Research book #3: Ideas for the Animated Short by Karen Sullivan, Gary Schumer and Kate Alexander

This book is all about how you can approach designing and producing a short movie. At first I thought this wasn’t the most relevant book of the lot. Turns out there were still some interesting notes and quotes hidden in this surprisingly informative book. Here are the most interesting lines from the book. 

• Quote John Tarnoff, Head of Show Development, DreamWorks Animation; “Animated short films provide even more opportunity to engage the viewer. Animated films are distinguished by the uniqueness of their artwork, and this completely invented and imagined aspect is what sets animated shorts so resolutely apart from live-action shorts. This is your challenge and your opportunity in the realm of animation – a realm where it takes both a graphical, painterly talent (and skill), in addition to a photographic, cinematic, and narrative inspiration. Because an animated film has so many more visual possibilities than a live-action film, the bar is significantly raised for the animation filmmaker to attempt something truly integral and affecting.”

• Quote Jeff Fowler, Blur Studios; “The moral being, your idea will almost always grow beyond its original scope, both technically and creatively. (For better or worse!) By starting simple, you allow yourself and your idea room to expand naturally, which is a MUCH more enviable place than committing to a large and convoluted idea which you may ultimately be forced to slice and dice for one reason or another. (Money, time, resources.) Better to start simple and build!”

• Create a Memorable Character
• They are ordinary enough for the audience to relate to them. They are flawed. Their flaws make them concurrently unique and accessible
• There is “something” about their design and their personality that makes us want to know more about them and makes us empathize with their plight. This is called appeal
• In the short, we rarely even know the character’s name. Still, they stick with us for the same reasons. Memorable characters are the characters that we care about. 
• The test of a good character is that he cannot be replaced in the story with someone or something else. Replaceable characters are flat. You can swap them out (a boy for a girl) or a squirrel for a squid) and it doesn’t seem to matter to the story; but, when you find the right character, it is difficult to extract him from the story because it is his story
   
• Character design
• A well designed character has the following characteristics:
• It will be immediately recognizable and relatable
• It will have a recognizable shape or silhouette
• It will reflect the personality of the character
• It will have physical attributes that complement the content of the story
• It will be able to complete the actions that are required by the script
• It will be interesting to watch
  
  
• Tom Bancroft’s four main principles of character design
• Personality
• A cute little bear vs a bear that is kind of lazy and only motivated to go fishing (his one big love) etc. Knowing what you are designing is job one
• Goals
• It’s important to know what, why, and how you want to design this character. Make some goals. Do you for example want it to be cute or just appealing (there is a difference)
• Shapes
• What shapes make up this character? If it’s a happy, thick character, I will start working with circle shapes. 
• Variance
• Using shapes and size in various ways to create different designs. 

• Staging in film refers to the way we present an image or an action for our audience. We plan how something is seen and experienced so that the audiences gets the story point.
  
  
• Quote Kendal Cronkhite, DreamWorks Animation; “We read the script, the treatment, and then break it down and start to design the movie that visually tells that particular story. I often start by doing the visual structure on the film. This is a visual map that follows the drama. I use line, shape, space, and color to enhance what’s going on in our story. For example, it it’s a movie about coming home again I may use circles as a design element throughout. If there are emotional highs and lows, I may enhance those moods with light and darkness. If it’s a traveling film, I may choose to use deep space and focus. After this visual map is created, we go into each set and sequence in greater detail. We also look for the style for the film. Is it a comedy or drama. Is it a certain time period? All these questions are asked and answered visually.”