Animating Kids In Time and Space
Literally Animating Kids
Fastest Way To Understand Animation Is To Be Animated!
Scene: A Media Lab in Elementary or Middle School
When: 2003-2018
Where: In hundreds of classrooms all over the world
Joe strolls into the classroom for his third visit.
"Alright, animators. Any questions from last time?"
A hand shoots up. "Where’s the chalk?"
Laughter erupts.
Joe smirks. "Unbelievable. It is still about the chalk? I’m literally handing you the keys to the media-making kingdom, and all you want to talk about is the chalk!"
The kids giggle as he paces the room.
"Now, let’s talk about something much bigger. Bigger than stop motion. Bigger than Hollywood. Bigger than the universe itself."
He pauses dramatically.
"Time."
A hush falls over the room.
"And Space," he adds. "Because you, my friends, are about to become masters of both."
A kid in front blurts out, "Like Doctor Who?"
"Exactly. But instead of a TARDIS, you have a camera. And instead of traveling through time, you’re building it. One frame at a time."
Joe spins on his heel. "How do we measure time in a day?"
"Hours!"
"Minutes!"
"Seconds!"
Joe nods. "Right. 24 hours in a day. 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in a minute. We live inside a giant invented time signature—just like music too. You know how music has 4/4 time, or 3/4, or 5/4 if you’re feeling adventurous? It is just another time signature, for a different media.”
A few kids nod.
"Well, animation has a time signature too. And ours is going to be 15 frames per second. That means, for every single second of animation, we have to take 15 pictures. That’s our rhythm. Our beat. Our law of time."
A kid tilts their head. "So if we don’t take enough pictures…?"
Joe points at them. "Then time breaks. Your movie gets choppy, jumps ahead, or goes by so fast it makes no sense at all. And if you don’t take pictures at all? Time ceases to exist. No movie!"
The kids exchange wide-eyed glances.
Joe continues, "And then, there’s space."
From the back, "Like, outer space?"
Joe whips around. "EXACTLY. But also no. We’re talking about the space between movements from frame to frame within the 15fps time signature. Space controls speed."
Puzzled looks.
"Alright, let’s test this. Imagine you’re animating yourself sliding across the floor. 15 pictures per second. So, Move—Click—picture. Move—Click—picture. Move—Click—picture. If you take one picture for every step for 15 separate pictures, and space each step by only a few inches, what happens when we play it back at 15fps?"
"You move across the floor without walking?”
Joe quizzes, “How long is your animation”
“One second?”
“Why?”
“Cause we are working at 15 pictures per second, so we’ve only taken 15 total pictures. So one second of animation.”
“Exactly!” Joe thrills.
"Second question. Will you be moving fast or slow when we play back this one second animation?” Joe quips.
Blank stares.
"You go fast?" guesses a young media mogul.
“Hmmm. Let’s do this as a thought experiment, and then we’ll literally animate you guys doing it.” says Joe hopefully.
Joe points out, “Here’s the deal. If the time stays the same—15 frames per second—the space you put between movements changes how fast it looks when we play it back."
A kid raises a hand. "So if I want to be a super-speed ninja, I just take big steps?"
Joe grins. "Exactly. And how would you space an animation to make it look like slow motion?"
Thinking kids rustle up a raised hand.
“You would make tiny spaces of movement between each picture?"
“Bingo!” Joe hops a little for emphasis. “Alright. You are getting how space and time signatures relate. Now a new question. Here’s where most new young animators fail spectacularly."
Dramatic pause.
"Let’s say you done a one second animation, you’re sliding across the floor, looking all cool and animated. Then, you get to end of the animated slide and pause and smile at the camera for a couple of seconds."
Silence. Then—
An intrepid student offers, "You do the animation across the room, then you look at the camera and take a picture with a smile?"
Joe gasps in mock horror. "WRONG!"
Laughter.
"If you just stop taking pictures, what happens in the animation?"
A kid snaps their fingers. "You stop being animated?"
"Yes captain Obvious! YES! Here’s the thing. If you take one picture of you smiling at the end of the animation, it is on the screen for 1/15th of a second! Remember, we need 15 pictures for every second of this movie, whether something is moving or not."
Blank stares.
"In our 15fps world, if your character needs to pause for two seconds at the end of sliding across the floor, how many pictures do you need?"
Quick mental math.
"Thirty?"
Joe points at the responder. "Yes! If you don’t take those 30 pictures, 15 pictures per second, your character's smile won’t be detectable at all at the end of this animation.
A kid groans. "That sounds tedious."
Joe shrugs. "Welcome to animation! Math, patience, and a little bit of planning and persistence goes a long way. But get it right, and your movie goes from a choppy mess to Hollywood-level magic. And one of the trickiest parts of working in 15fps is to remember to take 15 pictures per second for each pause where nothing is moving on the screen."
The kids start to realize why the chairs and desks are pushed to the outside of the classroom—they are about to be animated.
"Animated filmmaking isn’t just about movement. It’s about controlling time and space. Every great story has a rhythm, a speed, a pulse. It’s all math and spacing. It is figure-out-able."
“You mean we have to not only work out all the movements in an animation, but we also have to work out all the math for the pauses?” queries a voice from the back.
“Yes! And here is the great news. Walt Disney and the Warner Brothers worked out all the timing almost 100 years ago. We still use their formulas for timing and spacing.”
Joe looks around. "And here’s why this matters. You are growing up in a world built on media. Everything you watch, click, scroll, and hear was designed by someone who understands time and space—someone who is working within a time signature—someone who is doing the math—someone who wants you to feel something, think something, maybe even believe something."
Joe points out, "We are going to assemble our animations one frame at a time with purpose and intentionality. And just like everybody else in media persuasion, once you understand how media is made, you won’t just be someone who watches—you’ll be someone who creates, produces, and controls it. That’s a superpower. And it starts with this—learning how to make and manipulate time itself."
He claps his hands. "Alright, time travelers. Who’s ready to bend time and space?"
Every hand shoots up.
Joe cracks his knuckles. "Let’s animate."
Kids Chase A Big Bag Of Popcorn Bags!
Stay tuned for the next post….