Practical animation

I remembered something I read a long time ago today. It had to do with computer animation. It was one successful animator's specific workflow (can't remember who it was). Basically, he animated the body first, completely ignoring the legs, and then animated the legs after he got the motion he wanted with the body. I remember thinking that it was a really good idea to try once I started animating stuff. I had forgotten about it until today. That's what I've been doing, and it seems like it might work. I've got the body animated the way I want, and I've only just begun to see if I can get the legs to follow along in a believable way, but I am hopeful. It really does make sense to do the body first, since shots in films tend to focus on the face/head first, the body second, and the legs might be included if the shot is wide enough, but they are almost never the center of attention. So why let them define your animation? Well, that's exactly what I had been doing up until now... I was animating the legs first, and it was making my character look completely weird. Even if I don't get the legs looking completely perfect, though, I think I will still be able to use this animation. The particular shot I want it for doesn't actually show the legs most of the time anyways (surprise, surprise!).