Book Review: The Animators Survival Kit

     Back when I was working on my animation project, one of my group members recommended a book to me. Unfortunately, he recommended it to me near the end of the project when the deadline was fast approaching and I did not have time to read it. I remembered that book the other day while I was at the university library researching for a history project. I searched on the library's website and found that they had a copy of the book so I decided to read some of it.

    The book is called The Animators Survival Kit and was written by Richard Williams, the animator behind the film "Who Framed Roger Rabit?"[1]

    I found this book interesting because it explained some of the techniques used by traditional animators. Many of these techniques, such as tweening, are now done automatically by computer animation software. Even though these processes are now automated, I feel that understanding the workflow and techniques of traditional animators can be useful to improve digital animations and make them more expressive.

    One process digital animators often take for granted is called tweening. In traditional animation, tweening was the process of creating the frames in between the major actions. In digital animation software the in-between frames are inferred using mathematical interpolation. Often beginner animators will rely too heavily on the animation software to generate the correct in-between frames and as a result there animations look artificial.

    One thing that I never realized about tweening is that traditional animators would draw the in-between frames halfway between two frames they had already drawn. This is because it is easier for animators to imagine what the frame should look like if it is exactly half way rather than a third of the way to the next frame. Then they would draw further in-between frames to make the animation slower or smoother.[1]

    The book also explains about how to make characters more expressive and have display their personality through there actions. The most fundamental action that many animators overlook is how the character walks. The book probably has around one hundred pages just dealing with developing the walk cycle.

    Another technique the book explains to make the characters more expressive is to design their actions to have three phases. In the first phase, called the anticipation, we want the character to make a motion that sets the scene for the major action. In the second phase the character preforms the major action. The final phase is the result where we see the outcome of the major action.[1] For example consider a cartoon character hitting another character with an over sized hammer. The anticipation would be the character lifting the hammer over their head, the action would be them quickly slamming it down and the result would be the character lifting the hammer to reveal the other character has been flattened like a pancake.

    I have enjoyed reading this book and hope to try some of these techniques when I get some free time. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about animation and the workflow of traditional animators.

References
[1] Richard Williams, Animators Survival Kit, Expanded ed. London, Faber And Faber Ltd, 2009.