Cleese on Faces

If you ever felt that your knowledge of facial expression was a little lacking, I recommend that you watch the BBC documentary, "The Human Face". I first saw this years ago when I lived in England, but recently saw the DVD popping out at me at my local video rental store. Having no idea it was published, I immediately picked up a copy to add to my ever growing "Motion Reference" DVD library.

The documentary is hosted by John Cleese of Monty Python fame, (so you know you're in for a laugh) and Elizabeth Hurley. Together they attempt to understand the face in it's entirety. Over the course of four hours they talk facial expression, facial recognition in infants, facial anatomy, facial responses and response times, etc. The list of subjects goes on an on, and while not all of them apply to animation as evidently as others (they talk about facial reconstructive surgery), they are nonetheless interesting.

Plus, if you're a total geek like me willing to read Gary Faigin's, "Facial Expression", cover to cover, then I'm sure you won't have a hard time watching this. If anything it will give you a deeper understanding of the sublteties of the face that will undoubtedly strengthen those tough acting scenes that we all love so much :)