How To Succeed In Animation -- Everything you ever wanted to know about animation, but were afraid Gene might tell you -- and it’s basically all up-front in the intro stuff. So don’t miss the Motto and the governing Joke of this book, the Preview, and especially the section labeled with the main title, "How To Succeed In Animation."

How To Succeed in Animation

(Don't Let a Little Thing Like Failure Stop You!)

©2001 by Gene Deitch

genedeitch@yahoo.com
www.fortheloveofprague.com
www.genedeitch.com

Index:

1. Gene Deitch 2. UPA 3. The Jam Handy Organization 4. CBS-Terrytoons 5. Tom Terrific 6. Mighty Manfred The Wonder Dog 7. Prague 8. Czechoslovakia 9. Czech Republic 10. "For The Love of Prague" (book) 11. Munro 12. Oscar 13. Tom & Jerry 14. Nudnik 15. Weston Woods Studios, Inc./Scholastic 16. Jazz, blues 17. The Record Changer magazine 18. The Cat 19. Animation 20. Cartoons 21. Czech animation 22. Children's films adapted from picture books.

A successful American animation director uses examples of his own failures to make points as to how young animators can avoid some pitfalls on the way to success, and stirs the pot with musings on the meaning and wonder of animation.

"A successfully completed film of honest craftsmanship, artful construction, and worthy meaning is a genuine miracle."

This is my personal work space in Prague.

 

How To Succeed in Animation

Animation Rules, And Always Has!

Animators Belong To The Ages. Where We Fit In.

In the early days of the 21^st Century I was invited to be the keynote speaker at an event with the lofty title, “da Vinci Days.”    I suspected it was because they found out that I’m left-handed.  The theme of the affair, put on by the University of Oregon in Corvallis, was “Motion, Music, Magic.” Those were things I was supposed to know something about.

First of all, I am someone who never sits still.  I drove my mother crazy, because I could never sit quietly.  I had to constantly fidget and move.  To this day, I always have to be doing something, going somewhere.   Motion is what I am constantly in.

Secondly, there is Music.  I know all about music:  I cannot sing in tune. I cannot play any musical instrument. I cannot read musical notation.  I cannot dance.  But I got rhythm.  I am an annoyingly constant hand drummer… even if I have no drum handy.  In spite of these obvious bedevilments, my whole life has been bound up in music.   In my animation work, I’ve had a hand in the creation of hundreds of musical scores.  I constantly have music and melodies in my head.  But when I try to sing them to my film composers, they tell me, “Gene, there are no such notes!”   Musicians to me are magicians. They magically seem to get the idea, or stubbornly come up with a better one.  And that brings me to Thirdly: