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Jerry Beck (bio) has been researching cartoons for more than 30 years, authoring such books as Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons and The 50 Greatest Cartoons. He’s also produced successful cartoon compilations for MGM/UA, worked as VP of Animation at Nickelodeon Movies, and been an animation consultant to Walt Disney Home Video, Warner Home Video, Rhino Records, and many others.

Jerry was gracious enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for Animation School Review.

What are you up to these days?

I’m editing a new book, Animation Art, a giant illustrated history of animation from Little Nemo (1908) to Finding Nemo (2003) that will be out in October. I’m also working on bonus materials for the next Looney Tunes Golden Collection and a Tom & Jerry DVD. I’m developing a new cartoon show for Nickelodeon… [but I] can’t talk about that right now. I’m also updating my website Cartoon Research and my weblog Cartoon Brew.

What would you say are the “right” and “wrong” reasons to pursue a career in animation?

The “right” reason is that you love it. It’s in your blood. It’s all you can think about as far as a job is concerned. You love to draw, you love to create jokes, you love to create worlds and characters. The “wrong” reason is to get rich. The people who have made it have been very lucky. It’s very rare.

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\\ tags: Animation, Animation Expert

So, you want to be an animator? Are you ready for the endless hours slaving away as an assistant to an assistant’s assistant? Are you ready to spend every waking hour living, breathing, and drawing animation? If you answered “yes” to those questions, then it’s time to start your career and find an animation school or training program. But with so many schools out there, how do you choose one?

The Fundamentals
First of all, you need a solid foundation in drawing — undoubtedly, the most important element of an animator’s education. All the computer skills in the world can’t mask a bad artist, so make sure that you find a program where you’ll spend the long, necessary hours honing your craft. Ideally, you’ll want a program that offer a combination of drawing opportunities — including life drawing, layout animation, and fundamental drawing studies.

In addition to drawing skills, you’ll need a program that covers the requisite animation skills like storytelling, layout, character design, direction, design, editing, acting and visual communication. Animation skills should include not only a knowledge of fundamentals (weight, movements, timing, reversals, motivational forces and thinking time, etc.), but development in posing, breakdowns, in-betweening, clean-up and special effects (wind, rain, shadows, water, explosions, etc.) as well. A general background in visual communication — including design, composition, texture, color theory — is also key.

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\\ tags: Animation, Animation School

The realm of commercial animation is as diverse as the styles and techniques of animation itself. These days, animators can find work in feature films, television, the Internet, CD-ROM production, as well as product design/visualization, architecture, and interior design. And within each of those industries, animators can perform a variety roles.In a future article, we’ll discuss some of those varied industries but, for now, we’ll go over a few different career paths that a film/television animator may choose from.

2-D Animator
2-D Animation may sound old-fashioned in a day and age when computers are everywhere and 3-D animation has taken Hollywood by storm, but 2-D animation continues to be an expanding and popular medium — especially since classical 2-D skills are the foundation for most 3-D work. 2-D animators develop their skills through life drawing, composition, and perspective courses — studying proportion, line of action, structure, and basic anatomy — while working in areas as varied as animation, character design, clean-up, doping, modeling, slugging, and storyboarding.

3-D Animator
3-D animators are occupied with many of the same considerations at their 2-D counterparts — computers don’t get rid of the need for skills in life drawing, concept drawing, composition, character design, etc. 3-D animators will also deal more extensively with modeling, texturing, and lighting in a 3-D environment, often with the use of such software tools and packages as PhotoShop, SoftImage, Alias/Wavefront, Maya, and others.

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\\ tags: Animation, Career

With so many animation software packages available — ranging from affordable to mind-numbingly expensive — you can’t possibly know them all. But how do you narrow the field? Well, we’ll do that for you. This article will describe a few of the major animation software packages, along with links so you can explore them in further depth and — in some cases — even download a personal trial version.

Keep in mind that even the best computer skills won’t make up for sub-par drawing skills — don’t focus entirely on software (that may be obsolete within a few years) instead of studying the fundamentals! You should also note that, if you’re aiming for a job with one of the big feature animation studios, many of them (such as Pixar) use their own proprietary software.

Adobe Flash
In just a few short years, Adobe Flash has become the de facto standard for producing animation for the web. With vector-based content and streaming data, Flash movies are perfect for the web due to their (usually) quick download time. Adobe has turned Flash into a fairly robust, intensively interactive application environment — allowing developers to build entire e-commerce applications entirely in Flash. And with most current browsers shipping with the Flash Player, the majority of web users can access Flash content without having to download a plug-in.

Homepage: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
Trial download available? YES

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\\ tags: Animation, Animation Software

What type of skills, training, and experience are needed to become a computer animation professional?

One of the hottest job markets out there today is the field of computer animation. With technology getting simpler and its possible applications growing, the number of opportunities for you to become a computer animation professional is on the rise. It’s not as easy as just saying you want to be a computer animator, though. Knowing what skills, training, and experience it takes to be a success is the first step in achieving it.

Computer animation is a unique field in that it requires you to be proficient in both the creative and the technical processes. Having just one of the strengths isn’t enough; you need to be fluent in both the basics of art and the basics of computers.

A solid art foundation where you learn the fundamentals of drawing and color principle is the basis from which the rest of your creative education grows. From there, you can move into two- and three-dimensional illustration, and technical design. These are all important skills to have before actually venturing into digital media training.

With software packages becoming increasingly user-friendly, specific knowledge is no longer a prerequisite to gaining employment. It’s more beneficial to master the core skills that translate from program to program, such as motion capture and texture mapping. By concentrating on being comfortable in the digital medium as a whole, you can widen your employability by not limiting yourself to a program that could very well be defunct in a year.

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\\ tags: Animation, Computer Animation

If you want to become a video game animator, you need to have a variety of skills, including story-telling skills, technical animation skills, and professional skills.

Video games are about characters and the problems they face. That means as a video game animator, you need to know the rudiments of story telling. You need to know how a character reacts in a given plot situation, what drives the character, and how the character responds to any special rules (e.g. no gravity) that operate in the character’s physical world. You must be able to storyboard a character’s actions, or, in some cases, know how to create an animated character from the storyboard others provide you.

You also need technical animation skills. These all involve a degree of artistry, and can range from stop-motion, to hand-drawing, to 2d and 3d computer animation. 3d computer animation skills are especially important for gaming; you use them to depict a character’s interaction with an environment. Essential aspects of 3d animation include creating the character’s body type and physical poses, adding facial expressions to show emotions, creating gaming loops, and lighting the scenes the character takes part in. You may also have to lip-synch the character’s mouth to recorded speech.

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\\ tags: Animation, Animation Skills

What’s the difference between 2D, 3D, and stop action, and what skills do you need for each?

If you are interested in animation, there are a number of different animation styles you can use, including 2D, 3D, and stop-action. Each requires that you have skills in different kinds of technology. All require that you have artistic skills, either in drawing, or, for 3D styles, sculpting or building models.

2D animation is the traditional animation style, used in classic cartoons. It’s also used on many Web pages. If you are a 2D animator, you create a frame-by-frame representation of a character or scene, manually creating the image in each frame. If you’re creating a cartoon, you will likely draw each image using pen and ink. The images are then converted into film or video by a photographic process.

If you are creating an animation for a Web page, you can draw each image and scan it into your computer, you can draw each image using a graphics tablet stylus, or you can create images onscreen using graphics software. Once you have created the images, you can use software such as Flash for tying the images together into an animation that is deliverable over the Internet.

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\\ tags: Animation, Animation Styles

First thing is first, to break into show business, whether you wish to model or act, you need to get some experience in front of a crowd. Local theatre and school theatre is a good place to start. Take classes on public speaking or get involved with Toastmasters. This is an organization geared to help people learn to speak in front of large groups - an essential skill.

Then, if you are serious about finding an agent, get a good set of headshots. Two different looks for Acting. Headshots not 8″ x 10″ are regarded as unprofessional. Please remember to staple your headshot to the back of the headshot, text opposite from the back of the picture.

For Modeling (that’s if you want to dabble in to commercial print modeling) you’re going to want a composite card, this can be a mix of B&W and color. A headshot usually goes on the front and 3 to 4 pictures on back along with your measurements. You can find places that print comp cards online. An agent can usually do comps without getting in trouble with the unions as they are not making a profit on them. My logo does not go on a comp card unless I am the person sending it out to the printer.

You aren’t going to want your photo’s to look like they came from JC Penny’s. They do portraits and it’s an entirely different ballpark here. So no portraits. Again NO “Glamour Shots.” Dynasty has been off the air for years. Comps can have a glamour look to it on one of the shots, but your headshots have to be something else. And don’t just submit a snap shot. Trust me, I do not have time to sort through snapshots, neither do other agents.

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\\ tags: Acting

There is no one sure way to become a successful film actor. In fact, there are as many different ways as there are actors. Each actor finds success in their own way, using luck, connections, and perseverance. There are, however, some basic tips that can help any new actor get their foot in the proverbial door. Here are a few ways to get started.

Theater
Almost every city and town has at least one small community theater where local actors gather and put on performances. Take advantage of this opportunity, even if your primary interest is film and television. Acting is acting, and it changes very little between media. Any practice and exposure you get while doing community theater will only improve your chances of making it in the film industry. Also, many agents and casting directors attend plays and showcases in hopes of finding talented new actors. Remember, opportunities can come at any time.

Student Films
Is there a college in your hometown? If so, chances are they have some kind of film, media arts, or broadcasting program. Film students always need talented actors, and you could be just what they’re looking for. They probably won’t be able to pay you anything and the final product may not be that great, but the experience will be more than worth it. Just be sure to get a video copy of your performance and keep in contact with student director. Who knows… he or she may be the next Spielberg.

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There are many actors who wish to make it big in the film industry and in show business, but do not know where to start. For those of you who have the talent, confidence and determination in you, here are a few tips on the right way to get started acting.

Learn
You need to be a voracious reader and a hungry learner. Read and know everything you can get your hands on about acting. Having knowledge on various types, techniques and principles of acting would give you a great deal of confidence. Take lessons in personality development, dance, singing, martial arts and any thing that can give credit to your talent list. You also need to enroll in theaters in the neighborhood, be it school theater, community theater or a children’s theater (if you are a kid).

Network
A community theater is a nerve center when it comes to networking or making contacts. In a school theater you only get to know the basics and you are most likely to meet teachers and aspiring actors. But in a community theater, the business gets much more serious and there’s no guessing who can exert what influence to sign you on a role. So, the baseline is “Be nice” to everyone, and at the same time let them know that you aim high and your passion is acting. When you chance upon somebody who knows ‘who’s who’ in the industry, don’t shy away from asking a favor.

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\\ tags: Acting