Why Characters Shouldn't Look at The Camera

Bugs - stop looking at us!

One of the most common mistakes made by student animators is to have their characters talk directly to the camera, breaking the so-called "Fourth Wall".

Inexperienced animators often make this error. We pose out our character and we think - who is she talking to? I know - she's talking to me! But in a film, or a play, or a TV Series, the camera (ie the audience) is almost always an observer, never a participant.

Part of the so-called Willing Suspension of Disbelief is that the characters acting for us don't know we are there.

Sometimes characters will talk to the camera (like Bugs Bunny, left) but this is unusual. Mostly, on-screen characters look at each other, not at us.