ASIFA Creative League

Saturday I had the great pleasure of attending a meeting of the ASIFA Creative League, a group of people who work in or are fans of animation that meet bi-weekly to watch and discuss animated films. The topic of discussion on Saturday was Acting for Animation, and we had a terrific program picked out by Steve Worth, the director of the ASIFA Animation Archive.

We began by watching some silent movies, including Chaplin. Most animators of the golden age have admitted to borrowing heavily from Chaplin when it comes to pantomimic performance. We also watched some films that seem to have good animation acting, but actually let the music and the color of the scene do the work. We're looking at you Dumbo.



We completed the program by watching a scene starring John Barrymore in a film called Twentieth Century, which I had never seen. It features some pretty amazing acting by Mr. Barrymore, and I immediately added the movie to the top of my Netflix cue when I got home. After that scene we watched a Warner Bros. short starring Bugs Bunny, comparing Bugs' performance to John Barrymore's

Animators are often called actors with pencils, and watching Bugs Bunny's performance right next to one of the greatest actor's of all time like that really made it clear how talented those golden age animators actually were. Bugs' performance is just as deft and just as captivating. Though, I don't think Bugs Bunny's drinking problem was quite as bad.

For more information about the ASIFA Creative League, visit animationarchive.org and be sure to join them on Facebook as well.

CG