This week’s focus was on starting to perform certain actions ourselves to use as reference. It’s important to understand the essence of acting — to feel the emotional shifts like a real actor and reflect them through both body and facial expressions.

In doing so, we need to follow the three core principles of animated acting:
Clarity, Sincerity, and Simplicity.

Planning

Following the brief, I created a character and gave them a simple backstory, along with a specific situation they’re currently facing. This helped me better immerse myself in the role and stay emotionally connected during the performance.

I designed the character as a reluctant middle manager who has no choice but to take responsibility for his subordinates.

Performance and Recording

The reference I filmed went through multiple iterations and a gradual process of refinement. Through this experience, I also deepened my understanding of animated acting and how to convey emotion more effectively.

The first version was relatively rough and included some common acting mistakes — for example, the character moved too close to the camera, as if addressing the lens directly rather than speaking to another person. This broke the illusion of the scene and weakened the overall sense of context.

This version also lacked emotional variation, so I needed to show more emotional shifts in the later iterations.

In the second version, the overall context felt more appropriate, but the emotional transitions could have been signaled more clearly — for example, through a blink or other subtle cues. During the performance, I also needed to ensure that the character’s gaze stayed focused on the imagined person, even during larger physical movements.

The final version addressed all the previous issues and is now ready to be used as the final reference.