Subtle vs. Low Energy - Part 1

Hey there, how's it going?

Class Six keeps me very busy, so I probably won't be posting as often in the upcoming two months.

You might remember that I worked on a brand new shot during break week and I was looking forward to hear what my new Mentor Kenny Roy thinks about it, as I feel like it's my most intense shot in the acting department to date.



Pity, I'm not allowed to work on it at AM as we are supposed to work only on the assignments we worked on with a mentor.
That's by the way the reason why the shot didn't progress, it still needs a lot of polish. But it looks like when I solved this riddle about Subtle vs. Low energy, I'll be starting over anyways, so I'll just leave it for now;)

Well, anyway, Kenny was kind enough to leave me with some notes. One thing he mentioned is still stuck with me and I haven't been able to wrap my head around it so far. He said that the shot is rather low energy than subtle. Whaaat? Isn't subtle the same as quiet and still? Apparently not! I'm still diving into this subject and I'll be sharing what I come to understand about the subject in the coming weeks.

Here's the notes I took from his feedback:
"Shot has some fundamental problems: It looks like low energy or subdued instead of subtle. A chair usually cuts the energy in half, you would have to go a lot broader with his movements to get high energy. Advice: have him stand up, put secondary action in there, i.e. have him hold his helmet and maybe have him rub over a dent with the thumb."
The shot was a candidate for my one person acting piece back in class four, so I had done all the preparation already. I had a first pass of taking reference where I was to include secondary action while he was holding his helmet and fiddled around with it. But then I decided to boil the performance down to it's core. The core to me, is this man, who is not able to see his kids anymore and how he's devastated about it. We have a huge story unfolding there. This man IS low energy! If you take a look at the original acting footage in the Wallstreet sequel (I couldn't find any footage online, unfortunately), you'll find that although Michael Douglas may be standing at the window, he doesn't move an inch during the whole scene. He keeps his hands in his pockets, maybe a shoulder shrug here and there. One pose.
It's the second time I'm getting a note that I should avoid a sitting character in shot. Well, if he's having a hard time, he most likely won't have the energy to move around and do stuff while expressing his emotional state. It's like cartoons aren't allowed to rest and be still at all!
I do understand that a cartoon's purpose is to entertain, but why would you turn a quiet moment into hyperdrive-mode?

I wrote an e-mail to Ed Hooks, the author of Acting for Animators about this and asking for his opinion and advice as well. I'm looking forward to hear from him and hopefully I'll be able to share some parts of his answer with you in a future post.
Meanwhile I'll be trying to find out myself and do some research. I'll get back to you as soon as I know more ;)

I'll be glad to hear your comments and thoughts!
Thanks & take care
C