Let me start by saying that animation is a gigantic umbrella. Most people understand it as any illusion of life. If it’s art that moves, it’s animation. (I say most, because as an animator I have huge respect for puppetry, which is also art that moves and gives the illusion of life, yet it isn’t animation.)
That said, “any” animation isn’t what I consider classical animation. And here’s where I unapologetically lay bare my snobbery for this very fine art form.
What I mean by “classical”
This is my own definition and opinion. Others may or may not share it, and that’s okay.
Classical animation, for me, is animation that applies strong animation principles and practices and shows mastery of traditional skills. I see it in all forms of animation, including 2D, 2.5D, 3D, effects animation, stop motion and experimental work. I don’t see it in motion graphics, which is a field that needs an entirely different set of skills, even though the two share some.
Classical animation means, first and foremost, mastery of acting, timing, body mechanics, weight, emotion, comedy and drama, along with the constant study of how things move and how people behave.
A walk is never just a walk
Learning to make a character walk isn’t the first thing you learn in animation. You need to already understand, and have practised, breaking down timing and shape changes over 12 drawings to produce one second of motion. There are specific assignments that teach enough of the basics to be ready for a walk.
And once you’ve learned how to make a character walk, you’re SO not done.
Let’s stay with walking for a while. Say you’ve animated a cute little character walking from left to right. Great!
Now let’s make the character an old woman.
Let’s make her a very old woman, carrying a heavy bucket of water in her left hand.
Let’s make her a very old woman, carrying a heavy bucket of water in her left hand, feeling… excited.
Now sad. Now angry.
There’s a LOT to unpack now, right? What changes in that first walk you learned, once there’s an actual story and the character has a whole range of things to carry, physically and emotionally?
Now swap who is walking: a 10-year-old child, a toddler, a tall skinny man, a very heavy character. Swap the bucket for anything: something heavy, light, liquid, hollow, solid, flexible or unbalanced. Swap the motivation for whatever they want in that moment, and think about how they feel about it.
I could go on and on about the conditions a walking character might face in a story. A classical animator knows how to find the subtle changes they need to make across many drawings, over however many seconds, to convince the audience what that character is doing and why.
How you can tell the difference
To not meet my definition, an animator wouldn’t change much from one set of circumstances to the next. The character might look like an old woman, maybe drawn a little more hunched, but the bucket wouldn’t look heavy, and her motivation or mood wouldn’t come through.
You’d notice the difference as soon as you turned off the sound and took away the story. If the animation is classical, you’d know she was old and slow and burdened with something heavy, and you’d feel whatever she was feeling. If it isn’t, you’d just see an old woman walking and carrying… something, with no sense that she felt anything at all.
Why it matters in every medium
Classical animation applies to every form of animation, because it’s a deeper study of movement, body mechanics, acting, weight and timing. Once you learn these things, you can’t unlearn them. It’s also about learning all the techniques and rules, and eventually knowing how to break them to get beautifully surprising results.
Does every animator need to be a classical animator? No, of course not. But the more of these skills you learn, and the more time you put into the work, the stronger an animator you’ll be. The workload gets lighter later, once you know how to break the rules, use software to your advantage and cut the right corners while still getting beautiful results. If animation is your thing, take the time to learn it. You’ll never regret it, and it will make you a much better artist overall. Guaranteed.
Questions I often hear
Can this actually be taught? Some people seem naturally gifted at seeing movement, acting and emotion. What if I’m not? Yes, it can be taught. It’s a skill not many people have, but anyone can learn it, and I can teach you.
Do I have to be really good at drawing before I can learn classical animation? Nope. You can classically animate a stick figure!
Why bouncing balls, flour sacks and pendulums when I came here to animate characters? Characters have heads, torsos, fingers, toes, eyes, mouths, hair and clothes. When you’re learning about drawing and movement, you don’t want to draw more than you have to on any one frame, and there are 12 of them every second. Simple objects let you focus on the motion.
What does “studying movement” actually look like? Watching people. Studying reference videos. Filming your own reference of others, at your direction. Acting out the actions yourself, to see and feel how long something takes and how weight works. Which part of the action is slow, and which is fast? Then you apply what you learn and change your drawings until you get the result you want.
Does classical animation mean old-fashioned animation? It started there, and it has carried through to ALL forms of animation. It’s proper training.
Where does software fit in? You’ll need to learn software, yes. But software is just a pencil with some tips and tricks built in to help you cheat, and it changes all the time. With classical training, you’ll know how to cheat convincingly in any software.
What about rigs? Rigs belong to the 2.5D and 3D world, and that’s not something I teach at SlowLine. But with classical training, you’ll have an enormous advantage animating rigged characters over any artist who isn’t classically trained.
How do I know when I’ve gone from “I can make things move” to “I can animate”? Two answers. First, when you animate your first bouncing ball, it will make… you… SMILE. You’ll be so excited to have worked out exactly where on the page to change your drawings to breathe life into your first thing. You’ll also see what you’d improve, maybe even exactly which drawing needs a small adjustment.
Second, as you move on to more advanced animation, you’ll know when a character is carrying something HEAVY, and you’ll FEEL the sadness in their heart when they’re hurting. You’ll know, because you’ll believe your character is alive.
Why does any of this matter to an employer? Welcome to SlowLine, where I’m in business for YOU, not your future employer! Honestly, many employers won’t care much about your skills. They want to know you can do the work they need at the price they can pay. But the animation supervisor who reviews your portfolio will see right away the skills you bring, and how much work you can do with few revisions. Your value will be obvious to the people who can spot classical skills.
Imagine two animators get the same character rig, software, dialogue, scene and length. One is classically trained and one only knows the software well. What would you see? Say the scene is an old woman carrying a heavy bucket of water to the door, overjoyed to see who’s there.
The animator without classical training may know the software inside out, but the scene will likely look stiff and awkward. She’ll walk like a robot, over- or under-compensate for the weight of the bucket, and take every step the same way, maybe with a goofy grin on her face.
The classically trained animator will add so. much. more. Every step will be different, because the weight changes how she walks from one step to the next as she struggles to balance the bucket. She’ll try to step lightly and move as quickly as she can, showing her joy while fighting with that bucket. We’ll feel for her right away, and we’ll wonder who’s at the door that she’s so excited to greet.