These are a few terms used by animators. There are many others, some even specific to particular studios, which will be discussed in later installments of this feature.

antic n. (an-TIK)

anticipation; a technique for adding impact to an animation sequence. "In the frame just before the balloon bursts, implode the balloon a little. That gives it some antic, like the wind-up before the punch."

arc of action n.

curved line(s) traced by a body in motion. In good animation such curves are rendered smoothly. "Watch your arc of action, or the ice-skating hippo is going to look choppy and stiff."

CGI n.

acronym for Computer Generated Imaging, usually referring to the computer animation department of a given studio. "Don't paint that background just yet...wait until the geeks at CGI have finished their walkthrough sequence."

cushy adj.

soft and non-choppy, like Disney animation. "Maybe your style would work for Beavis and Butt-head, but it's not cushy enough for this studio."

Disney death n.

a character's "demise" staged to whip up the audience's emotions; however, before the film ends, the character is somehow wondrously resurrected, as in Disney features like Snow White. "The elf girl can have a Disney death in the black whirlpool. There won't be a dry eye in the house when the wizard brings her back to life."

fanny gag n.

visual joke showing a character's bottom. "Hey, it's a tradition: a fanny gag in every cartoon. So have somebody cut Pegleg Pete's belt, and let's have his pants fall down." AKA butt gag, butt joke.

in-betweens n.

drawings between major poses, overseen by an animator but actually rendered by assistants. Usually done overseas at this point.

jaggy adj.

A term for poorly-rendered CGI. "Man, I was working on this one scene. The rendering took all night, but it still looked jaggy. Time to get more RAM in my computer."

jerky adj.

Animated motion that's not very fluid because of lack of in-betweening. "I can't get into Anime...the animation is way too jerky for me."

key drawings n.

a character's major poses during a scene. "Okay, in this sequence Roger Rabbit stands up from the table, turns, and walks out. The key drawings will be Roger in his chair, Roger standing up, the pivot on the heel, and the exit." In TV animation, this is referred to as Layout.

line of action n.

a character's movements in diagrammatic shorthand. The line of action shows what the character is thinking or doing, even without words. Example: Elmer Fudd says to Bugs Bunny, "You wascally wabbit! Get out of here!" The line of action: Elmer points to Bugs ("You..!"), then jerks his thumb toward the door ("Get out...!").

on twos adj.

when each drawing is photographed twice to give a figure more realistic human movement. The action unfolds at 12 frames per second instead of 24. Ant. On ones: when each drawing is photographed once, making things move a bit faster.

pencil test n.

the photographing of animation drawings in sequence, in order to view the scene in "film time" and see if the motion looks correct.

personality animation n.

animation that creates realistic characters."People feel that the Little Mermaid really exists, that she's a being. That's great personality animation."

pop n.

An ink and paint or assisting error that causes an area to flash for a frame on the screen. Sometimes referred to as a "paint pop"... "There's a paint pop on the character's costume. Send the scene back to checking."

render v.

To take a CGI image from rough wire-frame sketches to fully 3D images with surfaces. "It doesn't take too long for a computer to render simple things like cubes, but it's a bitch on complicated geometry."

render queue n.

The queue that files are lined up into for rendering. "What??? You deleted my scene from the render queue???? Do you know how long that took to draw????"

skippy n.

a nut on animation trivia. "At the animation festival, two skippies almost came to blows over a scene in Fantasia." Note from Michelle: As far as I know, this phrase is never used. The term "Animation Geek" or "Animation Nerd" is more widely used, as is the comics industry-derived term "Fanboy(girl)".

squash and stretch n.

when a figure's mass is made to condense (squash) or elongate (stretch) under the stress of action. "In this scene do a squash and stretch with Wile E. Coyote. As he hits the canyon floor, flatten him down to a pancake, then have him go elastic and bounce like a ball."

storyboard v.

to blueprint a cartoon via a series of small sketches telling the story. "Once we storyboarded it, we realized there were two scenes with the animals dancing in the woods, so we cut one."

strobing n.

animation error that makes the action appear to stop dead; occurs when drawings that are meant to express continued movement are too similar or close together. "Geez, I had a lot of strobing in that scene. It looked like an old western where the spokes of the wagon wheel freeze and seem to be standing still."

tree chopper n.

animated sequence that undergoes repeated changes, thus requiring great quanitities of drawing paper.

Yogi run n.

gag device in which a character springs up and spins his feet in the air before actually running away. Derived from Yogi Bear. "When the dynamite goes BOOM, the duck can do a Yogi run."

Original list compiled by Jerry Dunn, and added to by Nicole Berg, Michelle Klein-Häss and Steve Worth. We would like more additions to this list...if you are an animator or in animation production in some capacity or another, please email the Webkeeper at mhass703@2cowherd.net with the additions. Thanks!

Page last updated 1/15/1998

Michelle Klein-Häss
Box 2273, Van Nuys, CA 91404-2273
Contact Ms. Häss using the Communication Form.
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