Thinking Animation, Bridging the Gap Between 2D and CG by Angie Jones and Jamie Oliff attacks the changing world for animators with humor and experience.

Thinking Animation, Bridging the Gap Between 2D and CG by Angie Jones and Jamie Oliff deals with a great deal more than animation, in either form, with humor and experience. An introduction by Richard Taylor poses the question, “How does one become an animator who is adept at the latest technological advances, yet still create with the spirit and freedom of traditional hand-drawn animation?” Or as the authors put it “The Digital Age is here. No, seriously, put down that pencil or you’re fired.”

Floyd Norman, noted here as “animator and story guy,” does an introduction, as well as a lot of the illustrations, and tells how he was first enchanted by Bambi. Floyd was (and still is) one of the early successful crossover artists between 2D and CG. He spent a great many years at Disney and other studios, to as he says, “create, for lack of a better word, magic.” The authors’ answer for how to do that is in education, history, networking and to never stop learning. And self-discipline. You draw every day, you do your art constantly, you put in the energy, and you think about your art.

The Things They Are a Changin’
They start off the book with the history part, telling of the evolution of animation. With the reminder that things are changing for the CG animator, too. Along the bottom of most of the book runs a timeline of the important events in animation, from 1824’s Persistence of Vision to the newest King Kong in 2005. Printing deadlines preclude anything newer from being included, obviously. Through out the book boxes emphasize bulleted points and interesting facts. If you are a Readers Digest type, you can just read the boxes. One of their points is that studying the history of any field helps you predict the future of that industry. You need to keep up in the animation industry! Some of the illustrations (by a variety of animation artists) are very nice sensitive sketches, more are just plain funny.

Pithy quotes and some personal interjections by people in the industry are lined off and worth picking out to read. The authors talk about how visual effects influenced audience perception and how that changed animation. How the studios just didn’t get it and how artists resisted the change. As Troy Saliba put it, “I miss my pencil.” The box office (there is a chart) made everyone realize that “… rather than giving up the craft 2D animators had struggled so long to perfect, all of the principles of traditional animation also applied directly to animation on a computer.”

Stop Fighting
The authors get into details of the CG process; a complicated process intended to, “ensure that all the pieces of the puzzle fit.” They say, “If you stop fighting the cold nature of the machine, you will recognize that, in time, you will learn how to drive it very easily.” They talk a great deal about how to create a story for animation. What works in animation vs. what works in live action, character arcs and backstory, storyboards, animatics and previz. The inserted paragraph by Gordon Vernon telling how they came up with the idea for the Gingerbread Man in Shrek makes wonderful reading.

Then they get into post, saying, “Editors are well paid for a reason.” Then they tell you why and what you have to learn and pay attention to so the editors can do their job without killing you. Storyboards for television versus film is one of the subjects, where they get into the need to understand aspect ratios, camera shots, beats, and composition. And if you don’t think this has a bearing on post-production, you should be in a different business.

Great Headings
The chapter on how to create characters is entitled “The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Annoying.” The sub heading on villains is, “The Fine Art of Being a Bastard.” The authors discuss what makes a memorable character and how they come from your own personal observation. You need to make the character relatable, believable. “Character is the core of what we do as animators… The animator needs to create a connection with the audience.” Creating a character bio is one way of finding out who your character is according to the authors. The list of questions you should have your character answer runs to three pages.

When the authors get into translating your 2D drawing into CG, they admit that, “2D has a kind of freedom that is difficult to reproduce in CG.” Your drawing has to be simple enough for the rigger to understand where to place the points to make him move, and the authors give you lots of hints on just what to do. Cheats are hard to do in CG, so get it right in the first place. The book talks about how “the rig equals solid drawing” and how you have to have a good relationship with your rigger, because you don’t create the character without him or her. You confer with your rigger constantly to avoid problems.