General principles of timing in Animation
The ‘readability’ of ideas depends on two factors:
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Good staging and layout, so that each scene and important action is presented in the clearest and most effective way.
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Good timing, so that enough time is spent preparing the audience for something to happen, then on the action itself, and then on the reaction to the action. If too much time is spent on any one of these things, the timing will be too slow and the audience’s attention will wander. If too little time is spent, the movement may be finished before the audience noticed it, and so the idea is wasted.
To judge these factors correctly depends upon an awareness of how the minds of the audience work. How quickly or how slowly do they react? How long will they take to assimilate an idea? How soon will they get bored? This requires a good knowledge of how the human mind reacts when being told a story. It is also important to remember that different audiences react in different ways. So, for instance, an educational film for children would be timed in a different way from an entertainment film for adults, which requires a much faster pace.
Animation has a very wide range of uses, from entertainment to advertising, from industry to education and from short films to features. Different types of animation require different approaches to timing.
Limited animation
With limited animation as many repeats as possible are used within the 24 frames per second. A hold is also lengthened to reduce the number of drawings. As a rule not more than 6 drawings are produced for one second of animation. Limited animation requires almost as much skill on the part of the animator as full animation, since he must create an illusion of action with the greatest sense of economy.
Full animation
Full animation implies a large number of drawings per second of action. Some action may required that every single frame of the 24 frames within the second is animated in irder to achieve an illusion of fluidity on the screen. Neither time nor money is spared on animation. As a rule only, TV commercials and feature-length animated films can afford this luxury.
Animation is expensive and time-consuming. It is not economically possible to animate more than is needed and edit the scenes later, as it is in live-action films. In cartoons the director carefully pretimes every action so that the animator works within exact limits and does no more drawings than necessary.
Ideally, the director should be able to view line test loops of the film as it progresses and so have a chance to make adjustments. But often there is no time to make corrections in limited animation and the aim is to make the animation work the first time.
Timing in general
Timing in animation is an elusive subject. It only exists whilst the film is being projected, in the same way that a melody only exists when it is being played. A melody is more easily appreciated by listening to it than by trying to explain it in words. So with cartoon timing, it is difficult to avoid using a lot of words to explain what may seem fairly simple when seen on the screen.
Timing is also a dangerous factor to try to formulate—something which works in one situation or in one mood may not work at all in another situation or mood. The only real criterion for timing is: if it works effectively on the screen it is good, if it doesn’t, it isn’t.
So if having looked through the following pages you can see a better way to achieve an effect, then go ahead and do it!
In this book we attempt to look at the laws of movement in nature. What do movements mean? What do they express? How can these movements be simplified and exaggerated to be made ‘animatable’ and to express ideas, feelings and dramatic effects? The timing mainly described is that which is used in so-called ‘classical’ or ‘full’ animation. To cover all possible kinds of timing in all possible kinds of animation would be quite impossible.
Nevertheless we hope to provide a basic understanding of how timing in animation is ultimately based on timing in nature and how, from this starting point, it is possible to apply such a difficult and invisible concept to the maximum advantage in film animation.
