[Nancy_Beiman]Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts (hi quality pdf){Zzzzz}

Packed with illustrations that illuminate and a text that entertains and informs, this book explains the methods and techniques of animation preproduction with a focus on story development and character design.

Story is the most important part of an animated film-and this book delivers clear direction on how animators can create characters and stories that have originality and appeal. Learn how the animation storyboard differs from live action boards and how characters must be developed simultaneously with the story. Positive and negative examples of storyboard and character design are presented and analyzed to demonstrate successful problem-solving techniques. Artwork from an international array of students and professionals supplement the author's own illustrations. Three never-before-published interviews with well known development artists and a comprehensive glossary are also included

Publisher: Focal Press; 1st edition (March 2, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0240808207
ISBN-13: 978-0240808208

Editorial Reviews
Review
'Nancy Beiman has done an excellent job explaining the story development and boarding process, and I am certain this book will be a useful tool to all animation students and schools.'
Brian P. McEntee, Art Director 'Beauty and the Beast' and Production Designer 'Ice Age'

'No one knows more about designing characters and creating story for animation than Nancy Beiman. Lavishly illustrated and expertly written, she draws on all her experience as a teacher, an artist and an animation industry veteran. A must-have for anyone who wants to make an animated film.'
Jerry Beck, Animation Historian, www.cartoonbrew.com

'In the library of motion picture how/to books, one topic that has not been adequately explained is the art of storyboarding. Internationally known animator Nancy Beiman draws upon her experience to create for the first time a definitive manual for the art. Lavishly illustrated and highly readable, it is essential reading for anyone serious about learning how to create stories, characters and storyboards for film.'
Tom Sito, animator, author of Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson.

'At long last we have a comprehensive new book covering the not always fully-understood areas of the animated film production processes of story and character development, and their care and feeding. Nancy Beiman, a seasoned Producer, Writer, Teacher, Story Artist, and former Disney Animator who has worked all over the globe, has authored a book which I predict will become a textbook in animation programs everywhere.'
Bill Matthews
Animation Professor

'Nancy Beiman knows that storyboards are about more than continuity and cutting; they're about character and conflict. A good storyboard has the power to make things as elusive as thoughts and emotions tangible for audiences. Prepare To Board fulfills the promise of its title by supplying readers with solid advice and illustrated examples that will help them make successful animated films.'

Mark Mayerson, Professor of Animation, Sheridan College

'Nancy Beiman has written an excellent book on
animation...Beiman is a natural for writing about storyboarding.'

AWN.com

"The author has a breezy, anecdote-packed style that makes reading about the craft a real pleasure. Beiman, who teaches animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology, is the kind of guiding force you wish you could have by your side at all times. Reading her book is the next best thing." -Ramin Zahed, Animation Magazine

About the Author
Currently teaching storyboard courses at Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Nancy has worked as a supervising animator, director, character designer, and storyboard artist in six countries. She has taught beginning and advanced animation, character design, storyboard, layout, animation history, and gesture drawing at the college and university level since 2000. A graduate of the Character Animation Program at the California Institute of the Arts, Nancy worked in development and as a supervising animator on several Disney features including A Goofy Movie, Hercules and Treasure Planet. She was nominated for an Annie award in 2000 for storyboarding Little Angelita for Disney and won a Cine Golden Eagle in 1984 for her personal film Your Feets' Too Big. Nancy is a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In recent years she has illustrated two children's books, Duffy and the Invisible Crocodile and Basil Bigboots the Pirate for Australian writer Patricia Bernard in 2004.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Fantastic!
By Grant Beaudette VINE VOICE on November 6, 2007
"Prepare to Board" covers most pre-production aspects of an animation project, but focuses mostly on storyboarding and character design. This book does a better job on both these subjects than most other books can manage on just one.

A lot of storyboarding books out there focus on the live action or advertising methods where boards are used to illustrate an existing script a sell a rough concept to non-creative executives. The methods Nancy Beiman shows are far better suited to animation's use of storyboards to create the story itself.

Along with guidelines on how to increase the cinematic storytelling power of your boards, there are also plenty of tips on how to get that power across when presenting boards to others.

When it comes to character design, "Prepare to Board" is up there with Tom Bancroft's "Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels" as one of the few indispensable resources on the subject. All of her advice is aimed at making your character designs more functional for animation & storytelling (the most important asset of any character) as well as being unique individuals rather than stock characters.

The lessons Beiman shares in this book are exactly what you need to build a strong foundation for any animated project.

Excellent and very inspirational!
By Brett McCoy on April 8, 2007
I'm just an amateur artist and animator wannabee... but I have found this book to be very inspirational and am now finding new characters just flowing from my pencil tip (or tablet stylus :-P ) so much easier now... Nancy is a top-notch artist and is equally a top-notch teacher as well.

A valuable resource
By M. Furniss on September 15, 2007
Nancy Beiman is a well-known figure within the world of animation, having been a long-time animator at Disney, Warner Bros. and elsewhere, and also having taught in a variety of contexts, including her current position at Rochester Institute of Technology. Anyone who knows Nancy fairly well understands three things about her: she is a very gifted artist, she has high expectations of excellence for her students, and she is very broadly knowledgeable about the arts, traditions of humor, and animation itself. Combine these characteristics with the fact that Beiman is one of the most accomplished female animators within the US industry, and you can understand why I was eager to see this book come to life.
Over the last year, I finally completed work on a production-related book, and during that time I consulted with Nancy on various topics. She told me about her own book and, knowing about her ecclectic background and broad knowledge base, I was eager to see how her project would be realized. What I found is pretty much what I expected, a book that introduces essential concepts, but enhances them with discussion of aesthetic issues and is grounded in an appreciation for the history of classical Hollywood animation, with breadth in examples from other animation practices.
So many animation students struggle with story and developing the cinematic aspects of their work, in order to tell their story visually. Beiman's book offers instruction in chapters devoted to the development of story, storyboarding, types of stories (situation driven, character driven, ways to manipulate the `real'), character development and design, scale and location