Moon Cosmic Power - analysis

Analyse “frame by frame” des effets de transformation dans la séquence “Moon Cosmic Power” (Sailor Moon S)

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The frames animating the rays stay on the screen twice, and same for the moving background / character, but alternating (ex : Ab, Ac, Bc, Bd, Cd, Ce etc.). This creates more movement continuity, fluidity and visal interest without animating at a higher frame rate
Effects appear at once, boldly, and change rapidly without transitions since they need to be fast
The viewer is offen blinded by the effects (litterally taking up all the screen) and its mind fills up the transformation continuity by itself - it’s a magic trick !
The fact that the background is moving fast, and the character and effects are also moving, all at the same time, creates a lot of visual interest. The moving background and dynamic poses of the character eliviates the need for smooth moving transitions - it’s also a magic trick.
The animators are not afraid to move the character directly from pose to pose without transition since the poses are very expressive and indicative of the movement already, with the direction of the hair and arms.
As always with Sailor Moon transformations, there is a lot of “camera” movement, meaning zooming in and out on the character quite a lot while other things are moving too. This creates dynamic shots and focuses the viewer’s attention on what is appearing during the transformation. </aside>

Frames

Only 6 frames and it works so well ! Animated on twos.

The hearts appear at once !
They are already directed outwards
They are not placed according to their size, since there are small hearts on the outside too
There is a buble on top of the crystal that does not expand past it

The hearts that were already there have rotated
The bigger hearts rotate faster than the smaller ones
All the hearts have increased in size
Only one small heart has been added to the center
The bubble has expanded past the crystal and surrounds it completely (it takes all of the image’s height)

It is now harder to track which heart corresponds to which one from the previous frame
There is still the same number of hearts
They have all increased in size
This is the first frame where the hearts are starting to be too big and are cut off the image (4 out of 6 hearts are only partly visible)
The halo of the bubble is visible only on the corners of the image and blurry

Only one heart, in the center of the screen, is fully visible
All of the other hearts are really big and only their side of bottom parts are visible
There are still only 6 hearts
The direction of the hearts is still the same as in the beginning

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After this : The next image has a transparent overlay of the colour of the hearts, which stays on until the glow is scaled back to the crystal

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