2D Animation (Week 1)

28/8/2017
Liam Yue Wei (0327686)
2D Animation
12 Principles of Animation

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Lecture 1:
In our first class, we learned about 12 principles of animation, and how they create the suspension of disbelief among the audience.

1. Squash and stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
5. Follow through and Overlapping Action
6. Slow In and Slow Out
7. Arcs
8.Secondary Action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid Drawing
12. Appeal

     Suspension of disbelief or willing suspension of disbelief has been defined as a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable, sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment. Suspension of disbelief is often an essential element for a magic act or a circus sideshow act. For instance, the audience is not expected to actually believe that a woman is cut in a half or transforms into a gorilla in order to enjoy the performance. The same thing is applied in animation, as suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient for any kind of storytelling.

     Mr.Hafiz has told us to get a book called "The Animator's Survival kit" written by Richard Williams if possible, as it will be helpful. Also, we were given brief about this module, we will be doing exercise every week and the total marks will be 10%. We eventually will need to use Adobe Animate CC, so we have to prepare it.

     There will be 4 assignments in this module. The first one is group assignment, and the rest will be individual assignments. Each assignment needs to be completed within 2 weeks.

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Instruction:
     We were told to use "DUET" by Glen Keane as a reference to figure out the principles that were included in it. We were also given brief about our first project, stop motion animation. We are required to make a minimum 10-second loop stop motion animation with a partner. The animation can be gag or punchline ones. We can use transitions such as moment to moment ( slow motion) or action to action (fast pace). It is best not to do drawings digitally for animation, but using things that can be touched such as papers, play dough and such.

DUET by Glen Keane

Squash and Stretch

Squash and Stretch 1(a)

Squash and Stretch 1(b)

     Squash and stretch is a technique that makes the object longer and flatter to express speed, momentum and mass. It can be used to exaggerate expressions. More squash and stretch makes the object look softer and more natural. In "duet", this technique was used when the baby was shown in the scene, by making the body pose of the baby longer, it shows a movement and makes the animation look smoother.

Squash and Stretch 2(a)

Squash and Stretch 2(b)

Squash and Stretch 2(c)

Squash and Stretch 2(d)

     There are times where squash and stretch is not that obvious, but it somehow still exist in the scenes. As it is best not to overdo squash and stretch. In this scene, after the girl jumped into the water, she then swims around the water, the minimum squash and stretch produced an effect that caused the girl move faster in some parts. As we all can see, in 2(c) is the shot before she charged to the right side.

Squash and Stretch 3(a)

Squash and Stretch 3(b)

Squash and Stretch 3(c)

     In 3(a) to 3(c), the squash and stretch principle can be spotted easily. This is because in 3(b), the drawing is squashed and stretched so that it produced a sense of momentum in the girl's movement.

Squash and Stretch 4(a)

 Squash and Stretch 4(b)

Squash and Stretch 4(c)

Squash and Stretch 4(d)

     In 4(a) to 4(d), the man and the lady embraced each other while the camera (angle) spins. It is clear that the drawings in these scenes had included squash and stretch principle. This creates flow in their movement, making the whole thing looks more softer, smoother and more natural. In another word, they don't look mechanic.

Arcs
     Arcs can be used in action before the pose settles down, so that it can actually avoid the object looking mechanic. This is useful as it creates a flow to an animation.

Arcs 1(a)

Arcs 1(b)

     Sometimes, arcs can be used in small parts of the scenes. Although some audience may not even notice them, they still helped making the animation look more 'realistic'. For instance, in 1(a), the lady's hands were down on her own hip. While in 1(b), the lady's arms lifted, this flow of movement was actually created by the arcs. Also, the leg bent down from 1(a) to 1(b), this is also another arc to make the animation look better.

Arcs 2(a)

Arcs 2(b)

Arcs 2(c)

Arcs 2(d)

Arcs 2(e)

     From 2(a) to 2(e), pay close attention to the boy's left hand before he was being tugged by the dog. His hand moved from right to left when he was being tugged by his dog. Then there was a small movement of the hand, that goes from up to down. These small movements may be minor but they helped to make the characters look more alive.

Arcs 3(a)

Arcs 3(b)

Arcs 3(c)

Arcs 3(d)

Arcs 3(e)

Arcs 3(f)

Arcs 3(g)

     The same thing can be explained in 3(a) to 3(g), this is the scene where the lady landed down and settled down her pose, then she jumped again. Between these actions, the arcs can be clearly seen in her arms, which is the way her arms swung.

Follow Through and Overlapping Action

     Follow through and overlapping action is a principle having body parts dragged after the body. There are 3 main things in this principle, follow through, overlapping and drag. 'Follow through' is when the remaining body parts continue to move when the body stops. 'Overlapping' is the offset between the timing of main body and other parts move. 'Drag' is the delay of body parts when the main body moves. This principle can be tricky to draw, a hint to draw this would be to leave the body parts last to draw, focus on drawing the main body first, then go back to the drawings to add on the other parts.

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(a)

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(b)

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(c)

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(d)

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(e)

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 1(f)

     In these scenes, the main body is the girl, while the remaining body parts are the hair and the dress. The movement of the dress and the hair depends on how the main body moves.When she landed down, her body stopped moving, however, her hair and dress still continued moving for a while.

Secondary Action
     Secondary action often gets confused with overlapping action, which is not true. Secondary actions are gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to the character animation. One thing to pay attention when using this principle is the timing. We wouldn't want our audience to get confused when we overlapped the main action and secondary action together. Secondary action can be used to exaggerate or to express the feeling of the character. A lot of things can be different just because of the secondary action, even when the main action is the same.

Secondary action 1(a)

Secondary action 1(b)

Secondary action 1(c)

     For instance, in the scenes above is when the boy left with his dog, or rather, being tugged away by his dog. The girl then smiled confidently and looking ahead of her, expressing her determination to face a challenge, or to do something. Then her dress transformed, and she starts dancing. So the main action would be turning her head, and the secondary action is smiling confidently. 

    Try imagining, if the animator changed the secondary action to 'looking grumpy'. Then, it seems to us that the girl was furious when the boy left her, and turning her head away. 

Secondary action 2(a)

Secondary action 2(b)

Secondary action 2(c)

     In 2(a) to 2(c), it can be seen to us that the boy was running freely, it is obvious that he is enjoying the nature, running around and feeling the wind. So the main action here is running around, and the secondary action would be the way he put his arms when he run, and also his smile.

     If we were to change the secondary action to ' swinging his hands quickly and constantly looking backward', it would look like as if he is running away from something or someone.
Anticipation
     Anticipation is a principle that allows audience to know or to guess what is about to happen. In another word, it is a windup before an action, to exaggerate and give more power to the action. It also makes the extra action more visible for audience to notice and understand the situation.

Anticipation 1(a)

Anticipation 1(b)

Anticiptation 1(c)

Anticipation 1(d)

Anticipation 1(e)

Anticipation 1(f)

     In 1(a) to 1(f), the lady was first standing still, then she slowly changed her pose. She then lifted her right leg and jumped. The audience can realize her attempt to dance when she started posing. Also, at the moment she started running quicker and quicker, the audience could guess that she was about to jump, and they were right.

Slow in and Slow out
     Slow in and slow out, this is a simple principle. But without this, the animation will look mechanical. Humans don't move mechanical, only robots do.

Slow in and slow out 1(a) 

     When the little girl was jumping around (dancing), some part of her movement was slowed in and slowed out, so that it does not look mechanical.

Slow in and slow out 1(b)

Slow in and slow out 1(c)

     Also, when the little girl jumped, she turned into a bigger girl. However, the animation when she was in the air, was extremely slow. This gives sign and time to the audience to know that the little girl grew up. Besides, it also created a dramatic atmosphere.

Staging
     Stagings, is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear. There are several factors that can influence this principle, which are acting, timing, camera angle and position, and setting. This principle tells the audience, where to focus on the scene, this avoids the audience, this will convey the message properly and also avoid distraction on the scenes. 

Staging 1(a)

Staging 1(b)

Staging 1(c)

Staging 1(d)

Staging 1(e)

     For example, in 1(a), the principle tells you to look at the baby girl. Then look at another baby coming at the baby girl. Look at how they look at each other before the baby left. Next, look at the dog then comes to the baby girl. Again, look at how the dog interacts with the baby girl, and also look at how the baby girl likes the dog too. 

     In these scenes, there was no background, this is most probably because the setting was not necessary, and adding a background would only distract the audience. The timing of the baby boy and the dog passing by the baby girl was planned so that they don't confuse the audience's eyes by letting them passing altogether.

Staging 2(a)

Staging 2(b)

Staging 2(c)

Staging 2(d)

     Again, in 2(a), it is shown that the baby was carrying the dog away to the left side. Right here, the another baby comes into the scene. Audience most probably won't be able to notice their gender from 1(a) to 1(e). but when the staging was well planned, it is clear to the audience and the one carrying the dog away is a baby boy, while the one coming in at 2(b) is a baby girl.

     So, in these scenes, the animators were like 'Look at the boy carrying the dog away. Then look at the baby girl coming in, look at what she is going to do."

Exaggeration
     Exaggeration is a principle that bring idea to next level. It can exaggerate action, pose and even expression. Exaggeration doesn't mean to be more distorted, it means to be more convincing and give impact on the audience. For example, if a character is happy, make him look happier. If he's sad, make him look sadder. If he is worried, make him look more worried. If he looks wild, make him look wilder.

Exaggeration 1(a)

Exaggeration 1(b)

     The best scene to describe exaggeration in this video is the dog. The dog in this video is acting more friendly than one could possibly be in real life. The movements of the dog in this video seem to be more obvious compared to a real one. In this video, the dog seemed to be very happy to have the girl and the boy around. but the animator proved his friendliness by making the dog having fun with them, such as licking the baby's face, always jumping into the boy's arms and more. These are the exaggerations that are made to show how the dog is happy with them.

     Exaggeration is an important principle as when people say to make animation more realistic, they actually don't mean the physical feature of the drawings. However, they are saying to express the characters more clearly by using exaggeration.

Solid Drawing
     Making solid drawing means being able to draw on all angles. Solid drawing will make them look 3D, which consists of volume, weight and balance. It is said to use basic shapes to construct the character when we draw.

Solid drawing 1(a)

Appeal
     All characters in a story needs to have appeal, no matter whether they are hero, villain, side characters and such. A character with appeal doesn't need to be good looking, they just need to be interesting. There are several ways to make an interesting character, such as considering variety of shapes, adjusting proportions and also keeping it simple. This principle adds personality to a character, and make it more interesting to watch.

Appeal 1(a)

     The characters in this video are very simple, yet interesting to watch. Adding too much details to the characters would make things complicated.

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Feedback:

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Reflection:
Experience
From our first class, I started getting an idea of how our module is about. I have also started learning about the principles, the trick that most animators used in order to make their animation look more alive. 'Duet' by Glen Keane has left great impression due to the short yet moving animation, everything seems well planned in that animation, not to mention the quality of drawings and the smooth animation. I can't imagine how much effort it takes for Glen Keane to be able to draw things accurately.

Observation
I noticed that taking notes and sketching in my sketchbook is one of the ideal ways for me to learn about stuffs. Learning things from internet is good, but it is not satisfying if I don't have an actual hard copy of my notes. Also, I have started noticing that it takes a lot of time just to make a short animation. However, I have also realized that being able to draw everything at every angle is a privilege to an animator. Drawing is a fundamental in this field, this is not something new, but it is hard to keep at all the practices in order to become an artist.

Findings
I have decided to learn the another 12 principles of animation if possible. If not mistaken, there was 24 principle of animation and the 12 I have mentioned are the most important ones.