Staging in Animation: Make Every Frame Count

In animation, how you present characters and props to viewers holds great power.

But with many parameters to take into account, like posing or camera angles, good staging is a challenge: not all animations achieve the level of every frame looking like a painting.

Read on for best practices to transform your animations into more compelling stories!

What's Staging?

Staging is the clear presentation of an idea or emotion to the audience, making sure a scene effectively communicates the intended message.

In a scene where a character is about to discover a hidden treasure, staging could involve positioning the character in a way that highlights their curiosity and anticipation, perhaps through body language like leaning forward or eyes widening. The lighting could be focused on the treasure chest, making it the focal point of the scene, while everything else falls slightly into shadow. The camera angle might be placed at a lower position, looking up slightly to emphasize the character's excitement and the significance of the discovery.

Why Is Staging Important?

Staging helps the audience easily understand what is happening in a scene. It clarifies the storyline by directing the viewer’s attention to the most important aspects of the action.

Staging also adds to the emotional experience by using composition, camera angles, and lighting to support the mood of the scene.

By organizing elements aesthetically and logically, staging maintains the viewer’s interest while improving the cinematic quality of the scene, which significantly contributes to the appeal of an animation.

Good staging is economical because it conveys complex ideas through visual storytelling without the need for excessive dialogue or exposition.

1. Posing

Posing involves arranging characters, props, and other background elements within the frame to express a character's emotions, intentions, or relationships with other characters or objects.

1. Understand the character and scene - Study the character’s personality and backstory to create poses that are true to their nature, while taking into account the context of the scene.
2. Silhouette clarity - Design poses that can be easily read as a silhouette.
3. Exaggeration - Push poses to improve their expressiveness and make them more impactful.
4. Line of action - Use a clear and strong line of action to give energy and flow to the pose.
5. Balance and weight - Poses need proper balance to avoid looking unnatural, but you should avoid too much symmetry.
6. Facial expressions - Faces are often the focal point, so expressions need to align with the body language of poses.
7. Contrast and variation - Use contrasting poses to highlight differences in mood or action between characters.

When I think of amazing posing, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure comes to mind. For Hirohiko Araki, posing isn't just a way for characters to move through space. It's a tool to tell a captivating story, inspired by his love for fashion:

2. Camera

The camera guides the focus on essential actions or expressions to tell the audience what's important in the scene.

Different camera techniques set the tone of a scene, and great camera work allows the audience to feel part of the scene by offering perspectives that enhance immersion.

1. Plan with storyboards - Use storyboards to map out camera angles and movements.
2. Choose the right angle - Use angles to reinforce the viewer’s perspective. For example, a low angle makes a character appear powerful, while a high angle conveys vulnerability. Consider the impact of each angle on the scene’s clarity and storytelling.
3. Control camera moves - Decide on static shots, pans, tilts, or other movements based on what best serves the narrative. Overly complex movements may distract from the message, so make sure camera movements are smooth and purposeful, not just for the sake of visual flair.

In Tarzan, vine-swinging scenes leverage different camera techniques to make them not only great to watch but also give a sense of the environment and the scale in which the story unfolds:

3. Composition

Like camera work, composition tells the audience what's important in the shot and where they should focus their attention.

1. Determine the focal point - Decide what the focal point of the scene is. Whether it's a character, an action, or an object, ensure that this element stands out through size, color, or placement.
2. Use the rule of thirds - Divide the frame into nine equal parts using two equally spaced horizontal lines and two vertical lines. Position the most significant elements along these lines or at their intersections for a balanced and aesthetically pleasing composition.
3. Balance your elements - Create a sense of symmetry or asymmetry by balancing visual weights across your composition to guide the viewer's eye.
4. Consider lines and flow - Use lines (both literal and implied, such as sightlines or motion paths) to direct the viewer’s gaze and create flow.
5. Create depth - Leverage techniques like overlapping, varying size (scale), and perspective to add depth.
6. Leverage contrast - Apply contrast in color, tone, size, or shape to make the focal point stand out. High contrast draws attention to the most important elements and create visual hierarchy.
7. Simplify and eliminate clutter - Remove unnecessary details that might distract from the main focal point.
8. Frame within a frame - Try using natural elements within your scene to create a frame around the subject.

The King And The Mockingbird is a classic example of composition inspired by surrealist painters, making the most of all frame elements to mesmerise you:

4. Lighting

Again, lighting is another tool to direct the audience's eyes.

Different lighting setups can also evoke different emotions: for example, soft, warm lighting can create a sense of cosiness and safety, but harsh, cold lighting could establish a feeling of tension or unease.

Shadows and highlights improve the perception of depth in a scene to make characters and backgrounds appear more three-dimensional.

Lighting also communicates the time of day and helps establish the setting.

1. Define the light source - Establish the primary light source(s) in the scene. Natural light (like the sun) behaves differently from artificial sources, and knowing the type of light informs its direction and intensity.
2. Create a lighting plan - Sketch out a quick lighting plan for each scene, including light direction, intensity, and color temperature to match the emotional tone.
3. Layer lighting - Use key lights to highlight important characters or actions, fill lights to soften shadows, and rim or backlights to separate subjects from the background.
4. Play with contrast - Adjust contrast to draw attention to focal points. High contrast creates dramatic tension, while low contrast suggests calm.
5. Experiment with colors - Use colored lighting to add to the mood or convey different times of day or emotional states. Cool blue tones for nighttime, warm oranges for a sunset, etc.

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas leaves a great deal to lighting sources to set the stage for the story. The dim moonlight of Halloween Town contrasts greatly with the merry lights of Christmas Town:

Conclusion

Good staging is the bare requisite of engaging animations. It focuses on posing, camera work, composition, and lighting, which collectively guide the viewer's eye and highlight the narrative's key elements while also adding emotional depth.

Great staging makes the animation so memorable that viewers will remember its frames for years, like any good painting.

But staging is only one piece of the puzzle. It's also important to understand other animation principles, like timing or anticipation, to become a proficient animator.