Secondary Action

This is a motion or movement that is very subtle, to add realism to an object or character. When a character turns for example their hair will swing, if some one gets up their head might move. The motion won’t be exaggerated, the motion should be visible, but to the audience should be taken as second nature. Realism was not to be noticed for its individual motion.

Another example are clothes on characters, when they walk an item like a long coat will sway gently. 

Secondary motion is a key to executing realistic motion, when it is done wrong it is clear to the audience that something is wrong. So it must be done with the understanding of what the animator is animating and how it might possible move in real life.

EXTRACTS - from 'The Illusion of Life'


Secondary Nature, Page 63, 64


Often, the one idea being put in a scene can be fortified by subsidiary action within the body. A sad figure wipes a tear and turns away. Some one shakes his head as he gets to his feet.


This example of secondary action comes in many forms. From the eye on Boo's costume to the hair on Sulley when he turns or moves.  There are many examples in just a short clip. This is taken from Disney and Pixar's feature animated film 'Monsters, INC' 

Older examples of secondary Action go back to early Disney in such animations as Fantasia. This clip Mickey The Sorcerer's Apprentice has many examples especially in he wizards robes as he mixes the potions,

  


- Curly 

Exaggeration.

The distortion of motion, actions or objects, But when animating not to over exaggerate, taking the animation out of proportion. It might stand out too much and if everything is blown out of proportion it will come across as unrealistic.

This quick example was taken from ‘Ren and Stimpy’ and shows and exaggerated reaction of shock and fear in a character, a very cartoon reaction with humour to make sense of this over exaggeration of such a character.

Animation can bend and push the motions and shape of the object or character 


EXTRACTS - from 'The Illusion of Life'


Exaggeration, Page 65, 66


If a character was to be sad, make him sadder. bright, make him brighter; worried, more worried; wild, make him wilder. Some of the artists thought that "exaggeration" meant a distorted drawing, or an action is violent and disturbing ... When Walt asked for realism, he wanted to caricature of realism. One artist analysed it correctly when he said "I don't think he meant 'realism' I think he meant something that was more convincing, that made a bigger contact with people, and he just said 'realism' because 'real' things do ... Every so often [in the animation] the character would do something unconvincing, or to show how clever the  animator was, and it wasn't really, it was phoney"  


This early Tom and Jerry Cartoon is a good example of exaggeration especially when Tom becomes over emotional during the end, and when Tom burns his tail on the fire.

This other example is a shortened episode of Cow and Chicken, but there are still many examples of exaggeration in the clip.

- Curly

Staging.

Staging is very important for when making animations, presenting an idea to an audience making it perfectly clear what is happening on the screen. Motion and the position of the screen are essential, if there is no thought of staging the picture can look uncomfortable, as well as being unable to understand.

  

A scene with a lot of movement will often guide the audiences’ eye to an object that isn’t moving. This can be the same for one object to be moving with everything else being stationary, the motion will attract the eye.

This means that motion is very important on screen and needs to be placed appropriately for showing what needs to be shown.

EXTRACTS - from 'The Illusion of Life'


Staging, Page 53


"Staging" is the most general of the principles because it covers so many areas and goes back so far in the theatre. It's meanings how ever are very precise: it it the presentation of any idea so that it it completely and unmistakably clear.

This clip of the Flintstones is an example of staging, but any animation clip has had staging in mine. The posture of the characters as well as the angle on which the audience see's the scene going on.

-Curly

Appeal

"Not only do sympathetic characters need appeal in their design, but villians and comics should have just as much. Appeal is the pleasing and fascinating quality that makes a person enjoy looking at any drawing"

John K Stuff blog is a really useful blog site for gripping the basics of these principles. I especially liked this quote as it explains the principle of 'appeal' so simply. Appeal is the quality which makes you want to look at something.

An obvious example would be to look at the Disney Princesses, as the protagonists of the film, eg. Ariel, Aurora and Belle, the audience will spend most of the time looking at them and therfore it is vital that these characters have 'appeal' to entice the audience to continue watching. We could argue this is the explanation for this sterotypical image of this slim, generously assetted polite women, of whom young girls aspire to be, and men aspire to be with.

From a brief look at the Disney Princesses, their physical appeal is similar through out
- large eyes
- heart shaped faces- symmetrical faces are thought to be the most appealing
- usually long billowing hair (free loose hair has sexual connotations linking back to the 1800s)
- petite waist - further emphasising their femininaty
- clothes tailored to exentuate breasts

Again the physical appearance is the initial appeal of these characters, aswell a personality traits (will discuss later).
What is interesting to explore next is Disney's latest film 'Tangled', a modern twist on the fairy tale 'Rapunzel' in an attempt to appeal to the male population, the storyline follows a rebellious 'swash-buckling' male hero. There are some interesting theories as to their change in direction, those of which I will discuss in my next post!

Good  night!
Nibs X

Cycles

This principle is basic and very useful. Cycles are used to repeat a sequence of animation over and over again, they are very useful for walks where the main action is being repeated. Alternatively they are useful for things that are less important within the frame, for example a camp fire crackling away in the background. It isn't important enough in the story for viewers to be distracted by the movement and therefore a cycle is appropriate. On the other hand, if the fire was a a raging fire that was a threat to the character and therefore key to the story line, it would have to be animated as a full sequence such as in Bambi.

cycle of fire

bambi fire sequence

(the fire sequence begins at 2mins40)

follow through and over lapping action

Hi guys I'm Helena but to keep the theme you can call me Tootles.

Ive been trying to come up with a definition of follow through and over lapping and from what I've read on blackboard and looked at on YouTube (will show examples) iv discovered follow through is about the consequences of actions making the movement more believable. for example when a character kicks a ball he builds him self up in anticipation and then lets the movement go until it makes contact with the ball which subsequently forces the ball to move, during this time the characters body should also continue to move overlapping with the movement of the ball showing the consequences of the force the character used.
if the follow through was taken away then the characters movement would become stiff and unbelievable. The over lapping keeps the flow of the animation going, if the movement had to happen bit at a time the animation wouldn't be very hard to follow.        


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqzu9J6akDE

this link is just an example of a simple CG character kicking a ball as a visual example personally im not sure if this is the best example of the principal because it isnt exagerated enough.

Anticipation

Greetings!
My first post on the animation principle 'Anticipation', is centred heavily round information from Richard Williams' book 'The Animator's Survival Kit', haven't heard of it? Buy it, it's excelllant! And a great tool to help start up your hand drawing animation techniques.
Quoting Bill Tytla, Williams claims
" 3 things in animation-
1. Anticipation
2. Action
3. Reaction
And these will imply the rest. Learn to do these things well and you can animate well."

Anticipation is the preparation for an action. Especially in every big action
For example:
Chip and Dale's 'Working for nuts'

Here, where the chipmunks are pulling back the tree branch to have it spring forward, anticipation is used here, as this movement is in preparation of the main action; the branch whipping forward.

Arcs by Slighty

psssssssssst my real name is Lizzie, but lets just stay with Slighty,  yeahhh?


The three Principles of Animation that I am going to research are:

- Arcs
- Straight ahead or pose to pose
- Cycles

ARCS

spider diagram of my initial research

An example out of 'The animators survival kit' by Richard Williams

The Animator's Survival Kit (Animated)

The illusion of life - Disney Animation

by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

From my research so far, I can conclude that arcs are important in order to retain a level of reality when dealing with natural motion. If animators didn't use arcs as a guide in their work, characters would become distorted and incorrect. This wouldn't apply to mechanical or robotic characters. 

STRAIGHT AHEAD OR POSE TO POSE

Why the to methods work well together: