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/19970128200459/http://www.cbuilders.com/pig.htm.
Some of the other descriptions here are better guides to the process of getting to the characters' performance in a scene. All the steps the other animators are mentioning are critical: Get the scene and soundtrack, argue... I mean chat with the director or sequence director about the action and context of the scene, look carefully at any "help" stuff (previously animated footage of the character, reference footage, workbook and story reel materials, etc.) Then go to your office, lock the door, unplug the phone, and listen to the audio track til it wears an unalterable rut in your subconscious mind. Any real animator should be able to snap awake at 3 am in a cold sweat, intoning the dialog with the correct phrasing, tone and rhythm. Quite often, once you've reached this threshold, someone higher on the food chain will want a retake on the dialog and your brain will have to re-sculpt itself. (It helps if it's made out of silly putty)
The reason for the seclusion prior to starting is that an animator must act their way into the performance of the character, to submerge into the emotional depth of the character in the scene. No, it's more than acting. It's even more than "getting in touch with," or using the Vulcan mind-meld. You must be the character.
Dan Root boarded a section in Space Jam in which certain little individuals become hideous gigantic monsters with aptitude in a certain sport. (Is this giving away too much?) In order to give the director something to discard, Dan threw in a medium shot of Porky screaming... like a campfire girl meeting Dennis Rodman on a merry-go-round. Porky stops, glances down to an off-camera event, looks to the audience in a Brechtian aside, and informs us plaintively, "I wet myself."
Much to Dan's surprise, the shot was left in. I was cast as the animator. (There was no question...being the one with the obvious propensity for both hysterical screaming and sudden bladder control loss). Acting out this scene was very uncomfortable, though. It's hard to make your arms multiply and your face blush on cue. And as I changed my blue jeans for the 7th time while the third draft animation rough test failed, it hit me...Porky Pig, in his natural state, doesn't wear pants! Only the sports coat and bow tie!! My own self-consciousness blinded me to the reason the animation wasn't working.
Be the character!
Well, some... adjustments were made and the scene is now more convincing!
Next time you see a cartoon character not wearing pants, think of all those 'method' animators working on their next draft.
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