Here are few free tutorials designed to guide the animation beginner...

Keys and Inbetweens 1: Traditional 2D animation is made up of two essential elements... "keys" and "inbetweens". Other terms are used to define the breaking down of animated action for other forms of animation too such as in 3D, Web, etc. which we'll deal with later. Nevertheless, all animation from the finest of computerized digital masterworks down to the most basic paper and pencil scribblings are ultimately a manipulation of these two single elements, through established, timehonored principles. The greater, "master" character animators from the past, as well as some that are still amongst us, have simply developed or acquired a greater collection of such "manipulations" (i.e. animation principles) to quite literally draw upon. Therefore, even a most basic application of the principles between these two elements, keys and inbetweens, will result in the creation of competent movement and an acceptable level of animation.

Keys & Inbetweens 2: Occasionally, there are animated sequences that will break the "keys" and "inbetween" two element rule. For example, "straight ahead" animation is where there are no keys but the animator creates a "drawing one" then moves on to drawing "two", drawing "three", drawing "four", etc successively adding a slight change of movement each time until an entire moving sequence is built up. Alternatively, a sequence of movement might involve additional indirect elements such as "extreme" drawings, which essentially define the extent of a moment within two key positions but are not necessarily linked to either.

A perfect example of "straight ahead" animation is where the fingers of a hand tap impatiently on a desk. It is virtually impossible to "key" and "inbetween" such an action, therefore it needing to be animated frame-by-frame (i.e. using a "straight ahead" technique). However, for the purposes of this brief course, and purely in the interests of simplicity, I am choosing to narrow our vision down to the essential elements of "keys" and "inbetweens" for the time being. That point established, a comprehensive appreciation and thorough understanding of these two basic elements... in addition to a knowledge of the additional principles that are possible within the interaction of such keys and inbetweens... will more than equip the aspiring young animator with the potential of "mastership" (that is, given time, practice and a dedicated application). (Note: 3D animation of course is not approached in quite the same way as traditional 2D animation. However, a thorough understanding of the principles of the one will certainly go a long way to an enhancement of the performance and accomplishment of the other.) Keys & Inbetweens 3.: Simply stated, a "key" is a drawing that defines the beginning or the end of an action. An "inbetween" is a drawing that is created between two other drawings... whether these drawings are keys or other inbetweens. Consider for example, a ball rolling from A to C. The two key drawings in this case are "A" and "C".

Therefore an accurate inbetween (set precisely in the middle) of "A" to "C" is "B".

In terms of actual animation, this action would be impossibly and unrealistically fast (actually "one-eighth of a second" only... if viewed at 24fps) with each drawing being shot for one frame of film each. (This is known as animation on "1s"). Therefore, to slow this action down, the animator will need to add extra inbetweens... say for example, two more... as well as maybe shooting each drawing for two frames of film each. (Known as animating on "2s".) Therefore, in the case of our rolling ball, the typical key drawings would be "1" and "9" and the required inbetween drawings would be "3", "5" and "7".

Note: When animating on 2's the animation numbering will always reflect the accurate frame numbers wherever possible i.e. "1", "3", "5", "7", "9", etc., rather than "1", "2", "3", "4", "5" etc. when animating on 1's. Keys & Inbetweens 4.: In a large professional studio, it is the assistant who almost exclusively produces most of the inbetweening (unless the animator chooses to draw their own inbetweens for reasons best known to themselves, or else a production budget cannot handle an extra salary). It is therefore essential that the professional assistant animator be extremely fast and accurate in creating what the animator has requested (yes, even under pressure which is more norm than not).

Bad inbetweening can destroy the animator's work and turn a potentially excellent piece of smooth animation into a jerky, staccato movement, irritating to the eye. Sloppy inbetweening will invariably have to be redone in most circumstances... which, of course, will both cost the animator and assistant further time and effort in correcting things and also the studio that employs them additional money.

Most commercial companies cannot absorb such avoidable "overages". Therefore, in this competitive day and age, the sloppy assistant will rarely be tolerated for long and the studio will consequently move on to hire someone who can professionally cut it. Even with independent and student based work, the fundamental requirement of inbetweening must be ACCURACY. Without it the movement and timing will not be as intended and therefore to the detriment of the overall project. Charts and Breakdown Drawings: To make sure that the animator's wishes are adhered to accurately by the assistant there has to be a clear system of rapport and communication between them both. It is clearly not desirable, nor even possible in many situations, for the animator to verbally communicate his wishes to the assistant on a key-by-key basis. Therefore, to help the assistant understanding the intention, an animator will draw a "chart" on the first of two key drawings to illustrate where the inbetween placements are to be. This chart will usually be drawn on the first key drawing of two keys. Therefore, in the earlier example of the rolling ball, the chart below will be drafted onto key "1". This chart indicates that the animator first wants an inbetween "(5)" to be placed between keys "1" and "9" and then two further inbetweens be added... "3" between "1" and "(5)" and "7" between "(5)" and "9". This will give three evenly spaced inbetween drawings between the two keys.

Note that drawing "(5)" is indicated in parentheses. This is because it indicates the first inbetween the animator requires the assistant to do "I" and "9 ". Because of its special significance, this inbetween drawing is actually referred to as the "breakdown" drawing. Key drawings are always charted as circled.

Studying the chart further, we can deduce that when the breakdown "(5)" drawing is completed, the assistant must then put in the two other inbetween drawings... "3" in the middle of "1" and "(5)", then "7" in the middle of "(5)" and "9". There can of course be more (or less) inbetweens between two key drawings but it is the animator's chart on the lead key drawing that defines just what the animator requires the assistant to do. In principle, the animator will rarely leave more than one or two inbetweens for the assistant to do between drawings, except on very slow actions requiring a large number of very close inbetweens. Additionally, the animator will invariably do the breakdown drawing themselves, for the very reason that it is often a "distorted" inbetween... i.e. not directly in the middle but biased to one side of the other... or else with a subtle change of direction within some part of the normal movement, to create an specific action or timing effect. If the same ball rolling action was animated on ones, on say an arc for example, then the chart and work appropriation might look like this.

When all the inbetween drawings are finished, the assistant shoots the completed scene... either by recording digitally or else by using a traditional videotape pencil test camera... whereupon the animator will view it to check out the inbetweening and action. Slowing In and Slowing Out: It is very rare that an animator will want to have evenly placed inbetween drawings between two keys. Nothing in life, except maybe machines, moves at a consistent, even speed and animation that moves well will have to reflect this fact. Most action involves a movement either slowing down or speeding up. Check it out... observe people moving and doing things and you will see this is true. Therefore, to achieve this naturalness of movement, an animator will draw a chart differently from key to key. Ever aware of the enduring principle that the more drawings there are between two keys the slower it will be... and the less drawings there are the faster is it... an animator will devise a chart that arranges inbetweens in a way that the action will either slow down, or speed up. Therefore, if the animator wants an action to slow down at the end, their chart will indicate that there are more inbetweens towards the end of the action than at the beginning....

This setup is known as a "slow-in", because there are more drawings and the end of the action, causing it to slow into the final key position. Note that the breakdown drawing is number "(3)" in this chart, due to the parenthesis around it. If, on the other hand, the animator places most of the inbetweens at the beginning of the movement, emphasizing a speeding up of the action as it moves, then this is known as "slow out". Note too that on this chart the breakdown drawing has changed to number "(7)".

Occasionally, with longer and larger movements, the animator may require that the action speed up, then slow down, between the two keys. This is known as a "slowing-out/slowing-in" movement. In such a case and depending on the nature of what the action is, the animator would probably draw the breakdown drawing, in addition to the two key drawings, simply to remove the heavy inbetweening burden from the assistant, if the action is complex.

Remember that the key drawings are always circled, and the breakdown drawing is always indicated in parentheses. Key Points: Assistant animators invariably encounter inbetweening problems that are far more difficult than our previous example of a rolling ball! To accommodate this there are several means by which dissimilar shapes can be inbetweened quite accurately, removing much of the guesswork. The use of "key points" is one such means. For example, let us consider one shape "T" turning into another "T" using even inbetweens.

The chart will read as such....

Following the requirements of this charting, the assistant will first visualize, then mark, a series of key points that link the most identifiable, common aspects of the two shapes. In this example, they would lightly mark the midpoints of the corner positions clearly visible in each key, lightly with a blue pencil.

Having accurately indicated the key points for the breakdown drawing, the assistant then will join those key points with a smooth, natural line, matching the line quality of the key drawings. Once the breakdown drawing "(5)" is completed, the other two inbetweens are created using an identical approach... where inbetween "3" is created between "1" and "(5)" and inbetween "7" is created between "(5)" and "9". Shot as separate drawings on 2s (one drawing for two frames) the first shape of "T" will instantly and accurately animate into the second "T" shape.

In 3D animation terms, this action of one shape turning into another is known as a "morph".

Superimposition: Now, taking the "morphing" concept one stage further if the same shape is changing and moving across the screen at the same time, it raises further problems for the assistant. For example, the letter "A" animates to the letter "Z" in even inbetweens

With this example the corner key points will obviously not be located as accurately as before, therefore another trick of the trade has to be learned. This will require an even greater degree of visual judgment by the assistant but it will make life all the much easier once it is appreciated. With this example, we must imagine the first key drawing "1" and the second key drawing "9" are on separate sheets of paper, directly on top of each other on the registration peg bar. A third sheet of blank paper is placed above them both... this will be our breakdown drawing "(5)". First, the accurate center points of the shapes on the two key drawings are marked lightly. Then, turning the lightbox on to allow us to see through the three sheets of paper at once, the center key point of the breakdown drawing "(5)" is marked at a precise midway position between the two on the top sheet of paper. (Note: The line linking the center points between two keys, upon which the center point of the breakdown drawing is located, is call a "path of action".)

Having established the four key points on the breakdown level, the animator then removes the top two drawings from the peg bar. These two top sheets are then "superimposed" over one another on the lightbox until the three center markings are accurately lined up, one above the other. The top two sheets of paper are then lightly taped down with masking tape, outside of the drawing area... the assistant taking care that they remain aligned until the taping is complete. (Note: Whilst doing this, the assistant must also make sure that all three drawings remain perfectly square to one another as, if one sheet slips or rotates in any one direction, a slide or "twitch" will appear in the final action, making the inbetweens unusable.)

Once all three drawings have been accurately secured as above, the breakdown drawing can be completed as in the previous "key points" exercise. When the breakdown "(5)" drawing is completed, the two top sheets can then be un-taped again and placed back onto the registration pegs where a quick visual "flip" check can be made for any possible error. However, if the assistant has done his job well, the breakdown drawing should be perfectly inbetweened and the remaining two inbetweens may be created similarly. More often than not however, it is not possible to use an identifiable center mark as our point of reference when creating in a breakdown point between two key drawings. In this case, the assistant must use even more enhanced visual judgment to assess where this point, and shape, might be. For example, if a balloon animates into an irregular shape, such as a hand, the assistant will have to use their best judgment in estimating the approximate breakdown position between the two key shapes. It may be possible to estimate a center position at the same time but, usually, it is only really possible to rough estimate an approximate shape and position between the two keys and lightly sketch it in with a blue pencil...

However, having made this initial assessment (and hopefully central to the two key positions) the assistant again superimposes the top two drawings over the third in a way where they are accurately over one another as possible. These positioned sheets can then be taped down as before and the more accurate breakdown drawing be completed. Once the assistant has returned the drawings back onto the peg bar for a flip test and confirmed that the breakdown drawing is accurate, the remaining inbetweens can be similarly completed.

Flipping: One of the finest skills an animator or assistant can learn is "flipping'. Flipping is a method of getting the feel of how a moving sequence is going by simple flipping a number of drawings in sequence, one after the other... just in the same way the flip books we all owned, or created, as kids created magical movement. However, unless somehow we fix a huge pile of large animation drawings together, the maximum numbers of drawings that can be flipped on a peg bar at once are five. (That being the number of digits we have to work with on a human hand.) There are three kinds of flipping possible.... "bottom pegs" flipping, "top pegs" flipping and "whole scene" flipping. Bottom pegs flipping is probably the easiest of all the three. An animator or assistant will place five consecutive animation drawings on the peg bar... lowest number on the top and highest number on the bottom...then interleave their fingers between the top four sheets. It is then just a process of coordinating the finger movements to enable the drawings to fleetingly and consecutively pass the field of vision, top to bottom and back again. The free hand will probably be required to hold the drawings securely on the pegs as the sheets are flipped.

Although I personally prefer to animate using the top pegs approach, this way of animating does definitely make flipping harder. It takes more patience and finger/eye coordination to flip a collection of five top peg drawings at once... but the effort is well and truly worth it, once it's mastered. With the drawings being on top pegs, it is impossible to use one hand alone to interleave between the drawings. Therefore two hands have to be used. This is done by having the index finger and thumb of the left hand to hold the second from the top animation drawing, and the next two fingers of the same hand to hold the top sheet. The right hand performs similarly, gripping the fourth and third animation drawing respectively. The hard part is learning to coordinate the relevant finger movements to create a sequential flipping motion with the drawings. It is hard, and will take trial an error. But it can be done and patience will be rewarded ultimately.

Incidentally, as there is no free hand to hold the animation drawings securely on the peg bar with this method, there is a danger of them flying off the pegs as the flipping is attempted. To remedy this, a large rubber band can be stretched over the peg bar, on top of the drawings, to create the required stability.

The final system of flipping is whole scene flipping. As it's title implies, whole scene flipping can only be attempted when the complete scene of animation is complete...or at least a significant amount of it is. The drawings are shuffled together in numerical order, the lowest number on the bottom and the highest number on top. The animator or assistant animator holds the drawings up to about eye level with one hand and proceeds to flip the drawings, one by one, with the thumb of the other. The gravity effect causes each individual drawing to fall, one after the other, as long as the pile of drawings are held slightly above a parallel to the ground. Again, a little practice will be required to affect this system smoothly but, once mastered, it is possible to assess the flow and action of the animated scene before the more time consuming process of shooting a pencil test is attempted.

I believe that it's not possible for a true animator to hold their head up high without first acquiring the facility of flipping. Flipping is such an "organic" process to the art of movement that it should be worked at and mastered if it's benefits are to be fully realized. Often, in a professional setting, it is quite common for animators to be seen wandering around the studio, flipping their latest scenes at one another. In all seriousness, there is no better way of assessing the general feel of your animation flow than by flipping, However, not being mechanically consistent in terms of flipping speed, it can only be when a scene is formally shot and the playback seen at regulation speed that the precise timing of an action can be fully assessed. Head Turns: It cannot be emphasized enough... everything that moves in life, moves in arcs, never in straight lines. The animator must always be conscious of this fact when considering any new action and needs to underline this point to the assistant also. It is by using arcs, however subtle they may be, that your animation will take on a greater sense of reality and naturalness. By way of explanation, let us consider these two key drawings of a basic head turning, showing the head moving from front to profile.

How might the breakdown drawing be approached here to reflect the use of arcs? Well, the way that it is most certainly NOT drawn is as a straight inbetween...

A logical, straight inbetween of the head turn will look "mechanical" and will actually give the appearance that the features of the face are sliding across the head. Try it and see. Therefore, to avoid this happening and to make the action look more natural and realistic, the breakdown needs to be positioned at the base of a downward arc. However, before you draw your breakdown, try turning your own head and sense what is happening. You will be conscious of a very slight dip in its path of your head's action as it turns... however slight that dip may be... and a sense that your head moves up at there end as your eyes focus on what you are turning to see. It's quite subtle, but it's real. This is the action that has to be imitated for our example. Therefore, a more natural-looking breakdown drawing might appear as...

Remember also that when the other inbetweens have to be added to the arced action, they too will have to be drawn on an arc also... never in a straight line. This sequence may take a little longer for the assistant to do (I would expect the animator to do the breakdown drawing in this case, unless the assistant is an experienced, seasoned professional) but the final effect on the action will be so much superior to the straight inbetweens, which might be attempted if speed and inexperience are a factor.

Now bringing the eyes into play, on top of the arced head turn, will bring even more life and naturalness to the action. Therefore, in the next lesson we will deal with the basic elements that are involved in eye action. Eye Movements: As earlier suggested, it is a very valuable exercise for an animator to be able feel out the proposed movements of a character through their own body first, wherever possible. To animate well, an animator truly needs to literally "feel" that action within them before

attempting it. Remember too that the action of a character is determined by their inherent thoughts and feelings within the scene... for thinking always initiates action. Remember too that animation is not just making drawings move... it is making drawing move WELL. That is dependent upon a number of factors that the animator needs to address before starting a scene, the least of which being the ability to feel the action within themselves before animating it. I suggest that this as the "method school of animation"... where you only really get out what you put in and what you put in must come from within your own understanding of yourself and the script. The more effort the animator puts in up front, the better the action will turn out. With such intentions in mind, start to become aware of your own body and it's movement... specifically it's less obvious movement. Apart from the arcing movements discussed, what other events happen when you turn your head from front to side? (A word of caution and reminder here... everyone acts differently when performing the same action and even the same person might turn their head in a number of different ways, depending on their general alertness, intention or state of emotion [such as fear, irritation, aggression, supplication, desire, etc.]... so don't be surprised if your action differs from what follows!) Pretty much universally, the normal expectation of a head turn is that as it turns, the eyes either close fully midway through, or else they half-closed. This happens as they are beginning to adjust to a look in a new direction. Therefore, in the case of our example, the breakdown drawing will require a definite eye change if it is to become more impactful and plausible, which simply closing the eyes will emphasize...

It is an old, well-worn axiom but the eyes truly are "the window to the soul". We can tell so much about a person, how they are thinking and how they are feeling, from the expression in their eyes. When it comes to films, whether they be animated or otherwise, it is universally acknowledged that the audience will always focus on the eyes when a person, or character, is speaking. And, when it comes to market research, to test audience responses to products in advertising commercials, it is the degrees of dilation in the pupils of the eyes of the audience that acts as a barometer to their receptivity to the products or

not. Therefore, so important are the eyes to the enrichment or a character's performance, that some additional attention, concerning the animation of eyes, will be invaluable... For example, if the pupil is moving from one side of the eyeball to the other, it is essential that the action of that pupil also be placed on an arc. If not, the same sliding effect we discussed earlier with the straight head turn will occur. Remember too that the eye is a ball, not just a flat white circle, so the action must reflect a spherical one, not a lateral one. Anyway, to gain strength and plausibility to the moving eye, the movement will be more successfully achieved as so....

Now, if the pupil is moving on just one side of the eyeball... either up or down... then the action of that pupil becomes even more convincing if the outer circle of the eyeball it touches is stretched out just a little where the pupil is. This distortion (again the more subtly drawn the better... although with some "OTT" cartoon approaches this can be exaggerated quite outrageously) would consequently move up or down with the pupil as it moves...

With regards our head turn example... when the character's head is turning in one direction, the action will be so much more convincing and impactful if the eyes actually lead the direction of the head as early within the action as possible. The following charting and keying is a suggestion only, as so many factors will influence why it should be created differently.

Other subtle touches involved with the eyes will enhance, many fold, the effectiveness of the action. For example, character receptivity. Have you

noticed that if the pupil in the eye of a real person is very small, it gives the impression that they are dazed, weak, bored or just generally out of salts. On the other hand, if a person's pupil is very large it gives the impression of interest, receptivity, awareness... or simply that they are under the influence of some relaxant substances! Therefore, animated character eyes should reflect this reality, depending on the thinking and emotion of the character at any moment in a scene. For example, "A" (below) is quite reminiscent of a startled response, or of Homer Simpson's vacant gaze... whilst "B" is more an expression that two lovers might have when gazing into each other's eyes, or else a cat might have when it's about to pounce on it's unsuspecting prey.

Exposure Sheets 01: An "exposure sheet" ("x-sheet" or "dope sheet") is a page (or series of pages) that contains all the relevant information that the animator will need to use when animating... including the phonetic breakdown transferred from the bar sheets, scene "start" and "end" ("cut") points, the director's action notes and timings, areas for logging animation and communicating shooting instructions to the cameraman, etc. The exposure sheet is therefore the means by which the animator can both organize their thinking all in one place and then communicate these thoughts to others in the production chain. In some ways, the exposure sheet is quite similar to a bar sheet, in that it reproduces exactly with frame-by-frame accuracy the phonetic breakdown the sound editor produced for the bar sheets. The only exception to this is that the exposure sheet is smaller in size and formatted somewhat differently. A typical exposure sheet looks like this...

Although many exposure sheets do differ (mainly in layout) from studio to studio and country to country, the information contained here is pretty much standard. At first glance the x-sheet will appear a formidable adversary... comprising of a confusing number of vertical columns and horizontal lines. However, once this is all broken down into its various relevant parts, and understood well enough, the exposure sheet soon becomes a friend, not an enemy. Apart from the top section which clearly provides space for the writing in of the "Sequence", "Scene", "Scene Title" and "Page number" information the narrowly-spaced horizontal lines, seen beneath, basically represent each frame of film the animator will be using. The vertical columns, on the other hand, represent other aspects of what comprises a scene and the animation process namely (from left to right) the director's/animator's action notes column, the dialogue breakdown column, the six columns that represent the layers possible for cel animation plus background artwork, and the camera instructions column. Dealing the frames of film lines first however There are 16 frames of action for every foot of 35mm film, therefore every sixteenth horizontal line on the exposure sheet is printed with a double fine-line, to indicate that a foot of film has been reached. Additionally, as most animation has been traditionally produced on 35mm film and as cinema projectors project film at 24 "fps" (frames per second) it has always been easy to assess the exposure sheets in terms of "time" also (in that one and a half feet of film equals one

second of time i.e. three sections of the heavier ruling. (Indeed, as I prefer to work in time terms, rather than footage terms, I invariably circle the number of seconds passed in the "director/animator's" column beside the dialogue column.)

However, with the advent of digital production and the fact that the process is further complicated by U.S. TV (NTSC format) effectively broadcasting at 30 fps and U.K. TV (PAL format) broadcasting at 25 fps studios have tended to change the heavily-ruled dividing markings to suit their own particular needs. (For example, Web animation can be broadcast at any fps rate required it is principally dependent on the volume of the material created, the broadband width of the audience it is aimed at and, of course, personal preference.) However, as many TV commercials are often produced for an international marketplace on 35mm film and then converted to fit whatever broadcasting system is required then I think it safest to stick with the traditional exposure sheet layout here. Specialty animators, addressing their own particular markets, will of course have to adapt this traditional layout to suit their own requirements. Now, with regards the vertical columns of the exposure sheet As we have already noted, the vertical columns in the exposure sheet have a diversity of uses and therefore they do need to be defined in more detail than the frame lines. The far left column is basically available for the director and/or the animator to make action notes, sketch in thumbnail pose ideas, suggest timings that need to be adhered to, etc. It is basically a time and motion "note pad" which has no relevance to anyone, other than the director or animation. This column is therefore really only used prior to the animation being produced.

The next column across indicates the phonetic breakdown of the soundtrack. This will be information that has been directly transferred from the bar sheet, on a frame-by-frame basis, and will accurately indicate just on what frame(or frames) each word's phonetic breakdown falls. (Note: With regards "phonetic" breakdowns if the word being analyzed is "barn", then it will phonetically notated as "B", "AH", "N".

If, alternatively, there is a musical content in the soundtrack, then the dialogue column will display both the timings of the "music beats" (usually marked with a colored asterisk on each frame where the beat falls) in addition to the "lyrics", broken down phonetically as before.

The next set of six, vertical columns indicate the maximum levels of cels plus background that can possibly be filmed together at any one time. Traditional 2D animation established the fact that a set maximum of cels only could be shot over a background at any one time and that any more than this would render the background and lower cel artwork too dark. (Due to the fact that each level of cel [acetate] reduced the light intensity of the artwork significantly and therefore it was universally accepted that there could only be a maximum of five levels used before the scene would begin to look impossibly dark).

However, with modern digital technology of course, there is no limit to the number of animation layers that can be used thereby, in some ways, making this traditional exposure sheet system impractical when it comes to he more multi-level work. (Hence the need for each animator, or animation studio, to adapt the traditional exposure sheet format to suit

their own personal requirements.) Now, reading the animation level columns from right to left, we can see that the first and lowest level is that reserved for the background. Then, the layers ascend column "1" being the lowest level and column "5" being the highest. A great deal of full, traditional animation is still produced on one or two levels however plus a background. Therefore, unless five levels are used in any one scene, it will most likely only be columns "1" and "2" that are used.

Finally, the vertical column to the right of the exposure sheet is exclusively reserved for the animator to communicate specific, additional instructions to the cameraman. (i.e. "Additional" to the shooting instructions indicated in the previous six columns.) Such additional information can include the "Start" and "Cut" (end) points of the scene, the "field size" (i.e. area of artwork to be seen by the camera) required, any "panning & tracking" movements, "fade-in" and "fade-out" instructions, etc., etc.

Needless to say, such information must always be clearly and coherently written by the animator as any ambiguous instructions here will undoubtedly lead to confusion on the part of the cameraman, causing errors in the shoot and therefore a need for the entire scene having to be filmed again. (Note: In speaking in terms of "cameraman", "shoot" and "filmed", we are here referring to traditional terminology that still somehow sticks in the industry. It should therefore be taken as read that these terms can also apply to modern "scanning" and "digital compositing" techniques also.)