Ed Hooks was a professional actor and acting teacher for 30 years. In that capacity, he authored several books for actors, including The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook , Acting Strategies for the Cyber Age, The Audition Book (Winning Strategies for Breaking into Theatre, Film and TV).
Mr. Hooks was trained at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and studied with various individual acting masters, including Uta Hagen at the HB Studio. He appeared in many New York stage productions 1969-1976 and, in 1976, moved to Los Angeles where he appeared on more than 100 television programs, including "Golden Girls", "The Fall Guy", "Hart to Hart", "Murder, She Wrote", "Full House" ... and many more.
In 1996, Ed Hooks was invited to instruct animators for the first time, at DreamWorks/PDI Studio in Palo Alto, California. He quickly discovered that one does not teach acting to animators the same way one teaches it to actors. Given the opportunity to experiment, Mr. Hooks then pioneered acting training specifically designed for the needs of animators. After that, he wrote "Acting for Animators" (2001), explaining the techniques. That book is now (2017) in its 4th revised edition and is published by Routledge in London. It has been translated into several languages. Ed's most recent book is "Craft Notes for Animators - A Perspective on a 21st Century Career" (Routledge 2017)
He has presented his Acting for Animators Masterclass at most major animation studios and video game companies internationally.
Social Media
Facebook: Ed Hooks
Patreon: Ed Hooks
Events featuring Ed Hooks
The End of the Disney Era — The Beginning of More Adult-Theme Animation
Walt Disney made movies for children, and he charmed adults into seeing them also, on the grounds that “There is a child in all of us.” That is why, when you watch “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, you regress to about ten years old. This is why he called Disneyland “The Magic Kingdom”. Children are magical thinkers. The Disney Company was historically successful, as we all know, but animation as an art form was not developed as far as it might go, especially for grown-ups. Today, we are seeing more adult-theme animation, new forms of exhibition (Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc), less big-budget Hollywood-centric films and more international productions. After COVID restrictions, we are also seeing a surge in Virtual Animation Studios, with artists in different countries collaborating in cyberspace. Isao Takahata, back in 1988, pointed the way for today’s storytellers, with “Grave of the Fireflies”, from Studio Ghibli. In 2021, artists are poised for an entirely new and different creative universe.
Animex Industry