Spacing: Tricks of the Trade

Good evening class! This one goes out to all you animation students out there... hopefully EVERYONE from the CalArts guys up to working professional still consider themselves students. anyhow, today we talk about the technique behind spacing. This, i feel, is something few animators truly understand. There is always a balance between your concentration between technical stuff, and performance but i feel that without proper execution of technique your performance will not be as powerful as it could. Different animators value it differently ie: Glen Keane vs. James Baxter. I personally take the view that if your technical stuff is off it could potentially ruin the performance because when that ear slides all over your characters head, or he just doesn't have the weight he needs it could pull you out of the moment.
Here is a very simple trick that can really help you on your slow in's and slow out's in a shot. Looking at the pic above you'll see that all the inbetweens are halfs EXCEPT number 3. It is on a 3rd favoring 1. The reason for not putting it on an even is because the space between 1, 3, and 5 is even. Even spacing will KILL weight and give you a watery look. What's funny is that not many guys use this method. Even skilled experienced guys! but you, now you can have to upper hand on your spacing!
Now, this IS NOT a 100 percent "always use this chart" kind of a thing. Sometimes you want a watery look, in which case this would not be useful. Or, if your slow in is about 36 frms long you may not need to put your last inbetween on a 3rd because the spacing would be so tight that you wouldn't feel it.There are lotsa different scenarios about why it could not work but if you want something to be progressing or degressing in speed, this is the way to go!
anyhow, Matt Williames signing off for now. Next post will cover some more tricks of the trade on spacing! later!