Animation

Animation consists in an image sequence that gives de ideia of movement.

Looks simple, but it's not. That's why I'm going to talk about Animation Concepts, by Disney.

Animation Concepts

There are 12 basic fundamentals estabilished by Walt Disney as essential for making an animation. Let's go...

1- Squash and Stretch

No doubts, the most important concept. A character's face gains more life when it's shape change during the movements.

Here's a cute character showing clearly the change of the shape, but we see this a lot of times unaware.

2- Anticipation

When watching a cartoon, people won't understand what's happening if there's not a sequence of actions that guide clearly a action to another.

People should be expecting for the next movement.

Think in a baseball or a soccer player. All of them anticipate the movement in the opposite direction before give the shot.

3- Staging

It's based on showing the action in a clear way to the spectator.
A action have a good "staging" when the movement is clear and visible.

A good way to get a good "staging" is using silhouettes.

4- Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose

Pose to Pose

Straight Ahead

In the method "pose to pose" existis more control and clarity, in the "straight ahead", more spontaneity.

5- Overlapping Action and Follow Through

As well as in real life, an action never stops completely at the same time. The principle of Follow Through is making the parts never stop at the same time.

For example, if the character has big ears or a tie, this parts keep moving even after the action stops.

6- Slow In And Slow Down

Once the animator have the beginning and the end of the movement, he needs to do the between of the action.
In general, the movements of the middle are faster than the ones of the corner. Showing in a timeline:

7- Arcs

The majority of beings do movements with a circular trajectory. Intervals out the arcs will break the movements radically.

8- Secondary actions

In general the main idea can be emphasized with  secondary actions, which depends on it.

Gives more life to the animation.

9- Timing

The control of the timing is important to have an animation. In a cinema, the speed of the frames is 24 frames by second.

A character shows his personality by the timing too.

10- Exaggeration

Exaggerating is important to have a good comunication. Is used togheter with the other concepts, like squash and stretch and follow throught.

11- Solid drawing
It's used to give a tridimensional sense into the animation.

12- Appeal
A character got to have an attractive design, otherwise, nobody will want to see what he's doing. Has to be simple and charming.

Presentation  by Júlia Lyra Hatencia.