You know, Art Babbitt used to say, "If you can't feel it, it doesn't work." And trying to get that same kind of tactile feel into your timing takes a certain amount of development in your education as an artist.

Animating for the internet takes some special skill, as witnessed by JibJab's Time For Some Campaignin' short. ©JibJab.

TS: I think there's certainly some very handsome work this year and some great technique out there. Of course, the performances in The Princess and the Frog were great. There's some wonderful stuff in Ice Age 3 and Up. I think what's interesting is hopefully the re-emergence of the animation actor because there was a period in the '90s renaissance when you had lead animators running their characters completely through a performance, and really acting as the animation actor. And with some of the 3D, because the animators were responsible for [multiple characters in the frame], it could've been the case that some of the animator's performance was diluted because he had to think about the three different personalities. And when I look at this year, we're getting back toward an overall performance on a single character: Eric Goldberg doing the alligator and the little boy in Up. Those were really nice performances.

Again, it's that challenge of my boomer generation to make sure that all the things that we were taught by the Golden Age guys really do get passed on to the next generation. And timing for animation is part of that process

Bill Desowitz is senior editor of AWN & VFXWorld.