The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation: Character Animation -
Part 1 It is also important to remember that starting any
animation exercise with a minimum eight-frame hold at the
beginning is vital to let the audience’s eye acknowledge the
character before he starts moving. If the character starts
moving on frame 2 or 3 of a scene, you are starting the action
much too early for your audience, and their brains may explode
trying to catch up. Start moving your character on frame 9, 13,
or even 24. Holds are a good thing, so do not be afraid to hit
the capture button a few extra times. The nice thing about
shooting a long hold is that you can always cut frames if it
does end up being too long for the timing you want. Putting
frames back in is a bit harder. Holds are also your friend when
you are animating a long sequence that has a lot of complicated
movements, and you can gladly welcome any moment when your
puppet can slow down and pause for a few seconds. The other
general rule to remember regarding holds is