I recently finished teaching a group of high school students how to animate using Maya. They did a very good job learning as much as they could in 7 weeks and not one of them had to be pushed into the software. Here's their first CG animation using a simple character called
the Johnny the Box project.
While teaching this class, I learned a lot as well. For one, most students begin animating a shot starting at frame one. They don't realize that their audience needs a little time to think about what they are watching. I had to slow them down and stress the importance of holding on the beginning shot for at least 10 frames before moving the character. One main key to animation is learning about timing.
You want your audience to see the character and you should hold on the shot longer, to allow the audience to see what the character is doing or what is their attitude. Also after a character is moving about, we need to hold to see him think or react. In 2D animation, there is a term called "moving hold". This is explained by
Jeff Lew using 3D. The moving hold is where the body is in motion and then slows down but never completely stops. It moves into a pose and slowly keeps moving until it moves out of that position. In 2D, this was done in a lot of close up shots of the character's face to keep the drawing alive and not turning into a still drawing.
It was a good class since a lot of the kids would also learning other parts of the program like Dynamics. I would do a double take with a moving hold when I would see someone had created an animated fireball. Then I would ask them, "how did you do that?"