Making of: Frogs and Cycles (of Life)

This proved to be a study in efficiency: when to cycle and repeat through certain frames in order to extend the animation. It was necessity since the entire scene was too long to fully plan ahead. I had a vague notion of how everything could interact once it would all come together, so I animated each object or character on its own and later on retimed the sequences where there was room for repetition - such as the croaking of the frog and the bending of the reeds.

I wanted the waves to come from very far and for the viewer to notice them long before the frog has any clue. This meant that a wave had to take 220 frames to reach the shore. I decided to animate them on 3's and duplicate a single wave three times, to prevent myself from suffering too much. By slowly increasing its spacing on this perpective grid, a sense of distance is achieved:

Wave perspective ref

The frog was very small on paper (5mm) so I had to keep its shape simple. I looked at the frogs in this amazing sequence of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya:

Upon closer inspection I noticed they animated them on 2's. One leap takes only 4 sheets of paper. Even though the movement is fast, animating them on ones isn't necessary at all. This again shows that spacing each frame correctly is far more effective than just drawing as many frames as one can.

I'll leave the frogs for now.