That animation is built into the styling of the theme. I asked one of the designers about it and he said that said that removing the "transform" stuff from the following code may take care of it, but there might be more that wasn't obvious in
Firebug:
template.css line around 1153:
.slideInfoZone .text_and_bottom_image .left, .slideInfoZone_unload .text_and_bottom_image .left {
float: left;
margin-left: -1000px;
opacity: 0;
overflow: visible !important;
padding-left: 6.5%;
padding-top: 0 !important;
position: absolute;
top: 50% !important;
transform: scale(1) translate(0px, -46%);
width: 57%;
}