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Tagged With: How To Succeed In Animation

In Passing Headline News

Oscar-Winning Director Gene Deitch Dies at 95

By Dan Sarto | Monday, April 20, 2020 at 2:28pm

Legendary animator, illustrator, producer, and author, who won an Academy Award in 1961 for his animated short, ‘Munro,’ passed away last Thursday at his home in Prague. 

Chapter 9: What's in a Name?

Creating the right name for a cartoon character can be a key* to its success. A clever name can often lead you to develop a clever character. Or maybe you have a great idea for a character, but you’re hung up trying to think of its name.  You need a name that’s easy to pronounce, unique and copyrightable, inherently appealing, strong, or funny in itself.  A great, original name will attract positive reactions even before people know what or who it is!

Chapter 35: Big Thoughts

Animators Belong To The Ages -- The Da Vinci Daze

In the early days of the 21st 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 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 figured I could fake a speech about.

Chapter 34: After-Words

Well, no one is perfect.

Hundreds of happy messages have come to me since the time AWN began publishing this book on line, and only one piece of hate mail. In that one the anonymous (natch) writer ranted in heavily bleepable language – that ALL of my films sucked, and wished I would promptly die.

Chapter 32: The Last Word ? Iris Out

This is the kind of animation movie I've been talking about in this whole book!

Tom Terrific: "Mighty Manfred! This is the very most worst desperate situation that ever was!"

Manfred: "You're right, Tom. Let's go home!"

Tom: "And it calls the very most desperate action!"

Manfred: "Oh, no!"

Tom: "Therefore, I have decided to THINK!"Efx:B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bbl-bbl-bbl-pssssssss-bgong-glong-ploshshshsshshshshshshs!

Iris out >

Chapter 31: My Loving Fans

A Terrific utterance.

My fans seldom meet. They are few and they are diverse. I am virtually unknown in the mass media. My name rings no bells in the gossipy movie biz. My fans are isolated. They rarely know each other, but they do love me... YES! They really love me!

I may have the most diverse fanhood going.:

Chapter 29: The Charlotte Papers

Here is the complete documentation of possibly my greatest creative loss. But my loss was nothing compared to what befell E.B. "Andy" White. Letters from him and his wife indicate the depressing effect the debacle had on his health. I know one thing for sure. No one ever saw the storyboard we created. No one rejected it. It was irrelevant to the powers that ignored it.

Chapter 28: A Tangled Web

The great writer, E.B.White became my friend and regular correspondent until his death. That was my main reward from a spidery web of deceit that squashed a literary spider. Here, and in the next chapter you can read the never-before published letters that reveal the true story.

"0 what a tangled web we weave,when first we practise to deceive!"
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

Chapter 16B: Tom Terrific 1958 Production Plan

Terrytoons. Here was my locale that most interests the animation historians. So now I finally have the chance to tell it like it really was. I name names -- all the names, and print the pix. And all the production details about Tom Terrific. I tell you what I did and what I tried to do - a "renaissance" - a total make over... and I tell you why it failed.

Here is a faithful reproduction of the surviving actual production notes for the second series of Tom Terrific, as issued by me in March, 1958

Chapter 16A: Terrytoonery

Terrytoons. Here was my locale that most interests the animation historians. So now I finally have the chance to tell it like it really was. I name names -- all the names, and print the pix. And all the production details about Tom Terrific. I tell you what I did and what I tried to do - a "renaissance" - a total make over... and I tell you why it failed.

Chapter 15: The Terry-fying Challenge

Terrytoons. Here was my locale that most interests the animation historians. So now I finally have the chance to tell it like it really was. I name names -- all the names, and print the pix. And all the production details about Tom Terrific. I tell you what I did and what I tried to do - a "renaissance" - a total make over... and I tell you why it failed.

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