A remarkable (and again, remarkably free of excess) chapter on developing ideas, veers perhaps sharpest into the theoretical, along with a section on how an idea develops, describing the minutia of Subotnick’s sometimes circuitous, intellectual gymnastics that culminate in a film. He describes the conceptual genesis of his work in progress tentatively titled The Angel. Whether a reader is fascinated by or even cares to follow Subotnick’s linking the intellectual strands of the Biblical fall from heaven, an obscure event from the Thirty Year’s War, and the work of Rembrandt, Subotnick offers a vivid and amusing look into the complexity of a creative mind at work. He brings it back around at the end to make his point effectively, keeping us abreast of the linkages that brought the idea to fruition.

A Stiff After-Dinner Drink
I do want to address some of the issues I find problematic about Subotnick ‘s book. First and foremost: What’s with the illustrations? I can understand Subotnick’s desire to keep certain images general so as not to seem to be linking any specific product with the general ideas he outlines. However the wiggly-line funkiness of the Tim Miller illustrations extends to hand-done drawings of the interfaces of Premiere and Flash. Pretty specific stuff, and, while an example illustrating the idea of metamorphosis is clear and useful, the overall softness and vagueness of some other examples, like the drawing of a walk cycle, can hurt the usefulness of the illustration.

Subotnick has also fully embraced timing of all animation at 30 fps, a nod to the 29.97 fps speed of NTSC video, but he barely addresses the reasons why someone might want to explore creating their work at 24fps, and explore what the results and advantages of that approach might be. Also, though the animation excerpts on the CD–ROM are clear and attractive, limiting most to around 10 seconds is woefully unsatisfying. Rights issues no doubt were a consideration, but nevertheless the reader sometimes gets no feeling for even the aesthetic choices of a filmmaker’s work from a snippet of less than 10 seconds. This may be a point of criticism more usefully directed at the various copyright licensors of these works, whose often exclusive contracts can mean less rather than more exposure for the filmmakers whose work they purport to be advancing.

A criticism that might well arise among animator-wannabes is Subotnick’s addressing of “The Home Digital Studio” as one that does not include 3D Computer Graphics. A casual look through AWN’s current events any given month or a look at the flavor of the majority of feature animation in the contemporary market reveals a world where, to many, “animation” has become synonymous with 3D CGI. And yet I applaud Subotnick’s keeping his focus as it stands in his book. Subotnick embraces stop-motion, and he deals with staging and lighting when doing stop-motion animation, offering the basic conceptual foundations that will extend into the world of the animation artist using 3D CG tools.

Still, those vehement CG advocates might dismiss the book as not being useful. This is a shame, since that mindset willfully avoids the conceptual foundation that underlies all animation, regardless of technique, and an examination of Subotnick’s book reveals useful and valid information for all artists working in animation. Nevertheless, Subotnick and publisher Focal Press do face the unavoidable fact that, while there is indeed a tremendous amount of useful information in the book, a great deal of it might be out of date very quickly.

The world of “how–to” books devoted to the animated arts has grown geometrically, dutifully following the expansion of the animation market. A selective lineage of such books weaves a trail from the seminal early volumes from Preston Blair, John Halas, Yvonne Andersen, Eli Levitan, Roy Madsen, and others, to the generalist work of Kit Laybourne, Kodak, Howard Beckerman and the craft-specific tomes of Thomas and Johnston, Tony White, Richard Williams to today’s crop of expensive niche volumes tailored to very specific tasks in the digital realm. Focal Press has long been at the forefront of the effort to tailor specific books of practical use to media creators of all persuasions. With the publication of Animation in the Home Digital Studio — Creation to Distribution, Subotnick has offered a wonderfully useful general volume, of practical use for animation production in the world of desktop digital production as well as of inspirational and conceptual use for any animator, no matter their media. Grab it now.

Animation in the Home Digital Studio — Creation to Distribution by Steven Subotnick. Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2003. 208 pages, includes Mac/PC CD ROM. ISBB: 0-240-80474-0 ($34.99)

Steven Dovas is an animation director and educator who makes his living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is represented for commercials by Class~Key Chew~Po Commercials in Los Angeles and his film Call Me Fishmael was an international award winner. He is working on a documentary about forgotten animation producer Mars Yotnick. He is the animation coordinator in the Department of Media Arts at the Pratt Institute and also teaches at NYU. His last article for AWN, about independent animation in New York appeared in May 1999. He is disappointed that the best ideas for animation books have now pretty much all been taken.