Straight Ahead Action and Pose To Pose

Straight Ahead Action is the process of creating an animation one frame after the other. The animator will have a general idea of the story within the scene, but no set plan. The results are usually quite unexpected as it promotes spontaneity and adheres to the creative whims of the animator.

Pose To Pose animation is more structured. The animator must work out the starting and ending positions of an action, then draw them in a way that shows the essence of the action clearly (see Staging). These positions are known as “keyframes”. Once the timing of the scene has been arranged on an exposure sheet, the appropriate number of drawings is added between each keyframe to complete the action.