• 86 questions
  • Checked October 2026

Questions to Ask Animators

A sheet of twelve questions for an animator, with a line under each for what they say.

Questions to Ask Animators

AnimatorAsked byDate

  1. Write the animator's name and the date at the top.
  2. Ask each question aloud and write the answer down as it is said.
  3. Skip any question. An animator may pass on any line.
  4. In an art class, give each student one question to ask.
Show all 20
  1. How much work hides inside a few seconds of animation?
  2. What do you watch in slow motion, just to learn?
  3. How many frames go into one second of what we see?
  4. What makes a movement look heavy, light, fast or tired?
  5. What do you notice about the way people walk that others miss?
  6. How ugly is a shot in the middle, before it is polished?
  7. Which part of a character do you move first?
  8. What tiny detail did you add that nobody asked for?
  9. What kind of animation do you make: drawn, computer or stop motion?
  10. What would you animate if nobody had to approve it?
  11. Are you a character animator or an effects animator, and why that one?
  12. What do you actually do all day as an animator?

Next step Questions for an artist

All 86 questions

Good ones to start with 20

  • Are you a character animator or an effects animator, and why that one? Character. I would rather do a shrug than a rainstorm.
  • How do you make a character seem to think? The eyes move before the body does.
  • How many frames go into one second of what we see? Up to twenty-four. Often I draw twelve and hold each one twice.
  • How many people touch a shot before and after you? A storyboard artist before, lighting after, and many between.
  • How much work hides inside a few seconds of animation? A week of mine can pass in one blink of a scene.
  • How ugly is a shot in the middle, before it is polished? Gray, blocky and jerky. It gets worse before it gets better.
  • What do you act out at your desk before you animate it? Everything. I keep a mirror beside the screen.
  • What do you actually do all day as an animator? Move one character through a few seconds of story, over and over.
  • What do you do when a shot will not come alive? Throw out the middle pose and act it again.
  • What do you notice about the way people walk that others miss? Everyone's hips tell on them.
  • What do you watch in slow motion, just to learn? My own videos of people sitting down.
  • What kind of animation do you make: drawn, computer or stop motion? Computer, but I still plan every shot in pencil.
  • What makes a movement look heavy, light, fast or tired? Timing. Heavy things start slowly and stop slowly.
  • What tiny detail did you add that nobody asked for? A character scratching her ear while she waits.
  • What was the first thing you ever made move? A stick figure in the corner of a math book.
  • What would you animate if nobody had to approve it? One minute about a moth and a porch light.
  • Which animal or object taught you something about movement? A sack of flour. If you can make that look sad, you can animate.
  • Which is harder to animate: a big action or a small thought? The thought. A blink at the wrong time ruins it.
  • Which part of a character do you move first? The hips. Everything else follows.
  • Why are animators sometimes called actors with pencils? Because the performance is mine. The character just wears it.

How a character moves 14

  • How do two characters share one shot without stealing from each other? One moves, one listens. Then they trade.
  • How do you animate a character who is standing still? Breathing, a shift of weight, one blink. Never truly still.
  • How do you make a jump feel as if gravity is real? Slow at the top, fast on the way down.
  • How do you make a tail, a cape or long hair trail behind? It starts late and stops late, like a whip.
  • How do you make a walk show who the character is? Change the bounce. Proud people barely bob.
  • How do you match a mouth to recorded words? I listen to the line fifty times and hit the big sounds.
  • How do you show weight when a character lifts something? Bend the knees first and let the object lag behind.
  • How does a tired character move differently from an excited one? Slower, lower, and the head arrives last.
  • What are key poses, and how do you choose them? The storytelling ones. See only those and you still follow.
  • What do the hands do while the face is talking? As little as possible, then one clear gesture.
  • What do you exaggerate, and how far can you push it? Farther than feels right. Then it looks right.
  • What happens in the frames between two key poses? The inbetweens. They decide whether it feels snappy or soft.
  • Which ordinary motion is the trickiest to animate? Sitting down in a chair.
  • Why does a character wind up before a big move? It tells the eye where to look next.

The tools 12

  • Do you draw on paper, on a tablet or with a mouse? A tablet with a pen. Paper for planning.
  • How do you flip between drawings to check the motion? A keyboard key now. On paper, you roll the sheets in your fingers.
  • How do you save your work so a week is never lost? A new numbered version every hour.
  • If the power went out, which tool would still let you animate? A pencil. Everything starts as a scribble.
  • What did animators use before computers, and have you tried it? Clear sheets called cels, painted by hand. I tried. I smudged.
  • What do stop-motion animators use in place of drawings? Puppets or cut-outs, moved a tiny bit for each frame.
  • What do you record on your phone for reference? Myself doing the action, badly, in the hallway.
  • What has newer software made possible since your first job? Seeing the lighting while I animate, not a week later.
  • What is a rig, and who builds it for you? The character's digital skeleton. A technical director sets it up.
  • What is on your desk when you animate? A drawing tablet, a mirror and far too many sticky notes.
  • What would we see on your screen in the middle of a shot? A character in a gray room and a timeline full of dots.
  • Which tool did you fight with before it became your favorite? The curve editor. Now I live in it.

A shot from storyboard to screen 14

  • How do you smooth a rough pass into finished motion? One body part at a time, starting from the hips.
  • How does it feel to see a finished shot with color and sound? Like meeting a pen pal in person.
  • How does your shot match the one before it and the one after? I check their last pose against my first.
  • How many times does a director see a shot before it is approved? Three or four, on a good one.
  • What are you handed at the very start of a shot? A storyboard panel, the voice recording and a frame count.
  • What do you do while you wait for notes? Start the next shot and try not to peek at the old one.
  • What does a storyboard tell you, and what does it leave to you? What happens. How it happens is mine.
  • What does the first rough pass of a shot look like? Just the main poses, popping from one to the next.
  • What does the layout artist set up before you begin? The camera and where the characters stand.
  • What happens to your shot after you hand it on? Lighting, effects and sound. I see it again months later.
  • What kind of note sends you back to the beginning? "It is nice, but it is not her."
  • When is the voice recorded: before you animate or after? Before. I animate to the actor's reading.
  • Which shot took the longest, and what made it slow? Six characters at a dinner table. Everyone had to listen.
  • Who decides how long a shot lasts? The editor and the director, down to the frame.

Drawing every day 12

  • Did you make flip books as a child, and what was in them? A man falling off every notepad in the house.
  • Do you draw every day, and what do you draw when nobody is asking? Yes. People on the train, thirty seconds each.
  • Does an animator who works on a computer still need to draw? It helps. A quick sketch solves a pose faster than a mouse.
  • How did you practice when you were starting out? Bouncing balls. Hundreds of bouncing balls.
  • How do you keep drawing from feeling like homework? I draw things that make me laugh.
  • How fast is a gesture drawing, and what are you trying to catch? Half a minute. The lean, not the details.
  • What did you draw badly for years before it came right? Feet. I hid them behind grass.
  • What do you study when you go to the zoo or the park? How a dog decides to sit.
  • What does a warm-up look like for you? Ten quick poses before I open the shot.
  • What fills your sketchbook this week? Hands. Dozens of hands holding cups.
  • Which old drawing do you keep to see how far you have come? A horse that looks like a table.
  • Whose movement do you study at home? My cat's. She is a better teacher than most books.

For an art class 14

  • Can we animate with clay or toys? Yes. Move them a little, take a photo, and repeat.
  • Do we have to be good at drawing to animate? No. Stick figures move beautifully.
  • How can we make a flip book with paper we already have? Sticky notes. Draw near the edge and change a little each page.
  • How do we draw the same character again and again? Build it from simple shapes you can repeat.
  • How do we make a ball look bouncy and not like a rock? Squash it when it lands and stretch it as it falls.
  • How do we show a character is happy without any words? Lift the chest and put a bounce in the step.
  • How does a drawing turn into a moving picture? Show many drawings quickly and your eyes join them up.
  • How many drawings do we need for a short loop? Twelve will do. Fewer if it is only a blink.
  • How many years did you practice before your animation looked right? Many, and I am still getting there.
  • May we see how you would draw a surprised face? Eyebrows up, mouth small, and everything leans back.
  • What did you draw when you were our age? Dinosaurs wearing hats.
  • What do we do when our animation looks jumpy? Add a drawing in between, or move it less each time.
  • What part of your job would we find the most fun? Acting out a monster walk in the hallway.
  • What should we animate first? A bouncing ball. It teaches almost everything.

How it works

These questions to ask animators begin with the work itself: how many frames fill one second, which part of a character moves first. Five more groups cover movement, tools, one shot's path, daily drawing and an art class.

Read the full guide

Good questions to ask an animator

The first sheet is twelve of Good ones to start with, twenty that suit a drawn, computer or stop-motion animator alike. No studio, film or show is named, so the animator picks the examples. How a character moves goes further into walks, weight and key poses.

One shot, from storyboard to screen

A shot from storyboard to screen follows a single shot in order: the panel and voice recording an animator is handed, the first rough pass, the director's notes, the hand-off to lighting and sound. The example answers describe an invented animator and print on a last page.

Questions and answers

What does an animator do?

An animator makes the pictures, called frames, that seem to move when they are shown quickly one after another. The work is in film, television and video games, and it takes so much labor that most big projects need several animators.

What can students ask an animator on a class visit?

Things they can try that afternoon: how to make a flip book from paper they already have, what to animate first, why an animation looks jumpy. For an art class holds fourteen in a student's words.

What is the difference between a character animator and an effects animator?

A character animator gives a character its movement, its speech and its acting. An effects animator moves everything else, most often vehicles, machines, rain, snow and water. One question in the opening set asks which kind the animator is.

Do animators still draw by hand?

Some do. Many now work on computers, and stop-motion animators do not draw at all: they shift models or cut-outs one frame at a time. Drawing every day asks how much pencil work the animator still does.

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