- Squash and Stretch:
- Gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves.
- Useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions.
- Usually broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature.
- Used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking
- Most important element you will be required to master and will be used often.
2. Anticipation
- Prepares audience for a major action character is about to perform (eg starting to run, jump or change expression.)
- Backwards motion occurs before dancer forward leap action is executed. Backward motion is the anticipation.
- Comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation.
- Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation (eg. pitcher’s wind-up or a golfers’ back swing)
- Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality.
3. Staging
- Pose/action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story
- Effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story.
- Each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story.
- Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once.
- Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion.
- Staging directs audience’s attention to the story or idea being told.
- Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.