Animation From Pencils to Pixels covers a lot of ground on the business and artistic sides and is useful for reference.

Tony White, in his book Animation from Pencils to Pixels, has paid a great deal of attention to the business side of animation. But that's not all this book has to offer. It covers chapters whose titles range from, "Animation Step by Step" to "The Paperless Studio" to "The Rules of Filmmaking.” It promises, after a forward by Roy Disney, "EVERYTHING that an animator could possibly ever need to know to practice animated filmmaking comprehensively." (The caps are the authors). This book covers so much it is rather hard to talk about everything in it.

Pencils to Pixels is well illustrated, with both drawing and photographs all the way through. In each section, White, who has 30+ years in the animation industry, relates what each chapter is about to his own work Endangered Species and uses drawings and problems from that production to illustrate as he goes along. This is a book that you can keep for reference. A book where you can read chapters out of sequence or just to bone up on something you are curious about. It includes a DVD, which has a scene-by-scene look at the creation of Endangered Species.

The Business of Animation
The book starts not with drawing as so many animation books do, but with the business of animation. Under the heading of "Development,” White explores purchasing, options, public domain, confidentiality and many other subjects dear to the heart of the businessman in artists. He then gets into storyline and scriptwriting and then character design. In the section headed "Project Financing,” he talks about various outlets for your work, including movies, TV, advertising, games, the Web and direct-to markets. He covers scheduling and budgeting, cash flow and contingency planning. Under advice on marketing and distribution, he covers pre-sale distribution, financing, agents, and gets into legal advice. What an enormous lot of ground to cover!

In this same section, White explores getting financial backing for your project. Here he gives some good advice on how to package your presentation and what to put in it. Story synopsis, concept art, sample storyboards, your development budget, your key personnel and a project website are covered. He also advises on giving evidence of your ownership rights and intellectual property rights. He also covers the same ground for independent film developers, including the story bible and your "game plan.”

The Technical Side of Animation
The section called "Rules of Filmmaking" gets into the technical side of animation as well as the technique. White explains what the different camera positions are all about, including wide, ultra-wide, mid- and close-ups and extreme close-up. He talks about how to combine the various shots and this section is very well illustrated with actual camera shots. He then discusses camera lenses and what they can do for you, lighting and filters and camera moves.

In discussing staging, he gets quite detailed on how to do a cut away shot, two shot, shots for more characters and how to make them interrelate, "The Line" and eyeline. He discusses the cut, the dissolve, the fade and the wipe and special effects. There is an illustration of the various screen aspect ratios.

The Soundtrack
The next section is on soundtrack recording and editing and includes talent selection, voice recording (with his take on how to do it), recording for animation, plus music and effects recording. He admits that most animators won't be able to afford a Foley artist, and shows how to do some effects. He discusses the final track breakdown, film speeds and conversion ratios.

Next is "Storyboarding and Animatics.” Here White tells you about storyboard formats, and gives lots of tips on how to do a good one. He tells you how to create an animatic and how it helps you see what you had visualized. It is also great for fine tuning your timing.

Desktop Animation
Now White gets into "Digital Desktop Production" and very clearly goes through the steps in producing your own animation on the computer. He covers not only the actual animation, backgrounds and special effects, but checking, scanning, coloring, compositing, editing, dubbing and digital to film transfer as well. He discusses raster vs. vector, layering and line quality.