Frame-by-frame movement — hand-drawn, CGI, or stop-motion. Every image is constructed; no live-action footage involved.
Every single frame is deliberately set, not captured — that is the core work in animation. You don't see a camera recording a scene; instead, movement is created by the sequence of static images, which are switched in rapid succession so that our eyes perceive them as fluid motion. This works even at 12 frames per second, but most modern productions work with 24 or 25 fps — sometimes even 60 fps for fast action or VFX shots.
In the traditional hand-drawn process, an animator draws pose by pose, often with in-between assistants filling in the intermediate steps. The result is scanned, colored, and composed. With stop-motion (puppet animation, claymation), it's more physical: a figure is moved microscopically, photographed, moved again by a few millimeters — hundreds of times for a single second. CGI animation uses 3D software: models are rigged (given digital joints), keyframes are set, and the software calculates the movement in between. This is not real-time capture; each frame is recalculated and rendered anew.
On set or in post-production, you often distinguish animated passages from live-action by their characteristic quality of motion. A real camera captures physical reality with all its artifacts — motion blur, lens flares, optical aberrations. Animation can imitate these but must control every parameter individually. This provides precision but also a different — often more plastic — look. That's why some directors intentionally use motion blur or digital camera shake in animation as well, to make it appear more natural. Others play precisely with this artificiality: animated character movements can be exaggerated, precisely geometric, unnaturally fast — depending on the narrative intent.
Practically, in editing and color grading, you need a feel for this: animated material is graded differently than live-action. The lighting calculation is artificial but often consistent. Color corrections that work for real footage can over-correct animation. Conversely, animation can tolerate more extreme stylizations because it's already non-realistic. Many modern films mix live-action with animation — then you have to optically negotiate the interfaces so that both worlds share a visual language.