turbing. The audience must frequently be oriented to where they are with establishing shots
and long shots (unless you want to deliberately add confusion in a mystery). Rounding up
a suspect or wrapping up a story, the action may narrow in a series of scenes that increas-
ingly confine time and space.
To indicate a time lapse, writers should cut to another scene in another location and
then cut back again. “A moment later” or “five minutes earlier” is almost impossible to indi-
cate without subtitles. These subtitles have no place in animation. Cutting away gives a clear
indication that time has elapsed.
Thinking Like a Camera Sees
Board artists consider what’s most important in any scene, and they focus on that. Is a loca-
tion or room being established? Do we need to see a prop in close-up because the prop is an
important story point? Do we need to see how someone reacts? Reactions are often funnier
in comedy than the gag itself. Shots often come in a series of three. A long shot of character A
may move in to a medium shot. Then the board might cut to a close-upof B replying, then cut
again to another close-up of A reacting. The shots vary between close-ups, medium shots, and
long shots.A few over-the-shoulder shots may be thrown in.An artist might force perspective.
He may show us the villain towering above from a worm’s-eye view. It makes the villain more
menacing. We could see the mother looking down on her child as if we were looking from her
point of view. The artist avoids strange angles that are hard to animate. A good board person
keeps returning to full shotsto reorient the audience. Motion is indicated clearly in each shot.
Only the inbetweens will probably be missing from the board.
Good animation writers and artists think like a camera sees. Slow truck-inswith cross
dissolvesgive the impression of multiplane moves. The imaginary camera never crosses an
imaginary action axis by turning more than ninety degrees. That disorients the audience.
Even close-ups of two people talking are staged with less than a ninety-degree cross between
the two matched close-ups (see Figure 10.7).
164 Animation Writing and Development
Figure 10.7 The camera setup on the left of the page is correct. The camera setup on the right would
disorient us as we cut back and forth between shots. Images should be drawn as if the cameras stay
on the same side of the axis.
Artwork by Alvaro A. Arce.