Your performance must soar - if it just kinda hovers, it's not gonna... wait for it... fly, lol.

Jokes aside, a really solid performance comes in various forms. I remember a short video from Finding Nemo's BHS (behind the scenes) and the animator that did Dori's animation for the shot where they think Nemo's gone and Marlin leaves her to go home, he pulled out all the stops to make it as personal as he can and the director still wanted more. I was like, REALLY?! Guess that's why he was the director there and I was not, but I could see when the animator documented his feelings about before going to screening, it did not look like he had more to give, tbh... I don't know what he adjusted to make the director happy, but we all know the final shot was incredibly moving.

So, as amateurs, let's just kinda scope out what a performance is and how we can enhance it. Since it's just me talking, I have no one else but myself to use as an example, lol.

When I recorded my first voice over demos I really loved the result and honestly, gave it my all, BUT, if I listen to some of them today, while the quality holds up, I feel like the performances do not. Why? Because I've learned to add more inflection - ie a greater range of pitches to liven it up. Before it wasn't bad, but quite monotonous, if that makes sense.

When it comes to animation, what makes a good performance? Well, it comes in layers. Let me explain:

 - We have to believe the character is alive (for the purpose of the story let's assume this to mean something that has movement of it's own accord - very broad definition)

 - Reactive motion (ie, the character is in a specific environment - if cold, some shivering makes sense, if something hot is in the scene and they don't require heat, they'll move away)

 - Body Language - Does this person/character talk with their arms or body a lot? Think of Buck from Ice Age 3 or the octopus from Finding Dori.

 - Expressions - All in the face and posture

 - Mechanical motion - walk cycles, breathing, lipsync, etc - technical details if you will.

Now, if an animator can connect to the material and they've filmed themselves being real with the shot (whether goofy, happy, sad, funny, angry or serious), that needs to translate through and with all the technical details. I think this is where something shifted with 3D animation, to where the emotion can now be placed much more on the eyes and other fine details, where in 2D, it was all in vocal body language, rhythm, poses and camera work + environmental details.

So then, knowing all this, how do we get better? Well, as the title suggests, you gotta learn by doing!

I have produced all my own demos and 2 short stories and the tutorials, vlogs, etc. That's a lot of talking and presenting and practice - not to mention everything I've auditioned for and and and. I've cried to the LORD many times around the tutorials to help me speak better, so the editing process wouldn't be such a valley of "uhms" hahaha. How did it improve? BY DOING!

Andrew Price did a dare, where he had to learn 2D drawing by a certain time (determined success was in the amount of likes for a specific piece) and he said that simply doing it a lot is not going to help you improve - in fact, it can actually be detrimental, because we need focused practice.

How does that look in our context. Let's take animation for an example, but we can apply some basic questions to this process:

The standard I'm aiming for is Pixar and better with an anime style of my own.

Nowhere near that, but making progress.

For Genesis 1 - sound, modelling and animation all needed work. Rendering and scene handling too. I had to learn what can my computer handle and what can't it, to start upping the standard. Also needed to get to know Blender better.

For Esther 6 - ANIMATE THE HANDS!!! Don't skip on the details! They matter! Crowds are better as full 3D models with simple animation. Use particles for additional modelling capacity.

For Exodus 7-12 - Walk cycles and interactive animation. Hand offs and walking is not as high quality as it needs to be. Work on massive open scene rendering to up the proper usage of details to get details where needed. Crowd control and period piece functionality is extremely important. Add more capacity for characters to emote more complex scenarios and do a much more complex composite so the plagues and warnings can be much more entertaining. Also volume rendering for the destroyer - HUGE issue as well as large scale fires and disaster.

You can only see these things if you are willing to be honest with yourself and do the best you can. Some people will tell you that you are just being too hard on yourself and you do need to be careful that you don't insult your work. You'll notice I never said "this sucked!" or "that was awful!" or "my old stuff makes me wanna puke!"

Every piece of feedback was objective and focused on improvement, not insulting myself. Most people who are not in such an overtly creative field, can't tell the difference, so be the one that can and set the bar for yourself extra high, but be someone that loves the work you do as well. Your own biggest fan and your own biggest critic (not bully, critic!, there is a difference).

I always pray about these things so the LORD helps me just kinda notice it without really trying to find issues.

Now, let's bring this to a performance:

Incredible demos and delivery that makes me believe it through and through - regardless of what the read is!

Solid performance, but I need to have more character on-script, like I do off-script. I have to be able to deliver both consistently.

Character on-script. Everything is not a commercial or an audiobook and the performance has to show that. While I am getting much better at this through making demos, I still need more flex and star quality, which comes from that solid delivery. To improve on this, I need to make more projects and participate wherever I am invited to, to get that experience. Actors often talk about getting into the mind of the character and research helps with that! A LOT!

See, again, not bashing; acknowledging and looking to improve.

NOW, on your own time and when you feel ready to, I would like for you to do this with whatever field you are. Whether you're an accountant, singer, businessman, marketing, HR, doesn't matter, your work and creativity and standard can come up without you working yourself to death, like seriously. Using these questions, really analyze and compare in a healthy way:

For you to improve, you might need to take a course, attend a convention, buy a book, etc. It's not the same for every profession, but I can tell you right now, by putting in the effort to examine and adjust, you have a MUCH higher chance of being super successful at what you do, than people who just white knuckle their way through life, hoping to stumble on improvement.

You could say this is the easier way to success - I promise you, it will not be easy, otherwise everyone would've done it, but seeing that improvement happen so organically, it is incredible!!! to say the least.

So again:

Have a great one!!

GOD bless you! (^^,)