← All courses3D track · Course 6 · Live course in English · Autodesk Maya
06
Body and face together, in a complete shot with dialogue.
With body mechanics and facial animation now in hand, the sixth course brings them together in a full-figure shot. You study how face and body support each other, choose an audio track for a dialogue or a monologue with your instructors, and go deeper into the acting choices that make animation believable and finished down to the detail.
Prerequisite · Facial Acting, or an equivalent level assessed by the teaching board
Maximum 5 students per classIndividual review, 20–30 minA complete full-figure shot
Before you enrol
Student work
A selection of work made during Advanced Acting.
The programme
The whole term goes into one complete acting shot. The programme follows the phases of a production, from audio analysis to the final polish, with an individual review on every hand-in.
1Phase
You choose the track with your instructors and take it apart: who is speaking, what they want, what they are not saying. You shoot the video reference, decide framing and staging, and build the layout of the shot.
Choosing and reading the audioVideo referenceStagingLayout
2Phase
The key poses that tell the shot on their own. Every golden pose has to read in a single frame: attitude, intention, the character's relation to the space and to whoever it is speaking to.
Key posesReadabilityIntention
3Phase
Between one golden pose and the next the story gets built: breakdowns, anticipation, transitions. This is where acting choices turn into rhythm.
BreakdownsTransitionsThe rhythm of acting
4Phase
Body and face are animated together and hold each other up. Lip sync is woven into the expressions and the movement of the body, and never takes over the performance.
BlockingSpliningFace and bodyLip sync
9–11Weeks
The last three weeks go into polishing: arcs, contacts, the detail of the hands and the eyes, breath. The shot is refined up to the final hand-in.
PolishingDetailFinal delivery
What you take away
Advanced Acting closes the six main courses: by the end you can develop a complete acting shot, from audio analysis to the final polish, following a workflow built on the main phases of production.
How you study
Two live sessions a week: the class, given to the subject and to the work you are about to do, and the review, where the instructor spends twenty to thirty minutes on each student's work. Classes hold between two and five students.
Outside the classes you need around twenty hours a week for exercises, reference and practice of your own. Recordings, annotations and materials stay available after the course ends. The days and times of your class are told to you before you enrol.
How Vivo worksCharacters and tools
A full-figure shot with dialogue needs rigs complete in both body and face. Margherita, with her advanced facial rig, and Paul, the main male character, suit very different roles; Ruben is built for advanced acting shots.
Vivo's characters are made specifically for the courses and stay available to you after the course ends.
Along with Maya you also get a licence for animBot, the professional animation toolset, for the whole length of the course.
See all of Vivo's rigs and characters
Maya included for the whole length of the course. On completion you receive a certificate of attendance from Autodesk.
When it starts
Next term: Autumn — classes from October to December, enrolment closes on 24 September. Classes of two to five students.
The exact days and times depend on the class and are told to you before you enrol, so you can check them before confirming your place. Our instructors work in different time zones, so a class is scheduled around the instructor teaching it and the students in it. All the dates of the year are in the enrolment calendar. If you did not take course 5 with Vivo, allow time for the showreel assessment before enrolling.
Questions
Yes, if you already have the level it asks for. If you have not finished Facial Acting with Vivo, send your showreel: the teaching board looks at it and tells you which course fits. The call with one of the founders is where we work out where you are starting from.
Facial Acting works on the face: expressions, phonemes, lip sync and changes of emotion. Advanced Acting puts face and body together in a complete full-figure shot, with dialogue or a monologue.
You decide with your instructors, when you choose the audio track. Either way you are working on a complete performance: audio analysis, acting choices, golden poses, blocking, splining and polish.
Advanced Acting is the sixth and last of the main courses. After it you can go on with the Pro courses, Action Pro and Acting Pro, which have no theory and are given entirely to building a shot for your showreel.
Expressions, phonemes, lip sync and a spoken shot: making a complex character's face act.
Course 7 · next →The first Pro course: no theory, an action shot for your showreel built with continuous reviews.
Where you come in
If you did not take Facial Acting with Vivo, send us your showreel. The teaching board looks at your level, and the call is where we go through your goals, your availability and the path, so we can find the course that matches what you can already do.