BLOCKING: ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - EXPLOSIONS

This study is going to look at how animation principles also apply to how to style different explosions - mainly looking at The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi.

To start, the explosion of Starkiller Base is long and drawn-out to emphasize the massive scale and time it takes for the planet of that size to explode. The last explosion is slightly “snappy” at the end, but overall, there is a linear progression from start to finish from small to big explosion.

ANITCIPATION

Now to Return of the Jedi. To make the explosion more stylized, it leans on the animation principle of anticipation. Which is telegraphing to the audience what the animation is going to be before it happens - like showing Anna below leaning back anticipating throwing the snow ball:

In the Return of the Jedi example below, the large blue burst, coupled with smaller bursts on the space station, are anticipation for the large and final death star explosion.

Did you also notice that “snappy” feeling in the explosion? How the final explosion quickly turned on and added energy to the shot? We’re going to break down that concept next:

TIMING/SPACING

Timing and spacing took me a while to understand, but once I got a grasp of it, changed the way I look at animation. Essentially, “spacing” is how far an object moves across the screen, and “timing” is how long it takes to get there. So to get a “snappy animation”, you need to have long timing with short spacing (like the bubble gum slowly pushing the door open), transitioning to short timing with large spacing (like the bubble gum quickly expanding in little time):

A look at that same timing/spacing effect in Return of the Jedi: