Learn to Animate Your Life on Twos

Not every moment needs a key frame.

Apr 13, 2024

Hey friends, It’s Saud. Welcome back to Touching Base.

This is a little passion project of mine where I like to share the tangible things in life. It may be that you’ve had a lot of work this week, and you’re searching for something small to digest in your downtime.

When I was a kid, I loved LEGOs. I was obsessed. There’s so many memories I’ve had with these toys, from having LEGO-themed birthday cakes, making up whole stories with them in my bedroom, to bringing LEGOs to my primary school’s weekly ‘Show & Tell’ (only to lose them to the depths of the children’s playground an hour later).

LEGO was probably one of my first leeways into content creation, as I was first introduced to stop-motion animations on YouTube.

It completely blew my mind.
Imagine seeing your toys that you play with every day on the screen move completely by themselves. Baffled.

I learnt so much from stop motion, from storyboarding all the way to post-production. However, my most meaningful lesson was the concept of framerates, and how different ways of applying them in your works can be used to create desired narratives.

The animation industry has this concept called inbetweening. 🎞️

It’s a technique that involves designing key frames for the 24 frames required to record one second of film length. However, drawing (or shooting) 24 separate frames seems like a lot of work for one second right? That’s why animators decided to use frame frequency to their advantage, adapting framerates to achieve the final product with a lot less effort.

In many animated films, scenes have been animated on twos - a drawing for every two frames, but digital technology has allowed for animation on ones (24 frames-a-second) to become more mainstream, overcoming the impracticality of physically developing 24 individual frames.

However what I really admire is that these animators never sought total perfection in their works, and rather skilfully worked around issues of time and inconvenience. it was part-finesse, part-efficiency.

In ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)’, these techniques were used to echo Miles Morales’ character, where his inexperienced-self at the beginning of the film was animated on twos, eventually transforming into the confident webslinger at the end of the film - animated on ones.

In this same essence, I want you to start thinking about how you can animate your life on two's.

You don’t need every frame in your life to be perfect, it’s finding those key frames you can flourish in and trust the motions in between them to carry you through all those highs and lows.

Carry yourself with your best foot forward - the fruits of your labour will come over time. Trust the process. :)

Media(m) for change

When I think back to the time I was initially inspired to start Touching Base, it really derived from all the types of content I was consuming online. I really hate wasting my minutes away if I didn’t take anything of value from what I was reading or watching. I think that’s the selling point of most content creators - to answer the question:

How can you make your content the most valuable?

Truth is, it’s a struggle. On YouTube alone, over 500 hours of videos are uploaded every single minute. How can I possibly make it count?

The in-between moments. 🏕️

Stick to something simple, and keep working at it. That’s why one of my biggest inspirations is

Simon Kim

(@wholesomesimon).

He breaks down his works into two main fundamentals:
Community + Nature.

In a world noisy with information, simply having the facts isn’t enough. It’s more about how you can shape your own narrative around this big blue world of ours. Simon’s storytelling is just… *chef’s kiss*. There’s just something authentic about the idea of helping others find their people while enjoying the great outdoors that works so well.

Rather than writing about it, just take a few minutes to watch his latest video:

“Live a little lighter.”

Just as I said you shouldn’t strive solely for perfection, it’s also important to find something to strive for and pursue it with your whole heart. Having sincerity in your passions is much more important than trying to prove yourself in a field everyone else is in.

It was never about living the perfect, ideal life.
It’s really about those in-between moments.

The silence in the bedroom, the commutes on the bus home, the lack of messages to respond to.

Take it all in for what it is. If we constantly seek for change, when will we ever stop and be grateful for what we already have?

Here’s an action point for you:

Write down one thing you’ve achieved.
Write down the actions you took to get to that achievement,
good and bad.
Think about everything you did in-between all those actions.

The Whispering Tree.

I was randomly sitting down the other day, when a friend of mine came up to me and asked:

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

Sure I do.

Everyone has their own idea of what a soulmate means. To many, they see the concept in a romantic light - the ideal other half that exists in this grand universe of ours, waiting for us to discover.

For others, they think soulmates aren’t exclusive to one person.
I fall into this second category.

There’s a time and a place for everything (and everyone). 🫂

Soulmates play an important role in our lives; they exist as people that come into our lives at exactly the right time. Soulmates create a new experience for us to diverge onto a new path in our lives, and they prepare us for the next experience that comes our way.

Just as soulmates aren’t exclusive to one person, they aren’t exclusive to being good for you, they can also be hurtful to help you grow, sometimes in ways you won’t be able to see for yourself.

So, what’s the whispering tree trying to tell us?

It may be that your heart is hurting a little heavier today, or that you are feeling better than ever.

Accept that people will always come and go throughout your life, but
don’t linger on it.

Yes, they were a bully, a good friend, an old flame.
Despite serving drastically different relationships in your life, you can value them all the same. By thinking about every memory with them, you should be able to look back and be grateful for them coming into your life when they did, as every struggle and embrace has moulded you into the person you are today.

Right now, you are living your key frame, but that’s only because soulmates are those ‘in-between’ shots that help you flourish 24 frames-a-second.

Yutori Corner. 🌄

Spring’s here. The trees outside are finally blossoming, but before you know it, they will be withering away.

It made me think about the people who pass me by on campus. Someone is either on their phone or has their headphones on.

When did we forget to look up? ☁️

take off your earphones for a second, and let your ears breathe.

In the library? hear the taps of the keyboards across the halls and the murmurs of conversation happening around you.

Out on a walk? Pay attention to how the wind blows the leaves off its tree.

In a cafe? Have your undivided attention to the sounds of that sweet, sweet, coffee being made by the barista.

Wander mindlessly without pursuit of a goal or destination, and just connect with your surroundings.

Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating, touch base with you soon. :)