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 If
you have ever seen a mime performance you would understand how
amazing it is to see a character tell a story without any words.
To be able to understand the emotion, feeling, and overall conversation
between characters without any sound leaving their lips. It is
times like those when you realize how important it is to understanding
how a character moves in order to bring a CG actor to life. It
is because of this incredible importance, that I contacted Lorin
to ask about his Mime Theatre Studio. I wanted to get a little
more in depth information about his classes and how an aspiring
animator can fully understand motion. So, without any further
delays, I would like to introduce you all to: Lorin Eric
Salm, the Character Movement for Animation Instructor
of Mime
Theatre Studio!
- Shadoukat
 “So
you’re going off to Paris for three years to study Mime.
Then what?” This was by far the most common question asked
of Lorin Eric Salm as he prepared for his move from Los Angeles
to France more than a decade ago. His answer: “I don’t
know yet, but I’m going there to study Mime with Marcel
Marceau. That’s like studying painting with Picasso. I’m
sure the training will be valuable no matter what I do.”
As an actor who had
been studying both Mime and traditional acting from his teens
through his B.A. in theatre, and who had both an affinity and
a talent for Mime, Lorin knew that his studies abroad would be
worthwhile. He also went there with the notion of wanting to teach
the art once he graduated from Marceau’s school, so he studied
it with an eye for how to transmit the techniques and dramatic
principles to others.
Just before
he left for Paris, a friend of a friend mentioned she had heard
that Walt Disney Feature Animation sometimes consulted with Mime
artists for their animation work. Though there were no more details
than that, her comment stuck in Lorin’s mind until he returned
to the U.S. He did some independent research into animation and
soon felt certain there were concepts from Theatrical Mime that
would be of interest to character animators, so he approached
Disney about creating workshops for their artists. Disney welcomed
the idea, and Lorin’s Character
Movement for Animation Workshops were born.
 Lorin
has continued to develop his workshops over the years, and during
this time has trained animators and story artists at Disney, both
as part of their internal Foundations of Disney Animation program,
and working with the teams that created the early, part-CGI feature
Dinosaur and their first in-house, full-CGI feature Chicken Little,
due out in theatres this November. He also taught the DreamWorks
Animation team for the original Shrek, animators from Rhythm &
Hues, student animators from Art Center College of Design, and
had an ongoing workshop at the Bridges Institute of Visual Arts
at CrainRoyer Studios.
It has been
said that animators are essentially “actors with a pencil”
(and nowadays, with a computer). An actor has only two means of
expression: words and movement. For an animated character that
is voiced by a live actor, the character’s movement is entirely
the domain of the animator, and so the animator must be a master
of the art of dramatic expression with the body. Alongside the
character’s words, in between them, and in their absence,
the character expresses volumes about his inner world. Just as
an actor must go beyond simply experiencing the thoughts and feelings
of a character for himself, the animator must know how to show
these invisible things to the audience. The art of Mime is about
“making the invisible visible,” and is thus well suited
to teaching the animator how to accomplish this essential task.
Animators who have
participated in Lorin’s workshops have found the study unique
amongst their animation training, and have enjoyed the opportunity
to participate in exercises, using their own bodies to understand
concepts of character movement and physical dramatic expression.
 In
addition to his Character Movement for Animation workshops that
he offers as private in-house training to animation studios, Lorin
teaches public Theatrical Mime workshops though Mime Theatre Studio,
which he founded in 2001. He also designs and coaches specialized
live actor movement for film, television, and theatrical productions.
With all his teaching, though, Lorin remains a performer first.
He appears in feature films and on television (in both speaking
and non-speaking roles!), and is a resident actor in the Ziggurat
Theatre Ensemble, a Los Angeles-based theatre company that
employs stylized movement in its all-original productions.
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