Timing for Animation... An inspiring tale

After working through the previous 2 books and using the tips offered by the author (the fundamentals of animation) I went back to the library and searched for books about animation guidelines, animation help and how to animate. One book popped up on all 3 searches that I figured was worth a read. "Timing for Animation" was a reprint of a 1981 book of the same name by Harold Whitaker.

Inside the book the readers are shown illustrations of animation cycles with important frames numbered as a guide for the aspiring animator on where they should mark movements. It also has a small section devoted to storyboards that helped me to decide how in depth I wanted to go into the pitches storyboard segments.

The author mentions that, "The important point is to convey an idea of the flow of the narrative and to explore the visual possibilities for additions of drama or humor." This description gave me a clearer idea of what was expected to be in the storyboards for the pitch but also what I wanted to put into the storyboards later when it came to full pre-production.

Another useful section of how storyboards can be used was where the author described that, "Live action film makers from Cecil B De Mille to Steven Spielberg, have relied upon storyboards to anticipate potential problems and grasp the impending production issues of a film." Again, this extract was useful for me as it showed the functional sides of storyboards and how they are necessary to pre-production.

One chapter that was almost perfect for my piece was heavily focused on emotional response and displaying emotion on a character with animation. The author goes on again to say that, "Human reactions and human actions must me exaggerated, Sometimes simplified and distorted in order to achieve a dramatic or comic effect in cartoon." Although this particular extract was referring to 2D animation I felt that it caught what I wanted to show on the robot and in the scene.

A final quote that i found extremely useful in the planning of my piece as well as inspiring was in the emotion section described by the author as, "the moods of depression, dejection, sorrow, etc. depend on slow timing for their effect, whilst the moods of elation, joy, triumph and so on depend on quicker timing. Other moods such as wonder, puzzlement and suspicion may depend on facial expressions and body posture." The quote was the closest to my idea that I could find in writing and was surprised when i first found it in a published article. I also loved how it described the emotions as a tempo which is one of the main sections I was hoping to include.

The book also had numerous examples of emotions that i decided to use as reference.

 

 


Next blog, SOUND!


Bibliography

• Whitaker, Harold. Timing for Animation. London: Focal, 2009. Print.