ECONOMY OF MOTION (PART 2)

This is a post about economy of movement, the idea that all screen movement should have a specific purpose, and that superfluous movement should be avoided. By way of a negative example, here's (above) a speaker whose gestures are overwrought and distracting. Actually, it's kinda funny if you only watch for a minute or two. Repeating the same exaggerated gesture over and over is a good way to convey nervousness.



Here's an example (above) of the opposite: Madeline Kahn delivers her monologue beautifully when she's stiff as a board with only slight movement of the body. Most of the acting is in the face. I love face acting.

Here's an example (above and below) that combines minimalism with maximalism. The gestures are flamboyant at the same time they're pose-to-pose. It works great! Geez, I remember the first time I saw this. I nearly fell out of my chair.

Economy of motion is a powerful technique. John used it in Ren and Stimpy with  devastating effect. Even so, the wrong person might take it too far. I'm thinking of the acting class where the student lost points because he gestured with his hand when he spoke the line: "Why don't you sit down and take a load off your feet?" Purists would say that he should have indicated the chair with a simple nod of the head.

Haw! Minimalists hate hands. Actors are sometimes told to think of their hands as mittens without individual fingers. The theory is that splaying the fingers would call too much attention to them.

A purist would never get up out of a chair the way many people do, by leaning forward and pushing up off the knees. A purist gets up by simply...standing. It takes a bit of practice but purists like it because doing it smooth like that makes the act unobtrusive. After all, for them the dialogue is the important thing. The body is just a delivery system.

Even better (for the minimalists) is if the stander puts his hands in his pockets as he rises. That gets the despised hands out of the way. When the stand is completed the actor immediately begins to walk...no dawdling! No hand gestures!

So what's the Theory Corner take on all this? I love doing things with hands so minimizing them is probably not in the cards for me, but it's a fascinating idea, especialy when applied to secondary characters. I'm dying to have some excuse to play with it.

BTW: I knock motion theorists here but some of them are about putting interesting motion into an act, rather than taking it out. I'll write about them in a seperate post.