Disclaimer: Lately I don’t get much of a chance to discuss about animation and acting so I figured I might discuss here on the blog, an “out-loud thinking” if you will. These are merely some of my observations and things that stick to my mind about acting and animation so none of it should be taken as if “set on stone”.

A few weeks ago, I got to watch Micmacs directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and I tell ya, it was a fantastic movie. It was a great story with rich characters and amazing visual style. I don’t know if it’s the French or not, but it also had some very very interesting acting choices so I jotted down a few.

In the scene above, main character Bazil gets to meet the “mother figure” of the Micmacs, Tambouille. She’s cooking so trying not to shake hands, she leans her elbow forward which was something I’ve never seen before but felt quite genuine. I guess that means I’ve seen something similar beforehand so I could relate.

And there was another scene which I thought was very original and oddly entertaining. Below is Bazil whilst homeless, running after a street cleaning car and trying to use it’s water to wash his feet. What a brilliant idea to create interesting pacing (scenes prior were a bit subtle).

When I was looking through to see some other examples of interesting acting choices that stood out, I realized there were a few characters within the movie who overacted quite a bit. So this got me to thinking, how overacting can actually be a character trait. Studying animation, original acting choices is something you hear quite a lot and overacting is usually a big “no-no”. But I realized the characters in Micmacs who were overacting (La Môme Caoutchouc & Calculette) did so in a very convincing way that it added to their characters. I put up some shots below by Calculette which are not necessarily crazy overacting but when done in animation, would’ve most likely been criticized. But I do believe that in Calculette’s situation, this type of acting adds quite a bit to her playful and emotional character, which is almost child-like. Anyhoo, it’s something to think about. Again, watch the movie if you haven’t already.

Over and out.