Dynamic still: Seemingly an oxymoron, but used all the time to reduce animation. The Japanese studios have discovered that if you draw a still that's very unstable (e.g. characters off their center of gravity, humans just having bounced off the ground, exciting in-the-middle-of-the-action poses, etc.) all you have to do is truck and pan the camera around it and it will give the impression that there's action without any animation! American comic book artists are using this technique more and more. To see for yourself, just pick up any of the new superhero comic books, open it up and start waving it around your head. (Helpful Hint: best done in private after you've bought the book and left the store.)

Lens Light: Not literally light from the lens of the camera per se, but an optical effect used to animate beams or rays of light coming in from the side. Scott Frazier (who writes the column next door) once told me that in Japanese, this camera effect is called nuu-shaku. I might be misquoting him because I remember having an extremely difficult time trying to pronounce it for myself. I always thought it sounded like "new-shock," which, although dramatic sounding, probably wouldn't be very practical in English. Director: "Hey, can our camera man get some new-shock effects when he shoots this scene?" Producer: "What's wrong with the shocks he's currently getting?"

Pan the Roses: We've talked about "slide-in, slide-out" as it applies to characters, but the principle of slide-in, slide-out also works for backgrounds as well. If you think animating mecha is hard, animating backgrounds is less fun and even harder! Say you're sitting with your favorite anime character in a car and you're driving toward a city of tall buildings. As you get closer to the city, you'll notice that one group of buildings will drift ever so slowly to the left, while another group of buildings will drift ever so slowly off to the right. All the buildings that move left, regardless of their apparent perspective, move together at the same rate. The same is true for the group of buildings moving right. You ask your anime girl/boy-friend why the buildings move together in groups like that. S/he answers, "Oh silly, anime cities only have two streets, one behind the other. Don't worry, it'll all change once we get there, though." (Historical note: "Pan the Roses" comes from the opening credits of Aim for the Top! Gunbuster. During the final seconds of the opening credits, you can see a background of roses panning across the screen. If you bother to look for this, check out the use of slide-in, slide-out on the cast of characters as well as the "unrolling of the mech".)

Focus pull: This is where the foreground starts off in focus, but the background is out of focus. Then, right in front of your eyes, the focus changes so that the background is in focus but the foreground is blurred. (Or vice-versa.) This is an optical effect that seems very realistic, but it really isn't. This trick is used often in American live-action where clever cinematographers have to deal with something called "depth of field," which is usually a problem. The reason it's not "real" can best be illustrated by audience participation! Hold your finger about 5 inches (13 cm for you non-Yanks) directly in-between and in front of your two eyeballs. It is very important that you have two eyeballs that work in order for this to be successful. (I mean it!) Focus on your finger. With your peripheral vision, you'll notice that the background is blurred. Just like anime, right? Wrong! Take a good look at the objects in the background. You'll see that all the objects that are not in focus in the background are not only blurry, but they're doubled too! Do you see double images in blurry backgrounds in anime? No you don't! Now try focusing on the background. (Don't take away your finger!) My God! You have an extra finger! Isn't that swell? Now, if you lose one, you'll have a replacement! This double-vision thing doesn't happen in anime (or live-action) now does it? That's why this is an optical effect (even if it is a subtle one). Here's more fun stuff you can do: Try the above experiment with just one eye (the open one preferably). It's not as easy, but using only sheer will power, you can force your eye to focus on just your finger or just the background. What happens? Do you get a different effect? Amazingly, you get the same effect that you've seen so many times in anime. No double images, no two fingers - the way it "should" be. Annoying fanboys who mouth on endlessly to me about how cool "focus pull" is because its so "realistic" need to have one of their eyes put out.

Breast-cam: Does this really need explanation? OK, for those non-women who haven't yet noticed: Quite often, the camera will be positioned such that it "coincidentally (but conveniently)" includes the strategic body parts of some nearby female anime babe. You may not think so, but there could be more than one legitimate reason for the director to use breast-cam beyond his own personal hentai-taste (but not likely). 1) The show is falling behind in the ratings and needs a quick boost in the young male demographic so more toys will be sold thus insuring employment for the director and food for his family. 2) The Producer of the show is a pervert and won't sign paychecks unless he's "feeling happy." 3) The show is sold to the network as having lots of babes in it so the director is obligated to use breast-cam. Mercifully, we in the US don't have breast-cam. We have Baywatch.

Bonus Term

Acting while talking: This is not so much an anime technique as it is a Disney principle that doesn't have a standard term. To American animators, it's a given that when characters talk, they must also move at the same time. Apparently, this fact is so obvious that no one even questions this principle. That's why they have no word for it. But as all anime fans know, a lot of anime characters just sit there while their mouths flap open and closed. Then, the character might move a little bit, freeze and then start flapping his mouth again: talk some, move some, talk some more, move some more, repeat. While I agree that people generally do move and gesture a little while talking, I think Disney animators have taken it a bit too far. It almost seems as if they're competing with each other to see who can use the most hand waving, head bobbing, body rotating gestures while their characters talk. These guys obviously don't have secret service agents living next door to them for reference. I'm very sure that if anyone in the real world tried to move as much as a Disney character does while talking, it just might be enough to push some well meaning, but misguided person, into making a citizen's arrest.