May 17, 2006
NANCY BEIMAN'S BOOK
Disney and Warner Bros. animator/director and teacher, Nancy Beiman is writing her first book: PREPARE TO BOARD! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features. Here's what Nancy has planned for it:
 |
PREPARE TO BOARD! distills thirty years worth of notes from Cal Arts and on-the-job knowledge. I discuss Concept, Technique, and Presentation of character designs and storyboards. Most of this material is not covered in other books, which is what inspired me to write mine in the first place. A comprehensive glossary of story and design terms is also included. In addition to about 300 examples of my own artwork, illustrations will include examples of my students work on paper and in CGI. There will be some 'guest appearances’' by artists Dean Yeagle, Mark Newgarden, David Chelsea and Nina Haley; and materials from my collection of cartoon art (some of which I guarantee you have not seen before). And there are a few more surprises that are still ‘in progress’ as I write this, but they are worth waiting for.Sounds great to me. PREPARE TO BOARD! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts will be published by Focal Press in January, 2007.I'm printing my interviews with Ken Anderson, Ken O'Connor, and T. Hee as appendixes (there will be some wonderful and surprising illustrations included.) My Tex Avery interview appears as part of one chapter. Anderson's interview is a stunner and the other two aren’t bad. None of the material has ever been published before and all of it concerns technical and 'story' issues (I thank my younger self for asking the right questions. Anderson's, in particular, is terrific.) The rest of the contents will include: Story and Character Concept (first third), Technique (second third) and Presentation (third third.) There are about three hundred illustrations, some from my students (at RIT), some from other sources, most by me.