How To Time Action For An Animated Film Or Music Video Part 1

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Neal_R_Warner]Neal R Warner
Whether you're making a classically animated 2D film, an animated music video or a 3D CGI computer animated movie the basics of animation timing remain the same. Up until the animation part of the Animation Industry went overseas to be produced in the 1980s the directors of animated TV shows did the timing themselves. These directors were former animators who came up through the ranks and learned by trial and error how animation timing worked.

Everyone has their own individual style of timing such as they have their own individual drawing style and the work of directors such as Chuck Jones and Tex Avery can be spotted based on their animation timing alone. Some directors have a manic style, some employ the fast over slow technique of having a character move very little until all hell breaks loose, some work in limited animation which means limited motion and some have a very fluid and lifelike style. All of these styles developed from animators trying out different things to discover what worked for them and what didn't.

As the drawing of animation was sent, for financial reasons, to overseas artists the animating directors were retired so that less experienced and expensive new employees could be brought up. Once the designation "Director" got assigned to the storyboard artists who had no experience in making the characters move a new way to estimate a character's action had to be devised. Thus was born the "Animatic".

Animatics had been around forever and were used to give an idea of the overall pacing of a film. They are essentially the storyboard filmed frame by frame in loose sync with the soundtrack. Unfortunately they do not give an accurate representation of the timing needed. An example is a scene of a man walking up a flight of stairs into the scene, continuing up the stairs and exiting the scene at the top. If the man needs twelve frames of 35 mm film to take one step then with two steps needed to step up into the scene, six more steps to step through the scene and two more steps to exit the scene the character needs to take a total of ten steps or 120 frames. 35 mm film runs at a rate of 24 frames per second which is standard even for computer generated animation so our guy needs at least five seconds of screen time to do the action called for on the storyboard. However, the storyboard only has two panels to indicate this action; one showing the man starting up into scene and one showing him exit. Arrows drawn on the panels indicate he is coming in from off screen and that he is to exit completely before the scene cuts.

Now the director times out the animatic and because two panels are boring to look at, surely two seconds of screen time will suffice. After all, looking at these two frames for even two seconds seems a long time. But in the animatic the character isn't moving and as we've already decided, we need at least five seconds to get in all the action we require. Therefore, animatics are highly ineffectual tools for doing animation timing unless the director already has a well developed sense of animation time.
Neal Warner is an artist, writer, filmmaker, member of the multimedia band, The Tooners and founder of Director's Clip, The Internet and Music Video Sponsorship Site ( http://www.directorsclip.com ) and Rock & Roll Rehab, For The Control of Rock & Roll ( http://www.rocknrollrehab.com ).
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Time-Action-For-An-Animated-Film-Or-Music-Video-Part-1&id=6724616] How To Time Action For An Animated Film Or Music Video Part 1