they have to animate.

# Performance - By understanding the characters, particularly the way they think, what they feel and what their objectives are, both Actor and Animators are able to create more powerful performances. Drawing subtle and psychological gestures shows the audience better than they can be told what the character is thinking and feeling.

Psychological Gesture 3

It's hard trying to decide on what clips to analyse for this presentation. Especially as I need to find suitable for analysis and comparison.

I've decided to have a look at Jack Nicholson's Jack Napier/Joker character from Batman (1989). The Joker is one of my favourite villians because he's impulsive, unpredictable, obsessive and truly insane. I chose a Jack Nicholson character because it is said his acting is influenced by Michael Chekhov's psychological gesture method.

In the scene I'm about to post, we, the audience, know that Jack Napier (the character Jack Nicholson is playing for that character turns into the Joker) has been set up by his boss, Carl Grissom, over Jack's affair with his mistress. Jack was sent to raid a chemical factory, the police were tipped off and attempt to arrest him. Batman arrives at the scene in his aim to establish himself as a vigilante. He deflects a bullet fired by Jack, which strikes him in the face and knocks him into a huge vat of chemical. Joker later emerges from said vat.



The part of this clip that I want to concentrate on is Jack/Joker's entrance into his now ex-boss' office.
We know that Jack is, understandably, pissed off. The only reason he would be back at the office is for revenge, which is exactly his aim here. He wants to get his own back on Carl for setting him up. This scene is also important as it is the introduction of the Joker, as this will be the first time the audience sees his face after the accident.

So Jack enters the scene. The end of the room he is in is dark. There is light coming from the door behind him and there's light where Carl is standing (other end of the room in front of his desk), however it is not enough to reveal Jack's face. Carl thinks he is someone else, calling them 'sugarbumps' but Jack replies in humour 'It's me, sugarbumps.' Carl recognises Jack's voice and awkwardly feigns relief that he is alive and is about to say what he had heard when Jack finishes the sentence for him with 'Fried?'

Jack is clearly dominating the scene here. He squarely walks closer and closer to Carl every time he speaks. Carl's voice fails him a bit when he tries to say what he has heard so Jack takes up the verbal space by daring to say he was killed with dark humour, filling the mostly empty space between them with confidence and threat. His presense is large and dangerous and growing more so, setting up the audience for a murder scene.

Jack tells Carl what he did - 'You set me up over a woman'. Jack's not asking, he knows Carl was responsible and is telling him. His shadow is increasing in power and dominance. Jack repeats 'woman!' louder and with more venom. He stops walking and flicks his arm slightly as he shouts 'woman!'. The flicking of the arm is the psychological gesture. Jack Nicholson allows his character to unleash his anger for a second but is keeping control of himself and the situation. An over-gesture, for example, would be to have Jack slash the air with the arm by his side or aggressively point at Carl, accusing and directing his anger at him. But instead, Jack flicks his arm as if flicking a small whip; he still wants the word to sting. He still puts the energy he would have used in a more extreme gesture into his voice though, emphasising the word 'woman' ("bro's before hoes" as they say. Either way, jack is clearly angry to be pushed aside as he sees himself being more worthy than said woman, he is the second-in-command after all). He finishes with: 'You must be insane' and chuckles, returning to the tone he had before.

This is all I want to show up to.
Carl tries to gain some power back by drinking his drink and pretending to get another, reaching for his gun. Jack tells him not to bother and pulls out the gun he'd been hiding behind his back the whole time. Carl tries to intimidate Jack and re-gain some power/control by telling him his life isn't even worth spit. Jack calmly replies that he's been killed already and found it rather liberating, downplaying Carl's threat by making it seem a pleasant experience. He takes more steps forward, holding the gun at Carl, swallowing Carl's attempt at a threat. Carl instead tries to bargain with Jack, calling him by his name. Jack merely tells him that Jack is dead and, stepping into the light revealing his face, tells Carl he can call him Joker.

Joker then proceeds to shot Carl over a circus soundtrack. Accomplishing this aim, Joker finds a new one; Batman.

Psychological Gesture 2

Yesterday, our tutor touched on psychological gesture in her tutorial.

It pretty much confirmed what I thought it might have been in a post or two ago.

Actors use psychological gesture to help them get into the role of the character they are playing. They do it through exercises such as the Ed Hooks one I put in the previous post.

As animators, we tend to over gesture (I am very guilty of this) so using psychological gestures helps us tone down the animation and get the essence of the performance into it instead.

For the two clips I need for my presentation, I'm actually thinking of using one of my previous animations where over gesturing was particularly bad (as animated clip) and either shooting another reference shot of what it could have been using psychological gesture or finding the original clip that shows the acting with the audio clip I used. I'll have to find the original clip first so I'll have to ask our previous tutor if she remembers where she got it.

Psychological Gesture

Is confusing.

I've been reading/watching bits and pieces of the internet, looking through books and researching the man that coined the term 'Psychological Gesture' and it's still pretty difficult to understand.
However, I'm going to give it a shot.

It was Michael Chekhov that first coined the term 'psychological gesture. He was a Russian-American actor, author, director and theatre practitioner. He wrote a book called On The Technique of Acting in which he describes his acting techniques. PG seems to be one way of helping the actor (or actress) explore their character and act mannerisms and such with accordance. His techniques have been used by actors/actress' such as Marilyn Monroe and Clint Eastwood and his work has influenced actors Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp and Anthony Hopkins.

Ed Hooks' book Acting for Animators explains that "Gestures do not always have to be illustrations of the spoken word. A gesture can express an inner emotional state that might even be in contrast to what the character is saying. A psychological gesture like this can be a powerful tool."
A human's sense of sight is much more sensitive (and therefore powerful) than its sense of hearing, so it is important to consider what to show the audience more than what you tell them.
Ed Hooks also says that "new animators too often create over-gesticulation because they are trying to put a gesture with every single word. This puts dialogue on a pedestal that it really does not deserve". I am completely guilty of this and I understand why my tutor thought it would be good for me to research. And I agree, I do need to use less big gestures and I think I need to really consider the subtle and psychological gestures that a character can show to enhance his performance rather than using big gestures to illustrate what he's saying. Basically I need to think about what the character is thinking and they're really feeling on the inside.

"One important question is whether the PG is ever visible to the audience. Chekhov's writings often suggest that it should be invisible, although this appears to some extent to depend on the style of performance undertaken, and Chekhov uses the term to refer to 'visible (actual) gestures as well as to invisible (potential) gestures'." ~ 'Michael Chekhov', Franc Chamberlain.

So a psychological gesture can really be anything a character does that reflects his/her wants, thoughts and feelings. It includes body language.  Ed Hooks says "Have you ever noticed  someone  who wrings their hands a lot while talking? That's a psychological gesture. A bully who punches someone in the chest with his finger? That's a psychological gesture." He mentions that Gollum from 'Lord of the Rings' is constantly making psychological gestures and that this may be because Andy Serkis (the actor that played him) is classically trained.

Here are some videos I found on Youtube that talk about Andy Serkis and his performances as Gollum:







Gollum has a lot of idiosyncrasies (peculiar behaviour of a character, could be called odd habits or quirks) and speaks with illeism (refers to himself in the third person). Schizophrenic is not quite the right description of his mental state as schizophrenic people do not have split personalities, that is Multiple Personality Disorder (or DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder). Andy Serkis describes Gollum as two personalities, Smeagol who is happy, trusting and whimsical and Gollum who is the hard survivor and makes Smeagol feel small and weak. They conflict with each other with Gollum usually winning because they need to survive and Smeagol doesn't have the strength in him to lead. Though (from what I know of, I'm not a doctor and what I say may not be 100% - Disclaimer!) it's still not quite Multiple Personality Disorder, Andy has used these influences to portray Gollum's mental distress and inner conflict through adopting some mannerisms that schizophrenic and DID people sometimes display.
In the particular scene they talk about in the videos, Gollum is arguing with himself. Or rather Smeagol is arguing with Gollum. They differentiate the personalities not only by the performance but by the camera angle too. One side is Smeagol and the other is Gollum. The character literally swings between personalities using his head which could be considered a psychological gesture as its not only showing the audience who is talking but that the character is disturbed and believing he is seeing and talking to another. The performance is enhanced by the two personalities' performances. Smeagol's mannerism are lighter and positive. His facial expressions range between really happy, upset or distressed but always gentle and his pupils are generally more dilated making him appear 'cuter'. Gollum is cruel, sharp and harsh, his pupils are noticeably smaller which gives him a fierce and piercing stare that frightens Smeagol. He usually holds himself up above the level Smeagol usually holds himself to maintain dominance until Smeagol gains confidence and therefore control.

Ed Hooks also mentioned Wybie from Coraline having a lot of psychological gestures, mostly a mix of self doubt and uncertainty:



Psychological gestures can also be verbal. Ed Hooks describes an exercise to demonstrate this:

"Consider the word 'broken' in the sentence 'My heart is broken.' If you had to non-verbally express the feeling behind that word, what would you do?... I'm talking about how the word 'broken' feels. With your hands down by your side - no gesture at all - say that line out loud: 'My heart is broken.'... Now, with no words, pretend you are forcefully breaking a stick with your hands. Can you feel the underlying impulse? do not break the stick simply because I told you to. Break it on your own, perhaps starting with the impulse that springs from the pain of a personal loss. Break it out of exasperation or frustration... Now, once again say the line aloud, breaking the stick simultaneously. Get the stick to break at the precise moment you say the word 'broken'. Notice how much stronger the line sounds, how much more powerful it feels? Now, try speaking the line aloud while breaking the stick internally. You can do anything with your hands except break the stick. The line will be stronger than it was the first time you said it aloud. Amazing, huh?"

Yes I tried this exercise myself and believe I see (or hear!) the difference. I may steal this exercise for my presentation on this subject as it might be more interesting and easier to understand.

So in conclusion, psychological gestures are effectively mannerisms of a character. They can be anything that reflects the inner thoughts and feelings of a character from a physical gesture, like covering your mouth with your hand, to subtle gestures such as someone's eyes briefly flicking away and returning to someone they've just lied to, to a verbal gesture like the one just described above. They can strengthen what a character is saying or conflict with it.

Phew! Long post is long!

Books Used:
Acting Characters: Simple Steps... Paul Elsam
Acting Characters: Essential Steps... Paul Elsam
Michael Chekhov... Frank Chamberlain