..:: avneriginal ::.. Avner Engel’s Animation Workbook

Attending the Ed Hooks master class was an amazing experience. It was like watching an iron chef preparing his most famous dish.

His passion about his craft is so captivating, it makes you feel mesmerised. The breakdown of the acting component in animation was fascinating, inspiring and very “flavoursome”. It’s one of those dishes that leaves you with the most incredible after taste.

The “recipe” consisted of some important acting principles followed by examples from various films such as Chaplin’s “Gold Rush”, Miazaki’s “Spirited Away” and many more. He showed us some brilliant demonstrations of power centres and explained what they are. I had to do a walk cycle of someone his power centre is in his groin (which was pretty funny!). We spent a little bit of time discussing the face and the seven emotions humans do. Then later, he showed us some of Paul Ekman’s work as a reference. Last but not least he did some scene deconstruction based on one of the books he wrote.

Overall I can honestly say his “dish” was very well made. It had a secret ingredient called love. You could really sense that he is so into what he does by the way he pays attention to detail. It was a unique experience which I highly recommend everyone to do if the opportunity may arise.