Pose to pose animation is a term used for animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. The animators draws key poses for the characters and then let tweeners generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. The interpolation however, is a straight a to b animation. That way the animation ends up having the characters just end up going from pose to pose, which is unlike what a live action actor would do. Canadian animator John Kricfalusi

John Kricfalusi

Michael John Kricfalusi , better known as John K., is a Canadian animator. He is creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, its adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", The Ripping Friends animated series, and Weekend Pussy Hunt, which was billed as "the world's first interactive web-based...

 is very critical of the technique and explains he wants "to try moving the characters in crazy fun ways, not just looking funny each time they come to a stop". In computer animation

Computer animation

Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....

, armatures are posed and keyframed, so that the poses can later be interpolated (a mathematical term meaning to make a transition between two points) to create complex or natural motions (like a cat walking, or breakdancing). Pose to pose is based on forward kinematics

Forward kinematics

Forward kinematics is computation of the position and orientation of robot's end effector as a function of its joint angles. It is widely used in robotics, computer games, and animation. The reverse process is known as inverse kinematics....

, and is used in 3D applications such as Blender (software)

Blender (software)

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...

 that lack good quality inverse kinematics

Inverse kinematics

Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...

.

Examples

Music Video by Chryssie Hynde, Tube And Berger, most all motions are pose to pose.

The Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

 animated special Dreamland

Dreamland (Doctor Who)

Dreamland is the second animated Doctor Who serial to air on television...

is an example of pose to pose animation styles.