A lot of times animators like to act things out. I see them while they're animating, maybe doing a little something with their left hand, they're not even aware of it. But then I see their animation and they haven't put in that gesture, that feeling. And, when they put that into their character, they make the performance sing. I imagine that using video reference plays a significant role in helping to create characters.
Reference is a huge part of it.
I have a whole stack of videos in my office. But if that person actually looked at a face and drew what they SAW, then the representation changes totally. You see all kinds of things that they do, like rubbing their ears, looking around, picking stuff up - everything that makes them human. If we neglect those little gestures, then our work will never truly come alive. They've got to learn our proprietary tools, UNIX, and we teach them Softimage.