Animation Trends: Linking animation to character traits

Many years ago animating on “twos”, “threes” and “fours” ( (holding a pose for two or more frames instead of the traditional one frame) was a technique used to reduce the frame count and therefore the number of drawings needed. This meant that animations could be made faster and more cheaply. A good example of this is “Tom and Jerry” Hanna Barbera (1940).

Over the last couple of years I have noticed in some film and TV shows that this technique has been brought back into play – even though it doesn’t need to for the reasons above. Instead this technique is being used to show character traits and background story, sometimes even being used to foreshadow upcoming events. This approach can very effectively reduce the amount of exposition needed – show not tell.

A good example of showing a character trait, and where I believe that its popularity increased the most, is from the movie “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (2018). In that movie the main character Miles is animated “on twos” for most of the film. According to the website Business Insider, in its article called “How oscar-winning ‘Spider-Man: Into the spider-verse’ changed comic book Movies forever”, “Miles is on twos because he’s clumsy”. He is intentionally animated differently from his mentor, Peter B Parker, who is animated “on ones”. This is most obviously observed in the scene where Miles and Peter are swinging through the trees as they run away from bad guys. The reason for this, as the article continues to say, is that “Peter B. Parker is on ones because he’s more skilled”. This scene is viewable in this YouTube video of the scene posted by Crime City.

Later In the movie Miles is changed to be animated “on ones” Just like the other “Spider-Men” in the film removing the choppy movements he originally had and replacing them with smoother movements to show how much he has improved over the course of the movie.

The reason this works is because 24 frames per second (FPS) is the minimum amount of frames needed to fool the human eye into seeing continuous unbroken movement. This means that when Miles is animated on 12 FPS at the start of the film his movements are very obviously “Crunchy” according to a producer for the film. This was done intentually to show his inexperience and lack of skills in comparison to the other “Spider-Men”. You might think something as subtle as this would go unnoticed. However, because of this technique, the growth and development of his skills is noticed subconciously towards the end of the movie.

An example of foreshadowing is from the show Arcane (2021). In the seventh episode of season two, during a party the characters of Ekko and Powder dance together. This specific scene is animated “on fours”, as seen in this clip from the show posted on YouTube by brivnii.

The change in FPS is very sudden (most noticeable at 24 seconds) and quite jarring, going from being animated “on ones” seconds before, to switching to being “on fours”. It really helps the scene stand out among the rest, as well as creating a very visually interesting image. The main theory for the reason the scene was animated in this way is that it is a reference to the character Ekko’s ability, in the game League of Legends (2009); he is able to reverse time by four seconds.

Again, this could be seen as a simple slow motion technique. However, when viewed in the context of the character and his ability, it foreshadows the ability he gains later in the show.

I have yet to try keeping poses for longer than one frame, as I am still learning the basics of animation and so haven’t had the oportunity yet. I did however think about giving it a go during the animation unit of the games design course I was on, but when I got to that point I realised I didn’t really know what I was doing and so scrapped the idea. I would love to revisit the technique at some point down the line when I have some more experience.

(2019) R/moviedetails on reddit: In spider-man: Into the spider-verse when Miles first swings he is animated ‘on twos’ so his movements seem choppy but at the end of the film he is animated ‘on ones’ so his movments seem more fluent. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/c5sn7w/in_spiderman_into_the_spiderverse_when_miles/

Arcane [Television Show] (2021). Netflix.

brivnii (2024) Ekko and Powder’s Last Dance | Arcane Season 2 Episode 7 | 4K, YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1asnqR3Bs

Miles learns to swing | spider-man: Into the spider-verse (HD clip) (2023) YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCoJVTpwktQ (Accessed: 09 May 2025).

Snyder, C. (2019) How oscar-winning ‘Spider-Man: Into the spider-verse’ changed comic book Movies forever, Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/spiderman-spider-man-into-spider-verse-animated-frame-rate-marvel-stan-lee-2019-2

Spider-man: Into the spider-verse [film] (2018). Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures.