Understanding 12 Principles of Animation and Film Making

When you are entering the world of animation, it is never all play and no work.

For the beginners, let us take you back decades ago, into the 1930s when these 12 Principles of Animation were first put forward by Disney’s Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.

Disney has played quite a role in the world of animated films for ages. These 12 principles involve grass root levels of animation work, and animators have used them to build the fantastic world of animation, that is now. Although they were primarily developed for pencil sketching, no matter how much time has gone by, digital animation has adapted these same 12 principles as well.

T12 Animation Principles for You

Our blog is dedicated to students who are willing to absorb and understand animation principles. So without further ado, dive in straight into the 12 pillars of animation.

• Squash and stretch – This animation principle considered to be one of the most fundamental principles. Through this principle of squash and stretch effect, it gives animation the life of elasticity as this principle is applicable everywhere. All sorts of shapes and sizes are distorted in some form when they are acted from an exterior force. Although not visible in real life, but that is what squash and stretch would portray to create some fun. This shows the flexibility of objects that adds to the appeal of the object or towards a movement.
• Anticipation – Anticipation would mean that they give you a head’s up with what is about to come. This way, you are prepared for what is about to happen. It makes the object’s action look more realistic. In short, this is mostly a setup for an effort to take place.
• Staging – Although staging is one of the most overlooked principles in the animation industry, it directs the attention of the audience towards one of the most essential elements in a scene that advances you the story in one way. It is pretty much like composing an artwork. Here motion is used to guide the user’s eye and attract users to what is essential within the scene. What you need to do is keep an eye on the aspects that are important in the background, and keep else everything on hold.
  
  Staging is denoted as the setting of a scene including the placement of characters foreground and background elements and how the camera angle might be set up, including the lighting and shadows and more.
• Pose to pose and straight-ahead action – Pose to pose and straight ahead are two methods of drawing animation. This is a linear and spontaneous approach, to create some kind of movement through the use of many in-between poses along with primary poses that are more methodical in creating action through a few poses.
  
  Follow through overlapping action – the idea that resonates separation of body parts that will continue moving after the character even comes to a complete stop and the idea that parts of the body will be in motion at various different times.
• Ease in ease out – This means acceleration and deceleration of movements which makes the action more fluid and equally realistic. Suppose you can carefully control the changing aspects of the objects. In that case, this has the potential to create an animation that is beyond belief.
• Arcs – As you can figure out from the name of this principle, angles are like moving in circular paths and in the round and round motion. They work along the curved trajectory that adds to the illusion of life to some kind of animated object in action. Arcs speed and timing are two significant factors as to how they work smoothly.
• Secondary Action – Secondary action is the action that stresses on or supports the significant action of the animation. They are also called gestures that help the foremost step to add more dimensions to the character animation. This adds to the personality and more insight into what the character is doing.
• Spacing and Timing – Timing and spacing denote where on the timeline you place your frame of action at. It can be represented as several skeletons in between 2 poses and how the structures are set accordingly. Much of your animation success will depend on your timing sense. You must train yourself to be the rhythm and timings of the animation. This way, you will be able to see a gag that might be funnier if it was delayed for a few frames more. This would help add some sound, whether it is music, voice, or sound effects as the ear.
• Exaggeration – The exaggeration factor or principle is merely pushing the movement further to add more appeal to the action. This is to present a character’s features and even its activities in some extreme form to give it a comedic or dramatic effect. This would also include distortions in facial features, expressions, body types, and character movements. This is an excellent way for any animator to increase its appeal of the character and enhance their storytelling.
• Solid Drawing – Solid drawing demands you understand the basics of drawing that is the accuracy achieved while drawing the volume, height, width balance, and anatomy. The concept of a concrete picture ensures that all animated forms are done in a 3-dimensional space. You need to be able to draw in a 3-dimensional way.
• Appeal – This is the last principle of Frank and Ollie of all the 12 principles. Request deals with the reliability of the character. This means creating characters that are interesting, real, and engaging in nature. Animated characters should be pleasing to the eyes and create a visual appeal and applies to the antagonists of the story.
  
  The appeal could be hard to quantify as all people have their own standards. You could play around with various proportions and shapes of characters. Try and achieve harmony and balance between simplicity and minute details.

Your Key to Mastery: The Animation Principles

Now that you have come this far, we feel we should reward you with something. Understanding these 12 principles of animation is crucial for any beginner. Learning animation is a journey for life, so one shouldn’t stop up-skilling and coining their animation skills ever. And if you’re willing to learn animation from an eminent institute, then we have got your back.

MAAC Bhubaneswar is premium animation and design institute located in the heart of the city of your city, Bhubaneswar. Suppose you are looking for in-depth knowledge and hands-on learning from the best animators in the country. In that case, we at MAAC Bhubaneswar have the perfect opportunity for you. Along with top-grade infrastructure and we have a team of experienced faculty who are willing to provide interactive training to students who are eager for a successful career in animation.