Next comes a vast pantheon of what Subotnick describes as “an idiosyncratic list of… significant contributors to animation” which also includes biographical information. It is a varied and stylistically wide ranging list, and is an indication of the approach to animated filmmaking that is foremost in Subotnick’s thinking: Cohl, McCay, Starewicz, Richter, Reineger, Alexieff & Parker, Len Lye, Trnka, McLaren, the Hubleys, Jules Engel, the Whitneys, Breer, Gianini and Luzatti, Yoji Kuri, Lenica, Servais, Yvonne Andersen, Svankmajer, Paul Fierlinger, Paul Driessen, George Griffin, Suzan Pitt, Carline Leaf, Priit Parn, Bill Plympton, the Quays, Michael Dudok De Wit, Janet Perlman, Wm. Kentridge, Piotr Dumala, Nick Park, Amy Kravitz, Mark Baker, Baerbel Neubauer, Wendy Tilby, FilmTeknarna, Michaela Pavlatova, Joanna Quinn, Koji Yamamura and others.

Largely absent are those animation artists whose work is primarily commercially oriented, and whatever profile these artists above might have made for themselves and their work, they are known first for work that is more often personal, both in style and mode of expression. Subotnick usefully includes lists of a few titles by each artist that might prove a starting point for readers wishing to pursue further research on the work of some of these artists.

The Meat
Subotnick then dives into much of the technical meat of the book, beginning with his overview of the digital studio in the home. Again, Subotnick is unafraid to introduce a sometimes-dizzying array of tech information, managing at the same time to keep clear the essential principles of how the processes work. Particularly refreshing is the admission Subotnick makes that specifics (such as prices, or software features & functionality) change and become outdated and that he is instead trying to embrace basic concepts so as to try to keep the information useful without becoming outdated. Somewhat more daunting is the prospect that, in order to really keep this book up-to-date, Subotnick will have to do periodic (if not frequent) updates and rewrites with tiring regularity.

The most glaring example of an attempt to do this that went woefully wrong would be Kit Laybourne’s The Animation Book, once a classic text on the same order of interest as what Subotnick is endeavoring to do with his new book. Laybourne’s bloated update, less written than “assembled” with extensive contributions from his students, seemed outdated almost immediately upon its release and the jarring swings from those passages that were in the original edition (exemplified by the heroic photo of George Griffin standing before his massive animation stand) to the updated “current” sections dealing with After Effects and other recent digital tools which seemed as if they were stitched on, Frankenstein-like, and might serve as a caution to anyone interested in maintaining updates to a text that posits itself as “current.”

Potatoes
Subotnick deals comfortably with the necessary technical aspects of production in his “Digital Studio” and “Technical Examples” sections especially, without being alienating, embracing the neophyte with simple explanations and still managing to engage the jaded professional by throwing in a new way of thinking about some technical process, a new shortcut or a new way to think about the craft. Parts of the book may seem so bullet-pointed as to be mistaken for a sales brochure to some tastes. In the same way, the occasional instructional walk-through may come across as basic to some, but his techs are of course not meant to substitute for a specific program’s manual.

Subotnick does offer brief but practical technical exercises in the context of animation production which, while simple, are creditably direct and much more apropos to the work of the animator than many techs in a variety of overpriced-and-application specific books at twice the weight of this one (how many readers have, for example, despaired of finding an AfterEffects book that directly addresses creating cartoon animation?). It is the concision and clarity with which he deals with the often-burdensome technical load that must be borne, which makes it as accessible, as easily digestible, as it is.

Subotnick has produced several short animations that illustrate the exercises and principles he discusses, and these are also included on the attached CD-ROM along with detailed descriptions of how each was executed. With a short paragraph on the importance of “defining goals,” Subotnick jumps seamlessly from hard technical information to a short note on the questions a filmmaker might want to ask as a project begins and how to apply those questions to style and approach. And then we’re back to technical considerations, and the seed of those questions got slipped in with such subtlety we barely noticed it, but it got there. The CD’s interface is simple and uncluttered, works equally well on the Mac and on the PC, but requires QuickTime.

Dessert
The variety and scope of what Subotnick covers makes the book seem much larger than it is: The author offers a fine accounting of why he uses digital tools that manages to be both explanatory and inspiring. There are insightful analyses of how an animator might make their best use of money and time, a subject rarely discussed even in school environments that purport to be offering students a well-rounded education in animation. A practical discussion considering the choices of production and release format leads to a veritable shopping list of options for digital animators to get their work seen. He provides a crystal clear an explanation of digital aspect ratio as I’ve yet seen. A concise overview of options for soundtrack production, which manages to slip in a plug for a useful product made by the author’s father, composer Milton Subotnick, among many others. Subotnick also shows illustrations from animation Websites, both by independent artists and by some of those lingering vestiges of the Internet bubble, applies them to some very useful advice on building a first Website designed to support the exhibition of animation.