Requirements
In this class exercise, we were asked to find at least three examples of the Principles of Animation within the selected movie, and give a few lines of description for each example.
Readme
The movie on which this class exercise was based is "Chicken Run" from Dreamworks and I chose three examples to illustrate the 12 Principles of Animation. They are Secondary Action, Timing and Follow-Through.
The example of Secondary Action is at 40:14 when chickens are waiting in lines before hen-houses for the owner to inspect them. They are not just standing still without any small motions like human soldiers. Instead, we can see from the movie that a few of them are turning their heads away or looking at the ground as if they are trying to find some bugs for food. These secondary actions both comply with the characters of chickens and reflect their nervousness and fear. I think this shot is also an example of the principle of Moving Hold.
To illustrate the principle of Follow-Through, I would like to show you a shot at 39:38 in the movie. Please take a look at the hen in the image below and her crest I marked with a red circle. When the hen stops moving to the right and her main body stands still, the crest keeps moving to the right and does not stop until it falls down afterwards. That is, not all parts of the body stop moving, which is where a Follow-Through principle should take effect.
To illustrate the principle of Follow-Through, I would like to show you a shot at 39:38 in the movie. Please take a look at the hen in the image below and her crest I marked with a red circle. When the hen stops moving to the right and her main body stands still, the crest keeps moving to the right and does not stop until it falls down afterwards. That is, not all parts of the body stop moving, which is where a Follow-Through principle should take effect.
The last principle of animation I will describe in detail is Timing. Timing not only tells the production software where to put key frames and in-betweens to convey physics and weight, it also helps sell the emotion and personality of a character. Take a standard walk cycle as an example, if the timing is very snappy and fast, we can imply that the character is nervous or energetic. Conversely, if the timing is very slow and evenly paced, one could assume that the character may be lethargic, sad or fatigued. The latter point is perfectly illustrated at 43:16 in the movie. We can see from the slow pace and the drooping head which wiggles evenly and listlessly that the hen is indeed very lethargic, because they are fed with too much food.
Some other examples of animation principles can be found such as making characters interesting through large eyes and Squash-and-Stretch which is ubiquitous in any animation movies. I will not describe them in detail due to time limit.
Note 1: before finding examples, it is better to convert the DVD to a MP4 file on hard disk because it can bring ease to slow playback or frequent random access. It also makes extraction of parts of the movie via Adobe Premiere easy. I recommend the tools introduced in this Youtube video.
Note 2: During the exercise, I referred to an article "PIXAR: The 12 Rules of Animation" written by Robb Denovan, Pixar’s senior animator, from 3D Artist Magazine Issue 81. This article looks at the studio’s animation techniques in depth and explains why they’re still relevant today from an expert in the animation industry. It's always nice to read from leading experts who has worked for decades in order to gain insights into the industry.