Ed Hooks

After working as a professional actor for 27 years and teaching professional-level acting for 15 or so years, I was invited in 1996 to teach an acting class for the animators at DreamWorks/PDI in Palo Alto, California. They were working on a movie entitled "Antz", which would turn out to be only the second CG movie ever made. The first was "Toy Story" I had landed at a transitional point for the animation industry, and what happened there literally changed my life. It was at DreamWorks/PDI that I learned how animators perceive and apply acting theory, which is markedly different from the way that stage and movie actors do it. Given a green light by studio executives, I experimented with ways to teach acting theory specifically to animators, and the result was what today is explained in my book "Acting for Animators, revised 3rd edition" published 2011 by Routledge.

Even I am amazed by the journey I have taken with animators. There have been many thousands of students, the majority of them working pros, in studios and schools from L.A. to Sydney to Beijing, Singapore, Germany and India -- and many more cities. My Acting for Animators master class is now a respected and popular part of the animation industry.

This is an incredibly exciting time for the animation industry. It has been less than 20 years since "Toy Story" was released. Look at how far animation has advanced. Now try to imagine where it might be 20 years from now. Amazing.