chapter 3

getting animated

chapter summary
		animating familiar objects as a first approach
		timing: single frame or double frame?
		notes on movement
		first experiments: the bouncing ball
		the dope sheet/X-sheet
		planning

I began making films as a teen on my own in the late seventies. I never attended any kind of film school. I worked in Super 8 and managed over the years to make a series of short, rough and cheap films. Learning to pull off good animation was my main motivation. I soon came to realise that it was important to make a complete film, not just a string of pointless animation tests that no one would want to watch. Then the clay characters became actors telling a story and it all was much more interesting.

Tim Hittle

animating familiar objects as a first approach

Your aim is to make a story in which your characters are the actors. If you start from the very beginning thinking about giving a performance, even the exercises suggested in this chapter will become imbued with life. It is the key to character animation, and will take the dryness out of any practice work that you do. The exercises included all have a practical basis, but in order to keep them interesting, think about giving the piece of Plasticine, or matchbox that little bit of character that will bring it to life.

This chapter doesn't give those character animation tips, you will progress on to that later. My suggestion is that if you begin by thinking of exercises in terms of performance, you will get there quicker.

First of all, before you attempt something more elaborate, pick some everyday objects and try to breathe a little life into them. Don't give yourself extra work such as rigging to stop something falling over, or having to articulate ‘limbs’ that flop around and need stiffening, or over-complicate things by building sets and constructing armatures. Take some time to play around and experiment with the materials you might work with. Inanimate objects are a good way of learning about animation and character. If you just take a matchbox and try to imagine it as a dog or a car and then start giving it dog/car characteristics. For instance, the dog wants you to throw a ball for it. So it's panting, wagging its tail and jumping up and down. It quickly becomes apparent that it's quite hard to do this or to make your matchbox look like anything at all, let alone a panting terrier. And yet, while you're practising – and this doesn't have to be filmed at this stage – what you are doing is imagining all the movements this dog is making, you are thinking about the timing of the movements and you are taking the first crucial steps in the process.

If you can start to get some recognizable ‘doggy’ movements out of this matchbox you'll have some understanding of the performance of animation, then think how much easier it will be when you are using a toy dog, or even an articulated puppet dog!

timing: single frame or double frame?

The first principle of animation is based on persistence of vision: the way your eye joins up consecutive still images to make a moving image, and the amount of difference from one image to the next that the eye will tolerate and translate as a fluid movement. Film and video is projected at 24 (film) 25 (TV) frames per second. These speeds were arrived at as being an optimum number of images per second for the eye to perceive smooth movement. In the UK, Europe and Australia, wherever mains frequency is 50 Hz, video playback is at 25 frames per second. In the States and Japan, where video plays back at 30 frames per second, it is based on a mains frequency of 60 Hz. The playback speed for computers is variable: digital formats such as Mpeg, the highest quality digital files, will play at 30fps but Quicktime will play from 10–15fps, Quicktime 3 at 15fps, and RealMedia plays at 3–6fps. This would require a different approach, and generally, in this book I am basing the animation on 24/25 frames per second.

However this does not necessarily mean that in animation you have to produce 24 or 25 different movements per second in order to create an acceptable flow of movement. You learn to calculate whether you can convey convincing movement by changing the move every two frames, more or less.

Should you work in singles or double frames? Ones or twos? It depends on the movement. Single frame is when you move on every frame, so there are 24/25 different shots per second. This creates a very fluid, smooth movement, useful for hand gestures or a flag waving. If you are shooting a very fast action it might require shooting on ones. Shooting on twos is quite acceptable and in fact the animators at Aardman tend to favour twos to keep a lively sense of action. Nick Park prefers working fast and not getting bogged down by too much technique: ‘I don't notice technical smoothness – that doesn't interest me – that can work against a character sometimes.’ However that would not stop him using single framing in certain situations. For instance if you are filming someone running across the screen in six frames, very fast, you will need to shoot on singles, or the movement won't even register with the viewer.

Use a stopwatch to help get used to timing. Get used to counting seconds, half seconds and so on, tapping out the rhythms, so that when you make a hand gesture, or bounce a ball off the floor, count out the move.

Anthony Scott, who animated Jack in Nightmare Before Christmas suggests:

Say ‘one-thousand-one’ as you're acting out your motion. Then use this to figure out frame count:

one = 6 frames
one-thou = 12 frames
one-thousand = 18 frames
one-thousand-one = 24 frames. I use it all the time, it's a built-in stopwatch.

When you start to study a movement for timing, you first of all break it down into seconds, then you break it down into frames.

As you get to understand animation, you learn that to hold for longer can convey certain movements or emotions, or if you are filming a fast action, it may be you need to shoot it one frame per move.

notes on movement

The bouncing ball is always given as a starting point in animation training because it is a simple way of looking at movement and the forces that make things move. It brings together many of the principles of animation in one simple exercise and is all based on physics: Newton's three laws of motion, which if you really want to know, are that:

•An object at rest remains at rest until acted upon by a force; an object in motion continues moving in a straight line at constant velocity until acted upon by a force.

•Acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass.

•For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

It's not necessary to understand these laws in depth, but when you start looking at things falling, or balls bouncing and hitting walls, or a car skidding around a corner, you start thinking about gravity and friction acting upon things and then you are beginning to understand movement.

As an animator you need to:

1.give weight to inanimate objects: you need to consider how long it will take for a rock or a leaf to fall.

2.give weight and movement to a living creature. You want the audience to believe your puppet is a living, breathing, thinking entity in its own right, so it should have a ‘life force’ of its own.

By getting right back to the basics of movement, you can learn how to give weight, thought and vitality to your puppets.

If a ball is thrown into the air, the force throwing it is the person, the force causing it to slow and drop to the ground is gravity. The heavier the object, the more force is needed to move it, so when animating a heavy object, start it off slower than you would a light object.

A movement builds up speed and then slows down again to a stop, unless it is interrupted. If you lift your hand, the movement will start slowly, then slow down again before stopping.

If you roll a ball along the ground, unless it bumps into something, it will eventually slow down and stop. The force that puts it into motion is you, the force that slows it down is gravity, and friction (the surface of the ground).

A sense of weight is created by how much time you give a movement: very simply, a creature that moves slowly seems heavier, a dinosaur, an elephant, or a giant lumbers slowly along. A creature that moves quickly seems lighter, a scurrying mouse or a scuttling insect. The quicker a creature can gather speed, the lighter or younger it is; the slower, the heavier or older. For example: a heavy person will take longer to get up from a chair than a light person, but not necessarily be slower to sit down again, as gravity is helping them.

To give your object a slow start, you would give it a very small movement each frame, gradually increasing the amount you move it until you come up to speed, then again decreasing the movements until you stop. This is known as easing or cushioning in and out.

If you were to animate a ball being dropped to the ground, the movements would be close together for the first few frames and then, on each successive frame, the movements would get wider apart because the ball is accelerating at 9.8 metres per second per second. As the ball is not going to slow up before hitting the ground, there would be no decrease in increments.

There are situations, as in Disney's Fantasia, where a hippo floats on a fountain of bubbles or an elephant gets trapped inside a floating bubble. You may not want things to move realistically, but understanding the rules gives your animation credibility and, having demonstrated that you understand them, you'll get a bigger audience reaction when you break them.

first experiments: the bouncing ball

A useful exercise when starting out is the bouncing ball, useful because you learn a variety of basic skills in a relatively simple exercise. You are learning first about timing, and, second, about using timing to create an illusion of weight. You can do this under a rostrum camera, on a flat table top, or on a 45° surface if you can't get your camera right over a table. Make a 45° wooden frame to hold a flat, smooth surface for your animation. You could use a plain coloured laminated kitchen top or a piece of glass set into a frame. Make sure the camera is looking at 90° to the surface. For the ball you could use either a coin held in place with sticky wax (available at model shops) or a flat Plasticine disc that you can shape to make it squash and stretch. Make some spares.

Figure 3.1 Animation exercise set-up.

Mark out where you think the ball will hit the ground first and in the following bounces. The bounces will get smaller and closer together as the ball loses energy.

The shape the ball makes in the air is a smooth parabolic curve. The ball slows down at the top of the arc, so the moves will be closer at the top. You can plan this shape on your background and give the ball a trajectory to follow, marking the increases and decreases in the speed of its movement.

The accent is at the points where the ball hits the ground, the spacing of the ball as it moves through the air will give the smooth, naturalistic movement (Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2 Bouncing ball parabola with exaggerated squash and stretch. Illustration by Tony Guy

If you were to exaggerate the shape of the ball by flattening it as it hits the surface, and elongating it as it comes away from the surface, every ball will look as though it's made of soft putty. Experiment with different amounts of stretch and squash. You could give it a sense of speed by elongating it on the fall, or after the bounce of the arc. Or you can create more impact when the ball hits the ground, as if it's been thrown down, by elongating the ball at the frame before contact with the ground. Don't rely on squash and stretch as an effect you can use through all animation – it is useful to illustrate a point at this stage – to give a sense of weight there are other ways we will come to.

Try out a variety of balls. Knowing that a ball will bounce in relationship to the force applied to it and the surface it is hitting, here are some examples of the type of bounce you would expect when different forces apply. Draw your arc onto your surface as a guide, and mark off the ‘increments’ or measurements. Play back what you've shot and study it for timing (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3 Dropping a ping pong ball. Illustration by Tony Guy

A ping pong ball is light and therefore has very little resistance, and, when dropped, can go on bouncing for some time. It is rigid and would have no squash and stretch. It will come out of a bounce very quickly. Shoot this on singles, try it with two frames on the ground so that the contact will register. Use a cut-out or a coin for this exercise.

A football would be heavier, therefore have more resistance. If it is just dropped it will not bounce as high as a ping pong ball or a tennis ball. A football is designed to be kicked. If a foot kicks a football, the foot will slow up momentarily on contact as the force is transferred to the football – the football will squash a little in taking the force of the kick and then be flung into a parabola.

A really heavy object will take more force to start it moving. To lift a cannon ball into the air takes a powerful ignition, then once it is airborne, the momentum of that force is lost against the constant force of gravity, and the cannon ball falls to earth. It will have a little bounce, rather like a bowling ball. Figure 3.4 illustrates the effect that the force has on the cannon as well (it's not necessary to create a cannon for the experiment).

Figure 3.4 Cannon firing ball. Illustration by Tony Guy

You can extend this experiment to play with easing in and out. For instance, using the coin, just move it straight across your screen in one second (24 frames), first of all, evenly spaced. Then try easing it in at the beginning of the move, and slowing it down again at the end of the move. By trying different speeds of cushioning in and out and see what different effects this has on the action.

Using the Plasticine, make a square shape. Then animate that in the same way as the bouncing ball. Drop it in from the top of frame and decide how it's going to bounce when it hits the floor.

air resistance

A balloon has very little resistance and is susceptible to a small force: the flick of a finger or a puff of wind. Air resistance will keep the balloon up in the air. Falling leaves are slowed up on their descent to earth by air resistance, but the fine edge of the leaf will cut into that resistance, causing an erratic zig-zag descent (Figure 3.5, page 28).

the dope sheet/X-sheet

Breaking down a movement is the first stage in planning. You can use a dope sheet or X-sheet (see Figure 3.6, page 29) to express your movement in a very visual way. These are designed for 2D animators, but are used by 3D animators to chart timings, actions and camera moves. The sheet is divided up so that you can break your movement and dialogue down to 25 frames per second, as well as adding in any camera instructions you need.

Figure 3.5 Falling leaf or feather – use the line of the leaf stem, or the feather quill, to plan your line of descent. Illustration by Tony Guy

They are available from animation suppliers (see appendix 1). Apart from helping you, this is a great way to communicate if other people are going to be helping you to animate.

planning

To be really emphatic about the animation, it's hard to describe: but if a fist is slamming into something – like a table – you don't want to slow down. As the fist gets nearer to the point of contact, the increments get bigger and bigger until it slams into the table. Plan ahead well so that you're not left with a small increment when you hit the table. Plasticine is perfect for this. You can sculpt it and press it right into the table so that absolutely no light shows through, whereas a latex fist will leave a little space, a little light – it's almost impossible to get it truly flat.

Pete Lord, Aardman Animations – director Adam, War Story,
The Adventures of Morph, Chicken Run

If you were doing 2D animation you would probably plan every movement and divide it up into ‘key’ positions, and then plan all the in-between drawings. For obvious reasons model animators don't work this way. You start at the beginning and carry on going until you've finished. But you can work out where you need to be on your set.

UK animation director Barry Purves had a good exercise with matchboxes when he was teaching trainees at Cosgrove Hall Films in Manchester. The matchboxes were bumper cars.

Figure 3.6 Dope sheet. Courtesy Chromacolour International Ltd

Figure 3.7 Bar chart used for sound breakdown (see chapter 8). Courtesy Chromacolour International Ltd

Two bumper cars are destined to collide. So the animator has to make sure that the movement is planned so that the collision happens at the right speed. If this shot wasn't planned, the cars could end up chasing each other round in circles, and just missing – a frustrating experience!

the old ones are the best

Try these exercises: the bouncing ball; matchbox/dodgem cars. All these exercises have been tried before by animators, and the smart ones will refer back to them over the years. They will be well-received on a showreel, because they show you have wrestled with some of the crucial principles of animation. But also try to think of better ones, and create some of your own, no more than 10 seconds long. And a word of warning – it's easy to get caught up with exercises, especially now that equipment is so much cheaper and it costs nothing other than your precious time to go over and over your animation to improve it. These exercises are valuable but don't let them inhibit you in your progress as an animator. It's quite a good idea to do an exercise once, then again to correct it – but then move straight on to another using what you've learned. Otherwise you can get bogged down in detail, which can get frustrating and hold you back. Animation is a slow process – you need to let your instincts help you where you can and not get caught up too much in the mechanics.

I always admired Pete Lord's work – with Morph and the early stuff with Vision On (BBC children's programme initially for deaf children, contained Aardman's seminal character ‘Morph’). I loved the ideas – the little sketches, Plasticine characters. They would only last about a minute. There'd be somebody hoovering (vacuuming) up and they would hoover up everything in the room. They would eventually hoover up themselves. Just starting in one place and seeing where they ended up – without a script. I think I like animation where you are still aware of the medium it's made in.

Nick Park

Figure 3.8 Increments on the route seen as a plan. Illustration by Tony Guy