Comment by crucialfelix

I watched some youtube video where they got complete beginners to animate a character jumping across a canyon gap. No skills, no muscle memory, constant struggling. The character looks like a rag doll. Then the professional does it and she's playing with the arc of the jump, adding emotion to the jump, adding little details like turning the head back for a reaction shot. She's playing with it, and explaining her thoughts and having fun. That really shows how much artistic skill there is involved. It's not just "automation". It's like brush strokes, but applied to splines and velocity curves and shaders.

People don't understand that about music either. We may use sequencers and automation, but the work happens in real time, and it is an instrument that we are playing. It's just that we work at a higher level than just playing something on a keyboard.