Advanced
Acting
Pro Animators Mentor You to Be Successful
Our mentors are the heart and soul of Animation Mentor: veteran studio animators from DreamWorks, Industrial Light & Magic, Animal Logic and beyond, who work with you 1:1 every week to elevate your performance work.
Why Take Advanced Acting at Animation Mentor
Personalized Mentorship
Our mentors are working professionals with years of experience under their belts, and they're passionate about training the next generation of animators. In this course, you will learn from your mentor in live sessions as they share insights about what studios are working on and what qualities they look for in an animator. Your mentor will work directly with you to grow your skills, sharing weekly 1:1 feedback and reviews to help you improve your animation.
Studio-Level Animation Tools & Assets
We teach our students how to work in a studio environment so they are ready for jobs when they graduate. This training starts day one, with exclusive access to professionally designed assets and character rigs. We ensure that you learn using the same tools and animation workflows that professionals use in their day-to-day work.
Live Weekly Q&As
Join weekly 1-hour live sessions with your mentor, on top of on-demand lectures and animation assignments. Bring your dialogue shots, get real-time feedback, and learn how veteran animators approach nuanced performance.
Ongoing Rig Access
Keep access to the Animation Mentor acting character rigs (including Aia, Jules, Mofa, Viktor, Quinn and Aristotle) so you can keep refining dialogue and performance shots for your reel long after class ends.
What You'll Be Able to Do
- Create shots that tie together complex acting choices, staging your performance to support the overall story and character arc
- Animate two-person dialogue shots that portray nuanced relationships between characters
- Find balance in your two-person shot by giving each character life while maintaining focus on the one narrative beat
- Dive deeper into subtext to understand how to reveal your character's internal thought process through your external acting choices
- Learn to create shots that run together to tell a cinematic story
- Push your acting and performance to portray complex emotion and relationship dynamics between both performers
Skills You'll Gain
Reel Pieces You'll Walk Away With
Advanced Acting is built around complex, multi-character performance work, each assignment polished into a reel-ready shot that shows studios you can carry a scene.
Two-Person Dialogue Shot
A nuanced two-character dialogue scene that portrays the relationship between both performers while keeping focus on the narrative beat.
Subtext & Performance Study
A performance that shows what the character is thinking before they say a word, the kind of layered work studios hire for.
Cinematic Scene Sequence
Shots that run together to tell a cinematic story, staged to support the overall arc and refined into a polished, reel-worthy sequence.
The Advanced Acting Curriculum
Complex Acting & Staging
Learn to create shots that tie together complex acting, staging your performance to support the overall story and character arc.
Move beyond single beats and into full performances that serve the story.
- Tying together complex acting choices
- Staging to support story and character arc
- Planning a performance, not just a pose
Two-Person Dialogue
Focus on two-person dialogue shots, pushing your acting to portray nuanced relationships between characters.
Animate two characters in conversation and give each one life.
- Two-person dialogue shots
- Balancing both performers around one narrative beat
Subtext & Internal Thought
Dive deeper into subtext to reveal your character's internal thought process through external acting choices.
Show what a character is thinking, not just what they're saying.
- Subtext and internal thought process
- External acting choices that reveal interior life
- Layered, believable performance
Cinematic Storytelling
Learn to create shots that run together to tell a cinematic story, refined and polished to a reel-ready finish.
Bring it all together into a cohesive cinematic sequence.
- Shots that run together to tell a story
- Cinematic staging and composition
- Refining and polishing to a reel-ready shot
Ready to Start Animating?
Advanced Acting is a 12-week, mentor-led course. Apply at Animation Mentor, choose your mentor, and register for class.
- 12-week mentor-led course
- Weekly live Q&As + 1:1 feedback
- Taught in Autodesk Maya
- $2,499 USD
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Advanced Acting is a higher-level course that assumes a working understanding of Autodesk Maya and the fundamentals of animation and acting. This course builds on the performance and dialogue skills developed in earlier Animation Mentor courses.
12 weeks, mentor-led: weekly 1-hour live Q&As, 1:2 hours of recorded lectures, animation assignments, and weekly 1:1 feedback from your mentor.
Autodesk Maya, plus a computer that meets the minimum requirements. You'll get access to over 150 hours of additional content. The course is taught in English and is open to students 18 and older.
In Advanced Acting you'll dive deeper into subtext to understand how to reveal your character's internal thought process through your external acting choices, so dialogue does more than deliver lines; it develops the character.
Working studio animators from studios like DreamWorks Animation, Industrial Light & Magic, and Animal Logic.
Advanced Acting is application-based. Apply at Animation Mentor, and once you're accepted you choose your mentor and register for class.
