Week 5 - The 12 Principles of Animation

This week we looked at the 12 Principles of Animation. The second project we have to do in this lesson is to create an animation to one the three soundtracks we have been given in this weeks lesson. So it was good to learn the principles of animations because if we don't use all the principles our animations might not work as well.

1. Timing and Spacing - More drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster.
2. Anticipation - Prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to do (e.g starting to jump). This is useful for real action, if you want a more comic effect you wouldn't use it.
3. Straight Ahead / Pose to Pose - Straight ahead starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing until the end. This is useful for spontaneous scenes. Pose to pose is more planned with key frames. Everything is controlled better this way.
4. Arcs - Actions follow an arc, especially the human form and animals. Arcs make the animation more realistic, natural and have better flow.
5. Follow through and Overlapping Action - Follow through is when the main body of the character stops and all the other parts catch up (e.g dress, long hair, long tail). Nothing stops all at once, they follow a path of action. Overlapping is when the character changes direction but the other parts carry forward. A few frames later they will catch up (drag).
6. Staging - Pose/ action should communicate clearly to the audience the attitudes, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story. Different use of shots along with camera angles helps to tell the story.
7. Slow Ins and Outs (Eases) - More drawings of beginning of pose, few in the middle, more at the end. Fewer drawings makes the action faster, more drawings make the action slower.
8. Secondary Action - Adds to the main action, supplementing/ reinforcing the main action. All actions should work together to support one another.
9. Exaggeration - Exaggeration in a walk or and eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal.
10. Squash and Stretch - Gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves, is useful for dialogue and facial expressions.
11. Solid Drawing - Drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation.
12. Appeal - All characters should have appeal. Like a form of story telling, the animation has to appeal to the mind as well as the eye.

For our next lesson we were instructed to come up with some initial ideas for an animation, after listening the soundtracks.