The word is ANIMATION , not ANIMATIONS

Online I notice a lot of confusion and imprecision of terminology when discussing traditional hand drawn animation , so I thought it would be useful to post a reference document with a glossary of commonly used terms .

Click here to access Traditional Animation Glossary of Terms

First, let’s define Animation:

Animation - ( *never “Animations”) - - The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity. - The quality or condition of being alive, active, spirited, or vigorous. - The art or process of preparing animated cartoons. - An animated cartoon : A series of drawings that bring inanimate objects and characters to life.

*Animation is an “uncountable noun” , therefore it does not have an extra “s” added for “Animations”. Unlike countable nouns, uncountable nouns are substances, concepts, etc. that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot "count" them. For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count "milk" itself , so for example , we do not speak of “bottles of milks” . Or another example is "music" ... we don't speak of "musics" . Neither would we speak of "animations" , but rather animation.

For professional animators trained in the traditional animation discipline hearing the term "Animations" is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

My friend and colleague, storyboard artist and animator Eddie Pittman also addressed this on his Substack recently.  Eddie wrote: 

In the animation world—at least the one I grew up in, back when we carved our drawings on stone walls and ran around with flickering torches to watch them move—the word “animation” is a mass noun (or so says grammar experts). Like the words “furniture”, “software”, or “music.”

I mean, you wouldn’t say: “I listened to some musics today.” You would say: “I listened to music.”

In the same way, you don’t traditionally say: “I make animations.” You say: “I make animation.”

So when I hear someone say: “I love Pixar’s animations,” that’s nails-on-a-chalkboard wrong. Why does it bother me so much? Animation isn’t a product—like a collection of little wiggly things you can count like…wiggly things. It’s a discipline. A craft. A performance. It’s acting. It’s dance. Built one painstaking drawing at a time.

When I started in animation, back in the 90s—long before GIFs, social media, and those motion UI widgets that make websites (and the viewer) feel like they’re having mild seizures—animation meant more than interchangeable widgets that wiggle. It was, as Frank and Ollie told us, the illusion of life.

And it was singular. Always singular.

https://eddiepittman.substack.com/p/a-small-grammatical-hill-i-will-cheerfully