The Basic Principles of Animation
The basic principles of Animation were developed by Walt Disney Studios 'old men', Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the 1930s. The principles were developed through reflection and practise on making Disney animations seem more 'real'. They wanted the movement, expression and personality seem more realistic.
Rule 1. Squash and Stretch
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This can be used for facial expressions as well as movement in a object for example a ball bouncing of a surface. It's a broader short style of picture and is subtle in the final cut. This element is very important and will be used in the majority if not all your animations.
Rule 2. Anticipation
This shows the movement in a character before doing the action intended. Before you jump you have to bend your legs and go down in order to extend and jump in the air, therefor showing the anticipation before the jump is made. This can be exaggerated or kept realistic to help develop characterization.
Rule 3. Staging
Staging helps to portray and enhance the story line of your animation. It can determine how the audience see's each character in it and influences their reaction and idea towards the plot. The use of camera angles and shots also help to do so. The staging helps to tell the audience what's occurring in the story and can direct their attention towards it. You need to make sure there is not anything in the background of your shot that could distract the audience's attention from your animation.
Rule 4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Animation
Straight head animation goes from drawing to drawing, beginning to end. With this you can lose size, volume and proportion, but works well to create freedom in your animation. Action scenes are done like this. Pose to pose is more planned with vital drawings done throughout the scene. Size, volume and proportion are more tame this way. This method is easier to make more scenes and focus on the planning. Both of these methods are used a lot in animation.
Rule 5. Follow Through and Over Lapping Action
Follow through shows that not everything stops at the same time. When a character stops all other parts continue to moves to catch up with the movement of them like arms, legs, clothing, hair ect. they follow the path of the action. Overlapping is where the character changes direction but things such as clothing, hair, limbs ect. continue to go the same direction then follow after. Timing is extremely important when using these principles.
Rule 6. Slow In and Slow Out
To make something move slowly have less action in between each shot and have more shots near the starting image and a couple in between to get to the final shot, this will create the illusion of something taking longer to move. To make something fast, decrease the amount of shots used for the movements in your animation.
Rule 7. Arcs
Actions follow a arc or slightly circular path, especially humans or animals. Arcs give the animation a more realistic and natural action and allows it to flow better. All arm, head and eye movements are made following a arc shape.
Rule 8. Secondary Action
The secondary action is a few gestures that gives a sense of realism to the characters. For example when someone is walking, it's not only the legs that move, the secondary action would be the arms as they would also be moving along with other parts of the body. All of the actions support one and other.
Rule 9. Timing
Timing gets better once you practice and get ore experienced with animation. The trail and error method works best to develop the technique of timing. A mixture of slow and fast timing in a animation helps add texture and interest to the movement in the scene. Most animations are done on twos (one shot to every two frames of film) or on ones (one shot to each frame of film). Twos are more commonly used. The timing of a character helps to establish the mood, emotion and reaction to another character or situation.
Rule 10. Exaggeration
Exaggeration is a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Actions can be copied from real actions but tend to be stiff and robot like. A character must move broadly to look natural. It's the same with facial expressions, but the action is a little less broad. Exaggeration in a walk or eye movement will give the animation more appeal to the audience. Use common sense to prevent it becoming overly animated.
Rule 11. Solid Drawing
You need to take into consideration weight, volume solidity and the illusion of 3D and apply them to animation. Using these elements you can create the illusion of three and four dimensional life. 3D is movement in space, 4D is movement in time.
Rule 12. Appeal
Appeal includes a simple design, clear shots and personality development that intrigues the audience. Like all stories, the animation has to appeal to the eye and mind. If the animation does not appeal to the audience, it wont be a success.
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