Very early in the history of animation production, animators began to stack images, and gradually there emerged animation stands, which are basically racks that allow animators to hold different layers of the image in place and to fix the distance between them while photographing through the layers from above.  Putting the image layers in a rack or stand allowed animators to illuminate the images more evenly, and allowed for greater consistency and stability because it made it easier to hold key elements in place while introducing small changes as they photographed a sequence snapshot by snapshot.  This setup also introduced a gap or separation between layers of the image, and thus made it possible to introduce a greater degree of rationalization in to the movement of one layer of the image relative to other layers.  The animetic interval ( already implicit in the layering of images prior to the animation stand) became the site of a rationalization, instrumentalization or technologization of the multiplanar image, allowing animators to harness or channel the force of the moving image in distinctly animetic ways.

Due to the stacking of celluloid layers, animation tended to put an emphasis on composing (editing of image layers) over camera movement (the camera became relatively fixed), and yet there is no rule that animation must thus result in animetism.  Animation does not have to open a sense of movement between layers.  It can equally strive to suppress animetism.  In fact, a great deal of animation leans toward cinematism, striving to produce the illusion of movement into depth, of travel into a world.  Such animation deliberately uses techniques of compositing to suppress the sense of movement between layers of the image.  For this reason, it is more accurate to say that cinematism and animetism are potential tendencies of the moving image rather than fixed media categories (cinema versus animation).  What is more, animetism can have a profound impact on narrative structurees, as we will see.  Nonetheless cinematism and animetism are not genres.  Which is to say, while I see a strong tendency toward animetism in Japanese animations, especially those that are often loosely called anime, I don't see anime as a genre or style or media that can be defined on the basis of animetism.  Cinematism and animetism are different tendencies of the moving image, and as I will show in great detail in subsequent chapters, so-called anime is far from unitary in its relation to the animeticinterval.