← All courses3D track · Course 4 · Live course in English · Autodesk Maya
04
Acting without words: intention travels through the body.
With Pantomime the work moves from the mechanics of the body to acting. You study how a character's acting choices change the way its intentions and feelings read, and you learn to carry them with posing, gesture, rhythm and attitude, without dialogue. For the first time you use characters with a simple facial rig, and you build a pantomime shot of your own.
Prerequisite · Body Action, or an equivalent level assessed by the teaching board
Maximum 5 students per classIndividual review, 20–30 minA pantomime shot of your own
Before you enrol
Student work
A selection of work made during Pantomime.
The programme
The course opens with a short exercise on changing expression and gives the rest of the term to a pantomime shot of your own, developed with your instructor step by step.
1–2Weeks
The first exercise is a take — a character's reaction to something it sees or works out. It is the most direct way to work on clear posing, anticipation and how the intention reads, and to get used to a simple facial rig.
TakeClear posingAnticipationSimple facial rig
2Phase
You choose and plan a pantomime shot with your instructor: what the character wants, what it feels, how it shows that without words. Video reference, thumbnails and golden poses, then blocking and splining, with an individual review on every hand-in.
Acting choicesVideo referenceGolden posesBlockingSplining
3Phase
The last weeks go into polishing: arcs, rhythm, contacts, the detail of the face and the hands. The shot is refined up to the final hand-in.
PolishingRhythm and appealFinal delivery
What you take away
After Pantomime you can make it clear what a character is thinking and feeling without a single line. It is the bridge between body mechanics and the dialogue acting of the courses that follow.
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
In Pantomime you use characters with a simple facial rig: enough to support the acting of the body with a look or an expression, without yet taking on full facial animation, which comes with Facial Acting.
Luca and Mario are the rigs built for body mechanics and pantomime exercises: simple shapes, suited to stylised performance and quick to control. Vivo's characters 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 3 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 Body Action 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.
In part. For the first time you use characters with a simple facial rig, to support the body's acting with a look and a few essential expressions. Full facial animation, with lip sync, is the subject of the next course, Facial Acting.
No. The course teaches you to think about a character's acting choices — what it wants, what it feels, how it shows that — and to turn them into poses and movement. You shoot your own video reference, but no acting experience is needed.
Yes. In Pantomime the personal exercise takes up nearly the whole term, so the shot that comes out of it is complete and polished. The shots that decide a studio application are still the ones from the Pro courses, but an acting shot without dialogue is a piece a reel needs.
Weight, balance, force and collisions: the character interacts with objects and builds an action shot.
Course 5 · next →Expressions, phonemes and lip sync: making a complex character's face act on audio you choose.
Where you come in
If you did not take Body Action 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.