Timing

Time is the first thing you must learn to understand as an animator in order to create realistic work, this is where excessive study of behavioural movement in nature is essential. Unfortunately there is no set guideline as to the amount of frames needed to create a particular movement as all character movement is different. You need to be able to master it in such a way that you can portray your characters as self-entities, they are gaining their own individual personality and transform into actors. Even the most basic of moves need to represent the importance of timing in order to be deemed believable. In fact you could argue that in some cases the timing of such moves is in fact more important than other more complex ones, for if you get the timing wrong it could even portray a completely different emotion and therefore a mixed multitude of ideas. Yet to get any of this right can take a lifetime of practice.
The way to control time in animation is simple, the closer the distance between frames the slower an object moves, the further apart these frames are the faster it moves. The best way to demonstrate this is when a heavy and a light object are dropped at the same height, as gravity pulls them down it will act faster on the heavy object as opposed to the light one. This is easy to learn the hard part is learning when to put the theory into practice, especially when it comes to character animation. Animators not only need to show the shifting of weight, balance and possible clothing movement but in addition need to any separate overlapping movements that may need to be included. In order for animation to be believable it must adhere to the same laws of nature for real life.

Live action = recorded time, animation = constructed time

Cartoon animation in some small way can get away with being a lot more flexible because those types of animators have the ability to stretch the boundaries of the believabl ‘The everyday becomes magical and the impossible becomes plausible’ (C. Webster, 2005 p.3)
Frames per second (fps) is important as images any longer than one tenth of a second displayed will appear jerky, due to the retention rate of the retina of the eye. It was this that brought about the 24 frames per second, and resulted in the breakthrough, which taught animators that they didn’t have to alter every single frame in order to create a realistic movement. This allowed for pauses within animation that are now used a lot for anticipation and suspense.
Physical conditions of the scene also need to be taken into consideration, such as natural forces (i.e. Weather), facial expressions, materials and dynamics of the characters physique (i.e. young, old, fat, thin, healthy, or sick.) This is where the simplest way to deal with this animation is to categorise them into sections, Pacing, Phrasing and Timing.
Pacing – this is most simply put as the speed of each limb within the animation; this is used to create action, drama or tension. The faster the pace the more tension and drama the animation has, and the longer this goes on for the longer the suspense lasts. ‘Pacing relates much more to filmmaking and storytelling than the animation of individual elements within the film,’ (C. Webster, 2005 p.12).
Phrasing – this is more to do with character animation and the speed of which a person would move usually dependent on their mood, and circumstances. Such as when their in a rush or if they are agitated, ecstatic or relieved. The most impressive animating has a variety of different lively actions throughout to make the animation more interesting. Phrasing is the terminology used to describe the process of making sure these changes happen.
Timing – this process is what covers the very fine action detail that you may never really notice in live action, but are essential to making realistic animation. Such as arm and leg movement whilst a character is running, the leaves of a tree blowing in the wind, or any background animation altogether. Timing is the speed of which these intricate little details happen. It is these little details that animators must learn to analyse by judging how long they take to happen.
‘All animators, irrespective of what discipline they work in all use the same raw material to create their work – time’ (C. Webster, 2005 p.5) It is the use and manipulation of this time that defines what genre and persona an animators work is to be.