A reposting from former Ohio animation studio Character Builders's detailed Space Jam feature on their website from 1997. Link at https://web.archive.org/web/19970128200438/http://www.cbuilders.com/nada.htm.
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I received the scene handout of Nada [who became "Nawt" late in the film's production] catching the basketball and impressing the Looney Tunes with his dribbling ability. I was familiar with this scene because it was from a sequence that I had originally storyboarded in which the Monstars form a Harlem-Globetrotteresque magic circle around Bugs Bunny and the gang. The Monstars are showing off their newly-acquired size, strength, and basketball skills.
Since I was familiar with the storyboards, I looked at the background layout to see if it differed much from the boards (it usually will). In this case, the background was computer generated and over the course of the shot the camera rotated around Nada as he dribbled. A computer camera move like this is at least three times as much work as a locked down shot but it opens up the cinematic possibilities of the film so much that in certain instances I think it pays off (and besides, it was what I had called for in my storyboard, so I had no one to blame but myself ). I then looked at the length of the scene--5 ft. 6 frames. I numbered my x-sheet starting with 1 and using only the odd numbers to give me reference for posing the scene. Then I played the audio track over and over, listening to the rhythm of the dialog for any natural phrasing that could help me to pose the scene.
At this point, I would usually begin posing out the scene in thumbnail sketches, working on the main poses and making notes on secondary movement that occur within the pose. By writing the dialog beneath the thumbnails I can relate the two to one another quickly and try some different options. However, on this scene, because the character's position and perspective were constantly changing I decided to first solve some of the drawing problems. The computer-generated photo-roto had a floor grid that showed the perspective and a large cylinder that represented Nada's position and size. I determined Nada's height as compared to the cylinder and his foot position relative to the perspective grid. Using this drawing as a guide I "animated" (on twos and threes) Nada standing still with his feet planted as his position changed and the camera rotated around him. This was basically a technical exercise but it would make my job much easier later on when I would animate Nada's dribbling action.
Bruce Smith (who, along with Tony Cervone, directed the animation) was really interested in capturing the specific athleticism of basketball. Since my hoops game is mediocre at best, I went back to footage of NBA players who actually have skills. I looked at video of Muggsy Bogues (Nada's live-action counterpart), Tim Hardaway, Kenny Anderson, Isaiah Thomas, and even Bob Cousy, analyzing the action, making sketches, and trying to repeat the action myself. I then settled on some old footage in which one of the Harlem Globetrotters dribbles through his legs from the front and then from the back in rapid succession. In order for Nada to do this, he would have to rotate his upper body counter to the camera's rotation, which would make for a more interesting scene. 
Using the footage as a reference for timing, I began animating the upper body and the arms as they relate to the ball. Also I began putting in the main dialog accents all the while checking this against the ever-changing perspective and shooting pencil tests. Because everything was moving all the time in this scene, there wasn't much I could chart for my assistants. Virtually every drawing was a key I had to do myself.
When I was done I had a very realistic dribbling action taking place in a moving perspective. Technically it was interesting, but it had no emotional punch. It had lost the energy that was in the storyboards. It was too realistic--It had no caricature. After talking it over with Jim Kammerud (our sequence director) and looking back at my boards we determined that they had been drawn as if a wide angle lens had been used--more perspective distortion, more in-your-face action. In addition, I had drawn multiple hands and basketballs as Nada dribbles faster and faster.
Initially I had intended to animate multiple hands and arms, but when I started the scene I chickened out because it seemed too hard. But now, given what I had already done, it didn't seem like that much more work. I reworked the scene adding extra hands and multiple basketballs, distorting the perspective and pushing the squash and stretch. This improved the scene on various levels but mostly improved the sense of caricature. Instead of showing a solidly drafted realistically animated basketball playing alien that could have been a real actor, it showed an enthusiastic NADA moving athletically and naturalistically, but much farther and faster than any real person ever could.
All this work for about two seconds of screen time! Was I satisfied with the scene? No--you can always draw it better, time it crisper, and make the movement more elegant. A finished scene never lives up to the expectations you had when you started it. If it does, you are either a genius or you have low expectations.
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