Emoting 101
By: Abel Carv
You may be wondering, "What is emoting?" Simply put, emoting is displaying emotion. Emoting is very important in photo shoots, as it is often at least a minor focal point of a photo. If a person looks bored in a seductive photo, or looks sad in a joyous photo, the photo doesn't serve its purpose. To be good at emoting, a model must know several different emotions and how to display them on demand.
Types of Emotions
There are several emotions separated into three classes: positive, negative, and neutral. Positive emotions include but are not limited to happy, excited, enthusiastic, eager,infatuated and surprised. Negative emotions can include but are not limited to sad, angry, depressed, annoyed, irritated, sick, surprised, lonely, hungry, and worried. Neutral emotions can include but are not limited to bored, confused, intent, tired, and studious. Some emotions like surprised could be both positive and negative, which can be tricky. Differentiating between two emotions of the same class like two positives like excited and enthusiastic can be difficult, but with practice, a model will have separate looks for them.
Anatomy of Emotions
Whereas there are several emotions, there are several parts to a displayed emotion. From the top of the head to the bottom they are the brow furrow, the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, the dimples, the mouth/lips, and the chin. The combinations of placements of these parts of the face are what depict emotion. For example, a "happy" face may be characterized by a smiling mouth with wide open eyes, and imploded dimples, but if accompanied by raised eyebrows, may be a sign of positive surprise, but if the mouth is in a frown formation, it implies negative surprise. It is important that a model understands for their look what parts of the face are in what emotion.
Exercises to Improve Emoting
Like anything else in modeling, emoting requires a lot of practice. Since the parts of the face that show emotion are muscles or along muscle lines, muscle memory is important, so it is paramount that the practice is concise. One of the easiest ways is to practice each emotion in the mirror, paying attention to every part of the face. If you are not satisfied with a certain part of your expression when showing a specific emotion, change it and practice the new variation over and over again until the muscle memory is reflex. Another way to improve emoting is to take photos of yourself doing specific emotions and label them, then critique them and have others help you, then practice according to the critiquing. It is also sometimes helpful to have the photographer critique your emotion photos as different people view looks as different emotions, for example what you may consider a "come hither" look someone else may consider a "snarl" or what you consider a "depressed" look someone else may consider a "stupefied" look, so it is helpful to get a general consensus. To help in complex situations, some photographers may have an emotion board showing different emotions or the photographer can usually demonstrate for you.
Emoting at the Shoot
Now that you have learned your different emotion looks, practiced, and perfected them, its time to put them to use in a shoot. Now the difficult part is executing the correct look on demand. A common mistake is underselling an emotion while forcing it, to avoid this it is often better to exaggerate the look some, but this can lead to appearing contrived. A more reasonable way to perform an emotion is visualizing a scenario that'd cause that emotion. This works, because emotions are reflexes.....try it, smile and try to keep the smile, then think of a close loved one being murdered horrendously in front of you while trying to maintain the smile. It can't be done, because your reflexes are taking over and displaying the proper emotion. Try this with other emotions during a shoot and you are almost assured to have the desired emotion shown.
I have given my definition of emoting as well as given some examples of emotions and the components of emotions. I've also given some exercises to improve emoting and some tips for the shoot. Not everything is true for everybody and others' may have other opinions. Try my tips out and tell me how they work out for you.
I have given my definition of emoting as well as given some examples of emotions and the components of emotions. I've also given some exercises to improve emoting and some tips for the shoot. Not everything is true for everybody and others' may have other opinions. Try my tips out and tell me how they work out for you.