The 12 Principles of Animation - Episode 3

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Welcome.

To learn about...

The Third Principle - Staging

What a perfect time to post my fourth post of the blog.

Old unfinished animation from 2020 of a man sporting a vegetable knife lightsaber

The principle of staging is the most intertwined with the rest of the principles. So much so that its rules can actually be applied to - and I would recommend applying to - other forms of art, such as illustration, character design, visual design, storyboarding etc. Staging is used to direct attention towards the focal point, which is why it applies to all aspects of a shot:

- camera position and movement

- shot sizes (close-up, medium shot, wide shot etc.)

- camera focal length and composition

- lighting and use of light sources

- character and prop placement

- posing (especially limbs, don't let parts of body overlap too much) and silhouette

- acting 

- character design (areas of interest, shape and colour language, silhouette)

- environment

- colour grading

...and probably many more that I have no idea of.

A clearly staged shot makes the animation:

1- clear and readable: by carefully planning the elements of the shot, your scene idea and its focus will become unmistakably clear to the audience. This is also why shots should be at least three frames long and smear-frames (such as squash and stretch frames) only around one to two frames: for the audience to be able to register it happening. 

2- focused: audience get an idea of where to look at and what's important in the scene, for example with man action and secondary actions not happening simultaneously but in a row. Sometimes the famous lines of action are also used in animated characters to emphasize feeling and areas of interest.    

3- dynamic and convey personality: "staging" -name originates from theatre back when actors didn't have cameras to film their plays. Because of this, they had to convey their emotions as clearly as possible all the way to the people in the back row by exaggerating and overacting. This kind of exaggeration, while tasteless in live-action, is significant for animation and staging because it might tell us more about the character and their environment - you could say staging also increases clarity of the character's personality. 

Challenges:

With such a complex and multi-faceted topic like staging, there naturally comes some challenges. Here are a few and some tips to overcome them:

Difficult to understand early on

- Because of the many aspects that comprise the principle of staging, it can be difficult to fully understand at first. Where should I place the camera? What shot size should I use? Where is the light? Will I ever get enough sleep? Oh.. how did that slip get in there? 

- One comforting thing about staging is that clarity trumps realism in importance - or more like something to just be accepted for other realists like me out there. Especially in posing an animated character, you can make sacrifices to increase clarity and readability or personality so there's no need to constrain yourself with stupid things like laws of physics or reality. Another useful piece of advice is to visit and learn from someone else's art or even your older works - staging can only really be understood through practise, repetition and mistakes.    

Staging a shot requires understanding of the purpose of the shot

- A badly staged shot leaves the audience confused, disoriented and waiting for something to happen that might not even happen. This is why understanding a shot is extremely important - and why choosing the right shot size is ideal.

- To stage a shot, one must understand why it's there. So, it can be helpful to ask yourself: why am I showing this action specifically from this angle? Is there a big action in your animation or a smaller one? What is this specific shot trying to tell the auudience? Is it focusing on an emotional reaction, establishing a new environment or revealing a new character?   

Practise exercise:

I believe staging an animated shot can be practised with any kind of animation really, preferably with anticipation leading to a main action as well as one or more secondary actions that happen at a different time than the main action.

That is why I chose a scene from my scriptwriting course task to stage. I also made it an animatic because it saves time and should convey how the final animation would look staging-wise just as well. (final sentence of the script not included)

In the scene, the dog is leading the confused officer to show him it needs help with something. Because I already described the dog turning around the corner to this cell room in the script right before the excerpt above, I figured I could have the camera shoot from where the dog already is and to show the layout of the room. Atticus is also visible form this angle and especially in the medium shot we can see his reaction, albeit not too lively, to what is unfolding. Second shot is pictured from Atticus' POV as he realizes what the dog wants and notices its toy inside the cell. 

Although the lighting and background, as well as the cell hologram door, are mere ideas at the moment, I thought motion detector lights could add an interesting lighting to the scene as well as bring more attention to the focus of the scene: Atticus walking up to the third cell.        

I hope you enjoyed reading or even skimming through my blog. Feel absolutely free to comment more ideas or even share your own animations! I'd love to hear and see some of what you can come up with for practising this principle! And with that...

Thank you for reading and see you next post!