Jason Martinsen, a senior animator at Naughty Dog and an Animation Mentor mentor, walks through how to plan an acting test that stands out instead of blending into every other demo reel. He breaks down how to pick the right audio, find an angle that feels real, and give characters something physical to do while they talk.
Meet Jason Martinsen
Jason Martinsen has been a professional animator since 2006 and is currently a senior animator at Naughty Dog. He previously worked at Framestore, Reel FX, Sony Imageworks, and Blue Sky Studios on film productions like Storks and Ferdinand. Other projects include Scoob!, Back to the Outback, Rumble and Monkey King. Jason mentors students in Animation Mentor’s Character Animation program.
You can learn more about Jason and his work here.
Why Generic Acting Tests Fall Flat
Jason opens with the classic problem: a medium shot of a character standing in an empty room, gesturing at the camera while reciting a line from a popular movie. It might be animated well, but it will not stand out on a reel because it has been done a thousand times before. The point of the lecture is to give students ways to make their acting choices and staging more original.
Picking the Right Audio Clip
Before animating anything, Jason recommends being picky about the audio itself. Skip political or offensive material, and steer clear of monotone or deadpan delivery since it gives an animator less to react to physically. Popular movie quotes are also a trap, since viewers will picture the original film instead of judging the animation on its own. He also suggests avoiding audio from animated movies, or trying to copy a performance from a live-action scene, since it is hard to top a professional actor’s timing.
The best clips involve an emotional exchange, someone wanting something from another person, whether that is love, respect, or an apology. Stutters, coughs, gasps, and pauses are gold because they give an animator natural beats to build life into a performance.
Finding the Relatable Angle
Jason shares a story from one of his classes where a student picked the line “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” and planned to animate a character literally selling lemonade at a stand. The class reworked the idea around what the line actually means, making the best of a bad situation, and landed on something everyone could relate to: a flat tire. The final piece opens on a character kneeling by a car changing a tire while talking on the phone, so the setup reads clearly before the dialogue even starts.
The lesson is to write down what the character is thinking rather than what they are literally saying, and let that meaning guide the scenario instead of the words themselves.
Giving Your Character Something to Do
Everyday activities, making coffee, brushing teeth, packing a briefcase, washing dishes, give a character something believable to do while they deliver a line. Jason points out that the activity should support the emotion of the scene rather than distract from it. A character slamming plates into the sink while talking works because it shows they are upset; the same activity would feel random attached to a calm, happy line.
Brainstorming Stronger Scenarios
Much of the lecture walks through examples pulled from Animation Mentor classes, developed through group brainstorming. A phone call about crashing an ex’s wedding became a scene of a character checking a bag at the airport. A monologue nobody wants to hear turned into a dentist’s chair, where the listener is physically stuck. A dialogue from Enchanted that swings wildly between emotions became a scene inspired by Westworld, framing the character as a robot being patched up between scenes. In each case, the group started from the literal setting suggested by the dialogue, then pushed toward something more specific and visual.
Jason encourages students to workshop ideas with classmates or a mentor rather than settling on the first concept that comes to mind, since a group can usually push a scenario further than one person working alone.
A Strong Idea Beats Polish Alone
Jason closes by pointing out that a well animated piece with a forgettable idea gets admired, but a piece with a genuinely relatable idea is what people remember and feel something about, even if the animation itself is rough. He suggests treating the concept stage as seriously as the animation itself, and having fun with it rather than putting pressure on getting it perfect the first time.
This lecture is built for students working through Animation Mentor’s Introduction to Acting and Advanced Acting courses, where planning a strong acting test is a core part of the curriculum.
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