Build your skills in the development of story ideas that will command an audience for your 2-5 minute animated short. Packed with illustrated examples of idea generation, character and story development, acting, dialogue and storyboarding practice this is your conceptual toolkit proven to meet the challenges of this unique art form. The companion DVD includes in-depth interviews with industry insiders, 18 short animations (many with accompanying animatics, character designs and environment designs) and an acting workshop to get your animated short off to a flying start! With Ideas for the Animated Short you'll learn about: Story Background and Theory * Building Better Content * Acting: Exploring the Human Condition * Building Character and Location * Building Story * Dialogue * Storyboarding * Staging

DIRECTING, DIALOGUE AND ACTING From Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit comes key chapters in mini form. The Animator's Survival Kit is the essential tool for animators. However, sometimes you don't want to carry the hefty expanded edition around with you to your college or studio if you're working on just one aspect of it that day. The Animation Minis take some of the most essential chapters and make them available in smaller, lightweight, hand-bag/backpack size versions. Easy to carry. Easy to study. This Mini focuses on Directing, Dialogue and Acting. As a director, whatever your idea is, you want to put it over, so the main thing with directing is to be clear - very clear. The Director's job is to hold everything together so that the animator can give the performance. Richard Williams shows how that performance can be achieved with flexibility and contrast. With Acting and Dialogue, the temptation is to try to do everything at once - Williams' advice: do one thing at a time.

There’s no class in art school that can teach you this. Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to directing a great animated film than beautiful illustrations and cool characters. You need to bring out your inner creative visionary and take your savvy leadership skills to the front lines - being great with a pencil, brush, or stylus is not enough. Tony Bancroft released his inner creative visionary when creating Mulan. In Directing for Animation he shows you exactly how. Pull the right strings to bring your characters to life and center your story by developing the visual cues that lend to your audiences understanding of the plot, place, and purpose. Tony walks you through the process, bringing you behind the scenes of real, well-known projects - with a little help from some famous friends. Learn from the directors of Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Ice Age, Chicken Run, and Kung Fu Panda, and see how they developed stories and created characters that have endured for generations. Get the inside scoop behind these major features...pitfalls and all.

Animation is one of the fastest-growing fields in film and television, and it is also integral to video games and web development. Once an esoteric and hard-won skill, technology has advanced to the point that simple animated projects can now be produced on a home PC. Its many enthusiasts have fuelled a range of new courses in universities, and in public and private colleges. Drawing on their extensive experience in the field, the authors offer a systematic overview of the role of the animation producer and the production process. They explain how to develop a concept, pitch it to obtain funding, and find a market. They offer detailed advice on recruiting a team, managing different stages of production (including overseas suppliers), quality control, budgeting and scheduling. They also outline the key aspects of 2D and 3D production. From project development, seeking investment to pre- and post-production, for film, television, and the web, The Animation Producer’s Handbook is the ‘one-stop shop’ for budding animators everywhere.

Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video is the definitive book on the subject for beginning filmmakers and students. The book clearly illustrates all of the steps involved in preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution. Its unique two-fold approach looks at filmmaking from the perspectives of both producer and director, and explains how their separate energies must combine to create a successful short film or video, from script to final product. This guide offers extensive examples from award-winning shorts and includes insightful quotes from the filmmakers themselves describing the problems they encountered and how they solved them. The companion website contains useful forms and information on grants and financing sources, distributors, film and video festivals, film schools, internet sources for short works, and professional associations.

Accompanying DVD-ROM has industry and student animations with two-dimensional animatics, character and environment designs, storyboards, beat boards, three-dimensional model facial tests, and acting references.

If Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs represented the Animation industry’s infancy, Ed Hooks thinks that the current production line of big-budget features is its artistically awkward adolescence. While a well-funded marketing machine can conceal structural flaws, uneven performances and superfluous characters, the importance of crafted storytelling will only grow in importance as animation becomes a broader, more accessible art form. Craft Notes for Animators analyses specific films – including Frozen and Despicable Me – to explain the secrets of creating truthful stories and believable characters. It is an essential primer for the for tomorrow’s industry leaders and animation artists.