Table of ContentsCopyright page Motto Preview How to Succeed in Animation Everything you ever wanted to know about animation, but were afraid Gene might tell you - and it's basically all up-front in the intro stuff. So don't miss the Motto and the governing Joke of this book, the Preview, and especially the section labeled with the main title, "How To Succeed In Animation." PART ONE - HOW YOU SHOULD DO IT Chapter 1: Win Some Lose Many This first chapter lists everything the book covers. You can save a lot of time just by reading this chapter. If none of the topics interests you, ya don't have to read any further! Chapter 2: Animation - What The Heck is it? I like things to be clear, so just to be sure we're all talking about the same thing, I decided to work out a bullet-proof definition of animation; something that covers all forms and fashions of frame-by-frame endeavors. See if you agree with me. If not, we're off to a rocky start. Chapter 3: Animation For Dummies OK, here's where Deitch the teacher addresses a classroom of wannabes, laying down the basics. If you can't get this stuff into your head, you might as well go into another line of work. Chapter 4: Animation Tech Talk The technology of animation has changed somewhat over the past 35,000 years, when it was first attempted by cave men, but the basics remain. Here they are in specifics... Chapter 5: The Great Footage Fallacy Here is something that few animators seem to think about, but which has bugged me for years: Are we animating foot-long strips of film, or are we animating increments of time? If we are all into globalization, let's work in a global standard. I would like to foment an animation revolution in the dimension of time! Chapter 6: The Long And The Short Of It A short chapter about a long point. Contrast, Change-Of-Pace. That's the name of the game. Chapter 7: Story - What's it All About? No story - no movie. Here's how to tell if you actually have a story, and if not, how to make one. Chapter 8: Make Luck Happen! You need a lot of luck to make it in the movie business. How do you get lucky? Is success really just a matter of luck - chance? Or can you lure luck your way? Here

are some tips. Chapter 9: "We Hereby Agree. . ." Most animation books I've read leave out one of the most important things an animator needs to know: How To Make a Contract! Do you really need a lawyer? Here are some examples of how you can Do It Yourself and retain your hide. PART TWO - HOW I DID IT Chapter 10: My Talents Discovered Proof-positive that I was a born artist. Chapter 11: The UPA Experience How at the age of 22 I lucked into the den of geniuses. Who they were. What it was like. Why they let me in. Why I left. Chapter 12: Don't Give Your Right Name! Fats Waller once said that, and another blues man sang, "It Must Be Jelly, "Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That!" There really was a man named Jam - Jam Handy - and he ran a 500-person studio in the then gloomy city of Detroit. It was an amazing adventure working there, in that most amazing, little-known but heavyweight studio. I directed my first film there, nearly had my tender career nipped, and discovered John Lee Hooker. 1949-51. Chapter 13: UPA:Back To The Future UPA again, and this time as creative chief! Bosustow beckoned and I was beamed to the Big Apple, the city of my youthful dreams. "If you can make it there" etc. And I made it. Here are the vital statistics of that Golden Age studio. Chapter 14: The Terry-fying Challenge Chapter 15A: Terrytoonery Chapter 15B: 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. Chapter 16: GDA, inc. Fate Comes Calling Gene Deitch Associates, Inc. - possibly the most insignificant animation studio in the history of peg-holes, but MUNRO was born there, and it became my way-station to an entirely new life. Perhaps I am the first "Born-Again Animator!" Chapter 17: Prague - A Change of Life In 1959, the Prague animation studio was a barely-noticed smudge in the world map of animation. In fact it was one of the great studios of the time, but darkly closeted behind the Iron Curtain. I was just summarily dropped into it, and was totally unprepared for what I found. Chapter 18: Why Prague, For God's Sake? That was the question I constantly had to answer while isolated from my old colleagues, and hunkered in this distant and seemingly God-forsaken communist-

gripped misery. This chapter answers the question. Was I a pinko? A spy? An enemy agent? A CIA man? Or did I just happen to fall into something too good to be true? Chapter 19: Oscar Comes Calling Who could have predicted this? I just read that Oscar winners live longer. In our case, the Oscar gave our life an instant boost, and a perpetual publicity handle. We managed five nominations, and have been living in the glow ever since. But was Bill Snyder able to melt that golden statuette down into real dollars? Chapter 20: Tom & Jerry - The 1st Reincarnation OK, OK. I know what you think of our Tom & Jerries. But do you know the whole story? Let me tell you about it. Chapter 21: Spinach & Bricks What do you do when you have to make a living diminishing true works of art? E.C. Segar's Popeye, and George Herrimans' Krazy Kat, have been mauled by others, so I don't need to apologize for my efforts at damage control. Here's what we did with them. Chapter 22: Hobbitalized We were first with this, but it became our most ignominious and unnecessary failure. Please weep with me as you read this chapter. I coulda bin a contendah... Chapter 23: Self-Help For Nudnik Our fun-films, and my personal best character. The 60s were probably our peakPrague years. Chapter 24: The Giants Win and Lose A whole new area of work opened up for me just as the Soviet forces were breathing smoke around the borders of Czechoslovakia, and I made a film called "The Giants" that the communists banned for 20 years. For me, it was a point of pride. Chapter 25: Into and Out of The Woods Weston Woods, that is. I feel that my best films are the least known. My greatest fans still are teachers and librarians, and I spent 25 years of creative fulfillment in pleasing them. Chapter 26: Krazy Klients Peeing in the soup continues. The bladders of producers seem as continuous fountains. Here are a few hairy tales. Chapter 27: 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. Chapter 28: The Charolotte 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 29: Charlotte's Web Graphics See for yourself. No one before has seen these drawings. Chapter 30: My Loving Fans Chapter 31: The Last Word - Iris Out A Terrific utterance. Chapter 32: Added Feature Attraction This is the kind of animation movie I've been talking about in this whole book!

ForwardHow To Succeed In Animation Everything you ever wanted to know about animation, but were afraid Gene might tell you and its basically all up-front in the intro stuff. So dont miss the Motto and the governing Joke of this book, the Preview, and especially the section labeled with the main title, "How To Succeed In Animation."

How To Succeed in Animation(Don't Let a Little Thing Like Failure Stop You!) 2001 by Gene Deitch genedeitch@traveller.cz www.fortheloveofprague.com www.genedeitch.com Index: 1. Gene Deitch 2. UPA 3. The Jam Handy Organization 4. CBS-Terrytoons 5. Tom Terrific 6. Mighty Manfred The Wonder Dog 7. Prague 8. Czechoslovakia 9. Czech Republic 10. "For The Love of Prague" (book) 11. Munro 12. Oscar 13. Tom & Jerry 14. Nudnik 15. Weston Woods Studios, Inc./Scholastic 16. Jazz, blues 17. The Record Changer magazine 18. The Cat 19. Animation 20. Cartoons 21. Czech animation 22. Children's films adapted from picture books. A successful American animation director uses examples of his own failures to make points as to how young animators can avoid some pitfalls on the way to success, and stirs the pot with musings on the meaning and wonder of animation.

PreviewWhizzing, exploding, hopping, and boinging across our screens, animated cartoons have grabbed us from childhood and beyond. Feature-length movie versions have lifted the technology to amazing heights. This is potentially the greatest of art forms, combining nearly all the others into one. Graphic arts, literature, storytelling, humor, satire, drama, acting, music, song, ballet, poetry, can all be combined in this virtually limitless method of expression. So how come on television it has been mainly cranked out as appallingly crude, repetitious, and mindless junk? Budget and time limitations are the usual suspects, but there is more/less to it than

that. There is the persistent perception by most producers that the audience is composed of mindless morons who will accept anything that moves and yabbadabba-doos, however crudely. Unfortunately that is just true enough for them to get away with it. People, on the whole, will accept junk food, though many long for something chewier. We cannot actually draw edible food, so most of us animators have to eat what the industry will feed us. Some of us who animate professionally do try to elevate the content of our work, and occasionally we get a chance. But for every gourmet production we accomplish, we inevitably leave a trail of garbage. In this book I will attempt to guide you to creative success; to make the most of every chance you get, and to give you some grisly tours of the desiccated remains of some of my own shot-down productions. First off, here is a joke that tells you exactly what you are up against: A film writer, director, and producer were having lunch at a posh Hollywood restaurant. The writer ordered soup as a starter, and after the first couple of spoonfuls he exclaimed, "My God, this is the greatest soup Ive ever tasted! He offered a spoonful to the director. "Taste this. Its incredible!" The director took one sip and his eyes rolled heavenward. "Youre right. This soup is ambrosia!" He took a few more spoonfuls and pushed the bowl to the producer. "Youve gotta taste this. It is the soup of the century!" The producer lifted a spoonful, took in the aroma, then rapturously downed two or three spoonfuls... "You boys are right. This is a magnificent soup. But I have an idea. Let us all pee in it, and make it even better!" That sums it up. There will be plenty of peeing in your soup during your filmmaking career.

How to Succeed in AnimationReaders of this book may ask, after wading through my tales of failures, lost projects and lost payments, (PART II), how did I ever manage to survive in this business?, or what is my right to put out a book with the title, "How to Succeed in Animation?" Well, I learned from the failures, and I did succeed. I managed to get into the black, and you can also. Here are some ground rules: 1. Make yourself valuable and wanted. Thats the overall first step. Know what you are doing, and prove it long enough so that you yourself are a valuable commodity that producers want you. There is no substitute for becoming a "name." How do you do that? Well, first of all, you can read. This is a book in your hands. So read stuff. Keep up with what's going on in popular culture, and in the animation field itself. Improve your skills. Learn to sniff out trends, and try to think of what might be the

next step. Try not to be just a follower, but think about how you can make a mark with something fresh and new. But also think about what your client or prospective client wants and needs. Don't risk crazy ideas unless you really have the facts and solid theory of why you think your idea will fly, and that you can make it fly. Not easy, but you will be surprised what benefits thinking and thorough preparation can bring! 2. Net profits do not exist: A producer lured me to Prague with, among other things, a contract offering me 25% of the net profits. Even such worldwide hits as "Forrest Gump" made no net profits. Probably no movies make any net profits, given the opaque accounting methods used by studio number-dimmers . Go for the gross. Better less up front and a bigger share of returns - but only if distribution appears to be a reality. 3. Distribution: Making an animated film without having first secured distribution is only for those who live on love. If you are independently wealthy, or driven by creative fires, and can work on your film over a period of years while you wash dishes for a living, sure, why not? But a producer, who also has distribution secured, is your best bet for a film you hope to be paid for. The secret of success is to find a market for the kind of films you want to produce, and then undertake to serve that market. Do your best to secure potential distribution before you put your heart, sweat, and years into a film that may end up playing only on your own living room video. 4. Double-for-nothing: Three of my film projects that did not materialize, THE PIED PIPER, NICHOLAS JINGLE , and CHARLOTTE'S WEB, were financial successes for me ! My disappointment at not being able to realize my vision for these three projects was at least compensated for financially, because of the double-payment clause for non-production I managed to get written into my contracts. From being so badly burned by The Hobbit calamity, I tried to insure myself against pie-in-the-sky producers. Most producers run on optimism. Producing movies is one of the highest of high-risk undertakings. I would never want to be a producer. I am satisfied to take a smaller piece of the pie along with a smaller share of the angst. I am not interested in being in the thrall of the producer's optimism in cases where I know very well that actual production is far from certain. Every producer seems to approach me with the proclamation that "production is 99% certain. I keep a wary eye on that li'l ol' missing 1%! In many cases, the producer is so certain that the production will proceed, and wanting to keep me working on a screenplay and storyboard, that he will gladly sign a contract guaranteeing me a double payment, should by the most "remote chance" the film will not be produced. On all three of the above non-productions, I received a hefty double-payment. 5. Working on spec: - free, that is - may seem necessary under some circumstances, but respect for your work goes down as your willingness to work for nothing goes up. There should always be compensation in there somewhere, minimally retention of the rights to your adaptation. 6. Stay out of debt: Keep your life-style within bounds; your overhead low. After the first years of suspicion about my working in a communist country, many old colleagues began asking me, "How can I get to do what you're doing?" In my book, "For The Love of Prague," I wrote that I ended up in Prague only by the merest

chance. After being here awhile, I realized that somehow I had stumbled onto a good thing. So my answer to the above question came to be, "Get yourself into a place or position where you don't have to make a lot of money. How financially rich you are is measured not by how much money you earn or have, but by how much you owe. and of course, true work satisfaction." I found myself in an extraordinary position. I was living in the international outlands, the low-rent-plain-pipe-rack-district, as it were. I was paying $30 per month rent for this great apartment in the historical heart of Prague. My wife was a producer at the Czech animation studio, making peanuts by American standards, but enough to pay the rent, groceries, and other basics. I was directing Weston Woods films for modest up-front money, compared to what I would surely be getting in the States, but I was happy, making one polished jewel children's film after another - something I'd always dreamed of in America, but could never afford to do. And I was able to save money and stay totally out of debt! OK, this was a one-in-a-million situation. You're not likely to match my luck in this regard. But think about the principle, and about the future. Many will also think that my long isolation took me out of the cutting edge. I did miss working with the latest technology; I am intensely interested in it. But in this world you can't have everything, and the material I was working on took precedence for me. Technoperfect, chrome-plated crap wasn't on a par with perhaps less glossy productions of real content. I know that for many, the real fun is to go for the big bucks, live it up to the hilt, and engage in the dance of death with the IRS and the banks. A quote from special effect genius Douglas Trumbull in the summary section of this book, underlines what I am saying. No one can have everything, and many will go for the fun and frolic of the short term. Personally, I agree with Trumbull; it ain't worth it. 7. Pilots: Many producers will want you to make the pilot for a series cheaper, with the promise that the actual production episodes will pay you more. The problem with this idea is that pilots are the most difficult episodes, with all of the basic story problems and characters to be worked out. Pilots should rate a higher budget, not only for those reasons, but also because a pilot film, sadly, is all too often the only film to be produced! Those are only 7 special guidelines and goals. Some of my other outlandish notions are spread throughout the book. I will be glad to hear of any pitfall preventives any of you have worked out, or any comments on mine. Hey, we are all trying to make our mark, do high-quality creative work, and improve our art and craft; brothers and sisters in animation, trying to beat the odds.

Part One: How You Should Do It

Kinescope image of the 1954 CBS-TV nationwide broadcast, live from the UPA-New York studio. I am guiding young 'Pud & Ginger' through the animation process.

Chapter 1: Win Some Lose ManyThis first chapter lists everything the book covers. You can save a lot of time just by reading this chapter. If none of the topics interests you, ya dont have to read any further!In the movie business people like to talk about their successes. I have had many, but as I look back, I feel that a recounting of my many failures might well be more instructive to readers wanting helpful truth. I realize and am adjusted to the fact that at 77, I am only a former boy wonder, no longer on the cutting-edge of anything. The failures I have had were all involved in attempts to stretch the envelope. Before I wallow in my flops, allow me the pleasure of first mentioning some of my successes in the little animated corner of the movie world:

One of my short films won me an Oscar. I have had five films nominated. I was the only animation director to have two films nominated in a single year. My films have won over a hundred festival medals of the usual colors, gold, silver, and bronze, - and lots of plaques, statuettes, and certificates. I was the youngest person at the time to become an animation director in a major studio. I have been honored three times with tribute screenings at the New York Museum of Modern Art. I am mentioned fairly positively in nearly every book on the history of animation. I have a bio in the World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. My 1950s CBS-TV series, TOM TERRIFIC has entered the language. I have been interviewed countless times in newspapers, magazines, film documentaries, and on TV talk shows, and have lectured extensively across the USA and Europe, expounding on my animation theories and insights. My childrens films have been shown three times in The White House. I was a member of the original UPA studio, influenced by the masters, and have in turn influenced many rising animators. I am a voting member of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Should I rave on? No. Lets get to the gritty tales I have never yet told, from my animation career. In the pages that follow, I will expound on these topics, and use as illustrations the pits I have personally had to climb out of. I will first lay on your head the benefit of my experience and deep thinking from over 55 years in animation and live-action film work. I will suggest how to think about, understand, and master animation; what is essential to it, regardless of style, content, or technology. How one producer expected me to be a "marxist" and accept a lower salary, and how another shielded me when McCarthyites accused me of actually being a marxist. How, by honestly stating to a new employer that I wasnt specifically an animator, I nearly nipped my career in the bud. How my intended "renaissance" at Terrytoons was snuffed by a brillo-headed dragon. How a famous personal manager promised to make me a millionaire, and how I avoided that. How I unintentionally helped Hanna-Barbera to become the kings of schlock, and lost my main chance at the Big Time.

How I was set up in my own New York studio, with my name on the door, and quickly became miserable. How I was dragooned to communist Prague, my life and career changed forever, but how at least I assured myself that I was not a marxist, and that animation art was global. How one producer intended to, and another did steal an Oscar from me. How Readers Digest TV expected me to create a version of THE PIED PIPER without rats. How I was used as a decoy in developing a feature-length animation adaption of E.B.Whites CHARLOTTES WEB, working directly with the sainted author, but how the rug was pulled out from under both of us, and Charlotte was sweetened by Hanna-Barbera. (I will print my never before published personal correspondence to and from E.B.White) How I wrote the very first screenplay version of J.R.R.Tolkiens THE HOBBIT, but was forced to sacrifice it and create a "dummy" 10-minute version within one month, in order to hand the producer a windfall by exploiting a contract loophole. The true TOM & JERRY story and how many know that TOM & JERRY, POPEYE, and KRAZY KAT cartoons were produced in Prague during the communist era? How my son Kim created a comix legend from my Terrytoons experience. Why teachers, librarians, and traditional jazz fans love me; the very people who have the least money and smallest film budgets. Learn my "Golden Time" theory of animation production. How and why I reverted to advance-mix soundtrack production. What Woody Allen taught me. My interaction with some of the great people in our craft; personal stories, influences and goals in my work. Realistic goals versus the limitations and compromises that are the reality of movie work. How to achieve the maximum. How to survive creatively and economically in the acknowledged jungle that is the movie business. How to make luck happen. How to make a personal services contract to protect and maximize your creative rights and income.

These are some of the topics of this compendium. It is my goal here to lay down some useful insights for you. If you are just entering, already employed in this work, or just interested in what makes animators tick, do read on.

I like things to be clear, so just to be sure were all talking about the same thing, I decided to work out a bullet-proof definition of animation; something that covers all forms and fashions of frame-by-frame endeavors. See if you agree with me. If not, were off to a rocky start. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who know what they're talking about, called it "The Illusion of Life." But how do you do that? To do it, you really have to think about what it is. When you know what it is, you can master it. In 1978 John Halas asked me to submit a definition of animation for consideration by ASIFA (International Association of Film Animation.) This was an interesting puzzle: how to come up with a technical definition without limiting it to a specific technology, that might become obsolete; to try to come up with a bedrock basic statement of stop-motion animation's technical essence? This is what I wrote him: "...my definition carefully says nothing about film, cameras, frames, projection, screens, laser beams, computers, or even drawing. It could cover all of these or any future technology! It is based on what I would consider to be the technical hardcore of stop-motion animation: the creation, recording, and retrieving of individual phases of motion." It should be clear that what I'm writing about in this book is frame-by-frame animation whether it's drawn, object-manipulated, or computer generated. There is something now called "real-time" animation. Well real-time animation is nothing but live puppetry. Live puppeteers, working in puppet theaters with marionettes, call themselves "animators." But that is clearly outside the definition required for entrance into animation festivals. Real-time animation may perhaps save time and money, but it can never achieve the sharpness, precision, and exaggeration of frame-by-frame animation. Likewise, frame-by-frame animation is weakest when it tries to imitate real life. Perhaps it can be done, but why? Best if the twain never meet. If we speak of animation in its broadest sense, it derives from the Latin word, anima, "The breath of life." I would use the term "Cinematic animation" for what we do. For want of a better term, it delineates our stop-motion work. For precision, I have omitted reference to any particular technique, medium, or technology. Here is my definition: "CINEMATIC ANIMATION: The recording of individually created phases of imagined action in such a way as to achieve the illusion of motion when shown at a constant, predetermined rate, exceeding that of human persistence of vision." Academic? I think it is useful to know what we are doing, and to realize how broad our craft really is. If you look at and think about that definition, you may conjure up a whole new way of doing it and presenting it, that no one has yet thought of. So a definition can suggest vast areas of technical and artistic variations!

Chapter 2: Animation What The Heck is It?

To temper my strictly technical definition of animation I would want to quickly point out that animation is much more than technical. The best and most poetic description I know of what animation is all about was beautifully stated by Steven Millhauser in his book, "Little Kingdoms" (Vintage Books Random House, page 107). "...[an] immobile world of inanimate drawings that had been granted the secret of motion, [a] death-world with its hidden gift of life. But that life was a deeply ambiguous life, a conjurer's trick, a crafty illusion based on an accidental property of the retina, which retained an image for a fraction of a second after the image was no longer present. On this frail fact was erected the entire structure of the cinema, that colossal confidence game. The animated cartoon was a far more honest expression of the cinematic illusion than the so-called realistic (live-action) film, because the cartoon reveled in its own illusory nature, exulted in the impossible indeed it claimed the impossible as its own, exalted it as its own highest end, found in impossibility, in the negation of the actual, its profoundest reason for being. The animated cartoon was nothing but the poetry of the impossible--therein lay its exhilaration and its secret melancholy. For this willful violation of the actual, while it was an intoxicating release from the constriction of things, was at the same time nothing but a delusion, an attempt to outwit mortality. As such it was doomed to failure. And yet it was desperately important to smash through the constriction of the actual, to unhinge the universe and let the impossible stream in, because otherwise well otherwise, the world was nothing but an editorial cartoon." Beautifully stated, but it needn't be in the past tense! My feeling is that for anyone to really achieve anything in the medium, they must feel its basics in their bones. I tried to formulate my technical definition of animation without using any terms that indicate it must be on film, or any other specific medium or technology for storing and retrieving individual phases of action. It all comes down to creating and registering imagined action in the form of individual motionless increments. The basic difference between live-action films and animation films is this: In live-action cinematography a camera records action taking place before its lens. In animation, only still images are recorded, and the "illusion of action" only takes place at the moment of projecting it on a screen or monitor. I like to point out that animation, as with music, is an art form that exists in the dimension of time. If you press the pause button while playing a CD recording, obviously the music ceases to exist. It must have uninterrupted movement through time to exist, and that is exactly the same with animation! To animate, one must understand time and timing!

The rhythm and music of a film is a basic part of the whole. In a recent TV interview, the moderator asked me if I could choose what I'd want to be if born again, I said, "a musician." I worship musicians as the true cultural magicians. I can do a lot of things, but I cannot sing on key, and cannot play any musical instrument except hand drums. We are all living within various rhythms, from our heartbeat, breathing, on outward. I am especially sensitive to rhythm, and I do play hand drums. I drum all the time. People think I am nervous if I tap my fingers on the table, but no, I am listening to and playing rhythms all the time. I hear everything in music, and I have had a hand in the composition of innumerable scores for my films and songs. I try to get across my ideas to the musicians I work with. I even attempt to hum to them the melodies I hear. They inevitably say, "But Gene, there are no such notes!" Frustrating. Oh, how I wish I were a musician! I will not comment on the various styles and superficial modes and fads of animation. My point is that the basic medium is absolutely unlimited, and can contain anyone's personal vision. Animation technology is analogous to a painter's blank canvas - you can lay anything onto it, shit or shine. But I must say that the principles of animation, mainly developed at the Disney studio during one incredible decade from 1930 to 1940 apply to any frame-by-frame technique, be it classic cel animation, paper cut-outs, stop-motion puppets, computer generated images whatever. Don't conform! Do it your way!

OK, heres where Deitch the teacher addresses a classroom of wannabes, laying down the basics. If you cant get this stuff into your head, you might as well go into another line of work. The best thing I could do to teach you how to make animated movies would just be to help you find your own way. There are unnumbered ways to make animation. The only limit is your own imagination. When I was a young animator, in 1949, a mindless "veteran" of 10 years in the craft said to me, "Gene, when you've been in the business as long as I have, you'll know you can't get away with those kinds of crazy ideas!" A lot of my "crazy ideas" of those days are already old-fashioned ideas today. I'm well over 55 years in the craft and I know that "crazy ideas" are what keep us all alive! But there are some rules that do stay. They are basic to any kind of film or video

Chapter 3: Animation For Dummies

animation. If you can learn just the basic rules of how to harness the technology that gives the illusion of life to still drawings or objects, and how to string together individual shots and scenes to tell a story, or create a homogeneous, meaningful sequence or mood, then you can use these rules in your own personal way. The whole thing about making animated movies is to somehow find a way always keep in your mind the amount of time any action is going to play on the screen. You will of course be working incredibly slowly in comparison to the time your drawings, models, images, or whatever, will actually be seen. The one rule you cannot break is that 24 individual pictures go whizzing by on the screen each and every second.* (In Europe, where 50 cycles per second is the electrical standard, the video and TV projection rate is 25 frames per second. The difference is visually undetectable. 24 frames per second is the internationally standard film projection rate, except for special presentation systems, such as IMAX.) If you are going to make drawings, or move objects that will be registered one phase at a time, then each drawing or each phase of movement, has to have a number that indicates on which frame of film, or sector of tape, disk or memory chip it will be registered. But how are you going to know which drawing goes with which frame or frames? Well, the answer to that will make the difference whether your movie will just move or whether it will seem to live! I can tell you how to gradually find the answer. You have to start with the idea that you are an actor, a mime. You will need to have a stopwatch for timing. Nearly every cheap digital watch usually has a stopwatch feature. Just as the strip of film or videotape records 24 individual images per second, so can each story or action be broken down into sections, which we can call sequences, scenes, shots, actions, bits of action, or poses. When you are planning your movie, you will gradually break it down into smaller and smaller bits. You can do all of these things by acting it all out with a stopwatch; doing it over and over again until you are sure that it has just the timing you want. When you get it right you must write down the timings into finer and finer bits. This usually is done on forms called exposure or "dope" sheets, with lines representing each phase. You can then create the images of the key positions of the character or object you are animating. The key positions, or "poses" are the main "way-stations" along the line of action, from the beginning to the end, of the scene you are animating. The phase numbers assigned to these key poses are attached to specific film or tape frames, and establish the basic "acting" and timing of the scene. To connect those poses, "in-between" images must be filled in, so that there will be a phase or position on each and every filmframe. This may seem simple, but improper inbetweens can completely destroy the best animation. Invisible arcs connect one pose with another. The inbetween images must follow those arcs. But that is just one aspect of proper inbetweens. The spacing of the inbetweens is where either "living" or mechanistic movement is achieved. It must be the animator who indicates the spacing, with little pips marked along the arcs. Wider or closer spacing will make the action faster or slower, because the projection speed is constant. The deftly spaced phases of action become a counterpoint, a shifting obbligato to the rock-steady ostinatto of the projection speed. Therein is the illusion of life!

There is another way to animate - actually the original way in the development of cinema animation, and that is "straight-ahead" animation - just making one drawing at a time, without predertmined poses along the way. An individual animator, making a movie alone, may get away with this, (an indeed it cam be more fun), but it is not practical in a studio situation, involving assistant animators and inbetweeners. Straighy-ahead animation requires a lot of advance thought to be sure you know where you're going! It is useful in purely fanciful animation, with changing shapes and bizarre graphics. Which method would be the best for you will require experimentation and experience, and will vary according to the requirements of the project at hand. How to animate? How to build a house? Every job can be broken down into steps. Have a plan. Think ahead. Make sure every action is in accordance with the plan. When you animate a scene in a story film, know what comes before your scene, and what comes after it. Make sure your action fits into the continuity. Know the character. How he, she, or it is supposed to think, move, act. Find the action idiosyncracies; how would the character walk? Are there some special gestures, body attitudes, quirks, disabilities, facial expressions you can build on? The recorded voice (if there is dialog) is a strong impetus to an animation key. Make sure every move is in character. The director should tell you all this. If you are the director, you should know all of this. How you do it is the step-by-step approach. Analyze the action. Act it out physically if you can, or at least in your mind. Have a stopwatch in your hand. First, time the overall action. Often you will be given an exact scene-length by the director. Then, step by step, break down the action into logical sections and bits. Your rough drawings or computer positions will then be anchored to exact frame numbers. In your scene, you will have a precise number of film or video frames. The fact that your scene will be shown at the constant rate of 24 or 25 frames per second is what makes animation possible. Think of that steady frame rate as your (very fast!) rhythm section. What you will do with your animation poses and spacing against this steady frame rate is your counterpoint. Closely spaced phases of motion will appear to move slower when played back, and widely spaced phases will appear to move faster. Here is your basic animation tool in a nutshell: You are doing a counterpoint to a steady beat!

From "Self-Defense For Cowards" Rembrandt Films

Chapter 4: Animation Tech-TalkThe technology of animation has changed somewhat over the past 35,000 years, when it was first attempted by cave men, but the basics remain. Here they are in specifics: Technically, the production method of film animation remained basically unchanged since Raoul Barre invented the peg hole, and pegs to fit into them, and John Bray invented cels. That was in 1914, ten years before I was born. More or less the same methods were used for nearly 80 years, until the advent of computer animation, scanning, coloring, and compositing. We were still producing our little animation movies on Bray's cellulose-acetate sheets until just a few years ago - and we're still using Raoul Barre's peg holes today, when we're doing drawn animation. The animation principles we work with today were developed and perfected in one incredibly explosive decade. The great advances in animation were made and codified within the 10 years between 1930 and 1940 at the Walt Disney Studios on Hyperion Boulevard in Hollywood. Whatever we may think of the artistic taste of Disney, we cannot discount the incredible advances of animation technique that evolved during this golden decade in his studio, hardly surpassed to this day. That single decade brought animation from the crude STEAMBOAT WILLIE to the highly polished FANTASIA! How much better is animation today? Every animated film made today uses those same basic principles developed at the Walt Disney studios during the 1930s. They still apply, no matter which technology is used. They may be difficult for you to understand completely, without fuller explanation or demonstration, but perhaps they will give you something to think about. They were all printed in Frank Thomas' and Ollie Johnston's landmark book, Disney Animation, "The Illusion of Life."

The 12 Principles of Character Animation, as developed at the Disney studio: 1. Squash and Stretch. (Shape distortion to accentuate movement) 2. Anticipation. (A reverse movement to accent a forward movement) 3. Staging. (The camera viewpoint to best show the action) 4. Straight-ahead vs. Pose-to-pose action. (Two basic procedures) 5. Follow-through and Overlapping action. (Nothing stops abruptly!) 6. Slow-in and Slow-out. (Smoothing starts and stops by spacing) 7. Arcs. (Planning the path of actions) 8. Secondary Actions. (A head might wag while the legs walk!) 9. Timing. (Time relations within actions for the illusion of life!) lO.Exaggeration. (Caricature of actions and timing) 11.Solid drawing. (Learn good drawing to be a good animator!) 12.Appeal. (If our characters are not appealing, then all is lost!) If I may quibble, I would add: 13.Mass and weight. (and preserve volume!) 14.Character acting. (Thinking of the character as a real actor) It's not my purpose to explain or illustrate these principles here, that's all in Frank and Ollie's book. I only want to make the point that though we have an art here, we also have a craft, and that there are basic laws and principles that guide us, just as we have the laws of gravity and motion. Within these laws, there is room for infinite variation and invention. That's where the creativity comes in. Those rules apply mainly to character animation. Graphics animation is unlimited; in that area virtually anything goes, though it doesn't hurt to keep the principles of arcs and timing in mind! Up to the time I was sent to Prague in 1959, I assumed that American cartoon animation was the only kind that mattered, and that all others in the world were merely copying us. I hadn't taken in the fact that what we were doing at UPA in the mid-forties was not just revolutionary American animation, but was in fact an international absorption. Up until UPA, the basis of American Style Animation had always been the striving for realism. In Prague it came into focus for me that the main difference between the American and the European approach to animation was just that. I noticed immediately when I went to work in Prague that Czechoslovak film animation was directly descended from their centuries-long tradition of puppetry. I noticed that the animators in Prague referred to the figures they were

drawing as, well: figures. The actions of the figures resembled puppet movements. The mouths did not move as they spoke dialog, and the eyes did not really look. There was no great consideration to weight, or the laws of physics. There was no realistic presentation of characters. That was secondary to mime. I do not say these are inferior qualities, but they did differ from the American approach. There is an age-old tradition of puppetry in the Czech lands. The oldest articulated puppet ever found, about 25,000 years old, was discovered in an archaeological dig within the territory of the present Czech Republic. So there was this ancient tradition of puppetry that lapped over into cinema animation in that country. The people are used to suggestion rather than a full-frontal imitation of reality, so animators maintained a certain distance from the figures they moved. But if you watch an American animator work, or talk to him about it, he will always refer to the figure he is animating as a real, living character, and he will refer to it by its name,as if it is a real actor. "I am animating Mickey," or "I am animating "Donald," or "Bugs," he will say. The animator puts himself inside his character, trying to think like the character. When we at UPA were unsettling the animation industry in the 40s and 50s, we were labeled as introducing "limited animation." That was intended to sort of put us in our place. The reality of that was that we had "limited budgets." We didn't favor limited animation as such, only the right kind of animation for the particular graphic style. That was the nub of what we were doing: Graphically stylized characters couldn't animate in a realistic way. In those days, each of the major animation studios had its own "house style." It was jokingly said that if you worked at Disney's, all you needed was a quarter and two dimes, so you could use them to help you draw Mickey Mouse. An animator at Disney's had to adapt to the Disney house style. If the animator moved to the Warner Brothers studio he had to draw and animate Bugs Bunny in the Warners house style. At MGM, he had to fit into the Tom & Jerry style, etc. etc. The central idea of UPA was to abolish the whole idea of a house style. This was the genius of John Hubley and the core creative staff - to open animation to the whole world of graphic art and painting styles, and to the whole world of storytelling. Each film could be unique in its look, texture, and construction. In short, anything could be animated! And when I came to Prague 10 years later, I found that the Czechs had independently been on the same road! What I want you to do is to learn to think about animation in those broad terms, and further, to always keep in mind what you are trying to say with this limitless and universal language. What if I told you that what we are doing had its clear roots over 35,000 years ago? Whether we call it film, movies, cinema, video, or whatever, it is my feeling that root idea for a dramatic sound and light presentation in a darkened room goes all the way back to our human beginnings; that it actually fulfills humankind's earliest artistic and storytelling cravings. I have a friend, Alexander Marshack, who once was a photographer for LIFE magazine, and then an early TV director, who has become a foremost expert on beginnings of human art and graphic communication... He traces art back at least 35,000 years. His story was told in National Geographic magazine.

What interests me greatly about his work is what he has discovered and postulated about the cave paintings of Europe. First of all he reminds us of the weird feeling we have when inside a cave... If you've ever been inside a large cave, you'll know this feeling. And if you've ever been deep inside a cave and turned off your light, you will know what dark is! It is a total blackness and quiet we can experience in no other way, especially with the deathly feeling of being under tons of rock. OK. Now Alex Marshack points out that all those beautiful paintings we know of have been made maybe a half-mile deep inside the caves. Why did those early artists do that when it must have been enormously difficult for them? It certainly proves that they were able to produce light. Hollowed stones have been found inside the caves, which were probably oil lamps. They also had to be able to bring in drawing and painting utensils, to make scaffolding, and to mix colors on the spot. Flattened areas of stone have been found with enough residues to indicate they were used as palettes. But it can be assumed that they did not drag all those animals in there to use as models! Yet these paintings are marvelous examples of drawing skill by any standard. These were trained artists! What is especially fascinating to an animator is seeing that many of the drawings were attempts to convey an image of motion! But this was a time of primitive and exceedingly difficult life, when just staying alive and hunting for food was the predominate need. But yet they felt it necessary to support "professional" artists! From this we have to assume that these so-called cave men had a more advanced social organization than we might have thought, and that they were able to bring in a surplus of food, and that not every man or woman had to spend full time scrabbling for existence - that the society 35,000 years ago could support and train artists!!! Again why? All of these deductions by Alexander Marshack got me to thinking that these people had a culture and a lore they wished to preserve, to pass on - a need to tell stories! It struck me: What more imprinting way could there have been for those people to inculcate their youth with the legends and lore of the community than to lead them into the icy vast darkness of a cave, to a deep, forbidding gallery, always the one that was the most sound resonant, (Cave-age Dolby Surround sound?), and in flickering oil lamp light, illuminating wondrous images, tell the tribal tales, in an atmosphere of guaranteed attention. The first "animated movie" presentation!

So we can see that though the technology of animation has changed a bit in the last 35,000 years, the aim is the same: to tell stories in the most dramatic, riveting, and attentionholding way we can. Technical advancements come thick and fast in our times, but we mustn't let them rule our work as a thing unto themselves. Technology is an ever-evolving tool, but our use of it must always be the same: to tell our story! If you learn anything, learn to keep the clarity of what you are saying, or the gag you are presenting. Don't fall victim to the mannerisms of the moment and let the technique smother your story! In our art/craft of animation, in order to truly win our audiences hearts, we should aim not just to make our characters move, but to make them live or certainly seem to live to project an inner life, that motivates their actions and make those actions plausible. I wish I could say that I ever truly accomp-lished that... but I was a UPA man at heart. I have always valued strong stories and humanity, but in animation, I had other goals, guided by graphics, symbols, and stylisation. That has its place, and my successes nicely balanced my failures... but I have grown in my understanding of what animation is all about. Our audience is made up of humans, and we must respond to human expectations. When I first became a director, and even up to this day, whenever I enter a studio engaged in producing films under my direction, I can't escape a certain moment of panic. "My God! All these people are working on something that is my conception! What if I'm wrong? They are all trusting their livelihood to the notion that I know what I'm doing!" Well of course, I must know what I'm doing. What does a director do? If you've sat through the end-credits of an animated feature film, you know that what we do is a (large) group effort. Sure, you would love to think up, write, design, animate, paint, voice, shoot, computerize, and edit your own film... Great! Maybe you will win a major prize in a major festival.... That is, after four to six years of work, possibly being financed by a grant, but more likely from your career as a McDonalds fry cook. But if you actually want to earn a living in animation, you will have to find your place in a studio, and your place in the complex interplay of many talents. A good animated film IS a deft amalgam of many talents and crafts. But a good animated film must LOOK like the work of one hand. And that is what a director

does. The director is the one with the responsibility for the overall vision, and he or she is the one who must know what goes in, and what is discarded, the one who holds the production to a straight line. Without a director's clear vision and firm hand, the movie will wander all over the lot. A good animation director should basically know how to do, or at least understand the place, of all the elements of the movie, and strive to keep them all in balance, not letting any one thing dominate, and have his or her eye and ear at all times centered on the story being told, the premise being proved, and the point being made. How to gain the confidence, the support, satisfy the egos of many diverse talents, and draw from them their best work, integrating it all into a seamless unity, is the constant endeavor and challenge of an animation director.

Chapter 5: The Great Footage FallacyHere is something that few animators seem to think about, but which has bugged me for years: Are we animating foot-long strips of film, or are we animating increments of time? If we are all into globalization, lets work in a global standard. I would like to foment an animation revolution in the dimension of time! Footage. We were all weaned on it. Every American filmmaker, certainly every American animator, is trained to think in terms of feet of film. How many feet of film an animator can turn out per week is often his measure of productivity and measure of pay. When I first arrived in Prague, with the initial purpose of developing co-production with my New York studio, I ran into an immediate snag. Czech animators measure their output in meters! One meter of film equals 3.2808 feet. But what the hell does that really mean? I saw the promise of endless complications and calculations in the process of co-production. I began to realize that the whole idea of measuring animation in terms of the length of a strip of film was meaningless and madness, and I wondered why we in America had never realized this before? Look. Movie film goes through a theater projector at the rate of 24 frames per second. So how many frames of film are there in a foot? 16! 16 frames equals twothirds of a second! No one watching a movie is at all aware of feet of film whizzing by. If one is interested in the length of a movie, or the length of a scene, and wants to measure it, they will use a stopwatch. They will measure, minutes, seconds, and increments thereof. As I constantly point out in lecturing about filmmaking, we have a medium that exists in the dimension of time. Footage is especially nonsense in digital computer animation, where there is no such thing as a reel of film or even spool of tape. There is not a physical length of anything! The only length is time. Nearly everyone these days has a VCR at home, and perhaps a DVD player. Does anyone know how many feet of the reel of tape inside the cassette, or of the spiral groove on a DVD, is needed to record one minute of action? How many are aware that the tape in the same VHS cassette spools out 30%faster when recorded in the American NTSC system than in the European PAL system? But who cares? The

important thing is that the action produced on the TV screen plays at the exact same speed, and that is what counts! Time in Your Hands If most of the world outside of North America measure film lengths not in feet but in meters, what is it that every filmmaker on the entire planet has in common? Seconds, minutes, and hours! - TIME! Movie making exists in the dimension of time. So I had printed up a new type of animation exposure sheets. The traditional exposure sheets have horizontal ruled lines down their length, each line representing a frame of film. The numbered animation drawings for the various levels are entered on the lines representing the frames of film they are to be photographed upon. Every 16th line, representing a foot-length of film, is usually a heavy line. This is an arbitrary measurement, as it actually represents just two-thirds of a second. We certainly don't measure our work in three-quarter seconds. Of course not. We measure our scenes in whole seconds, and increments thereof. So my new, GDA, inc. exposure sheets had every twenty-fourth line be a heavy line; a heavy line for every second of running time! Then my New York studio and the Prague studio could work in synchronization, with no need for elaborate calculations. It only took a short while for each side to adjust to this, because it was entirely logical. I never attempted to patent my exposure sheets. I'm sure that the original, footage-type exposure sheets are in the public domain. They were most likely developed at the Disney studio in the thirties, and spread throughout the industry. But of course in those days international co-production didn't exist, and so no one ever questioned the logic of the system. I suppose that my idea of 1960 must have surely occurred to everyone else by this time. My type of exposure sheets are in use here now, but I actually haven't seen second-oriented sheets anywhere else. I must admit that in the ensuing 40 years, the subject never came up in any of my discussions with fellow-American animators... but if they have come around to the idea on their own, I propose an "anti-footage" crusade as of now! Who will "second" the motion? Here illustrated are the two types of exposure sheets, side by side. The traditional, "footage" type sheet accommodated three and one-third seconds of running time. In order to get four complete seconds onto one page of my new sheets, I had to have them printed on somewhat larger paper, but that was never a problem. One of the arguments, I suppose, for the footage-type sheets was that 8 and 16frame increments they were marked with were convenient musical beats or tempos. In traditional animation, it was common to animate to one of those arbitrary beats, and then force the composer of the music to strictly follow the mechanically precise tempo. They often made a "click-track," so the orchestra conductor could hear the tempo in his earphones and hold the orchestra tightly to it. To my mind, this "mechanized" the music, and disallowed any flexibility. I much preferred to allow the composer to work freely, and have the animators follow the music. When our music was recorded and copied onto a 35mm worktrack, we would simply let the track run at normal speed, and then tap the tempo directly onto the soundtrack with a grease pencil, tapping as close to the moviola's sound head as

possible. If I did this two or three times, I could be sure I had the beats on the proper frames. Then the sound editor moved the tape slowly through a frame counter, and noted the exact frame numbers of each mark. When this information was written onto the exposure sheets, the animator knew exactly how to move his characters to the beats. In this way, the rhythm was natural, and so was the animation! As I progressed in my work, I did more and more of the soundtrack in advance of animation, ultimately giving the animators the entire mixed track in advance, so that they would be aware of the entire atmosphere of the soundtrack. Dialog, of course, was nearly always recorded in advance, as a guide to lip-sync, but I felt that also the background music, and the sound effects were also important for the animator to feel. Along with my emphasis that animation exists in the dimension of time, I wanted it to follow the entire soundtrack, which obviously exists in the time dimension. But trying to create an entire mixed soundtrack in advance of animation required a great deal of discipline and ability to imagine all of the action and effects, at a stage of production when the film only existed in the director's head! For me, the answer to the problem was the stopwatch. I would act out the film in my head, and with a certain amount of pantomiming, timing each fragment of the action over and over, breaking it down and noting the timing of each fragment. This was noted first on our Bar Sheets, which are analagous to an orchestra's conductor score, showing all of the elements together - in our case, action, dialog, music cues, and sound effects. By working in this way, constructing the entire soundtrack in advance of animation, I was assured that my film would truly work in the time dimension, and I never gave the slightest thought to "footage."

Partial page of "footage" type exposure sheet. Note that the heavy lines are every 8 and 16 frame lines. 16 frames = 1 foot of film, or 2/3 second of running time.

Partial page of "Seconds" type exposure sheet. Note that the heavy lines are every 24th frame-line. (1 second of time.)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING A few years ago I was invited by the film insitute of the southern Czech town of Cesk Budjejovice ("Budweis," home of the true original and infinitely superior Budweiser Beer), to do a talk and to show an evening of my films. They did a good job of promoting it, and had posters all over town, but only a few diehard fans showed up. My spirits were buoyed when an excited young fellow rushed up to me and pleaded for my autograph, telling me how much he liked my films, etc. Flattered, I expressed my wish that he would enjoy my presentation. "Oh, I can't stay," he said, "Tonight is a big hockey game!" The blindest and most dedicated fans of all were those local Film Institute freaks who were totally oblivious of hockey, and booked me on the one night when no one would be likely to be diverted from hockey to waste the evening on me! As I have pointed out in this book: timing is everything!

A philosophical note: In this digital age, we are up against a Creator of The Cosmos who perhaps doesn't have ten fingers and toes. He/She/It made our solar system impossible to digitalize. Working backwards from the fact that our planet circles the sun in approximately 365 days, and that the days are approximately 24 hours long, and there are 7 of them in a week, and we need a clumsy poem to remind us of how many days there are in each month, and 12 of those in a year, with hours at 60 minutes and minutes at 60 seconds... well, just try dividing any of those numbers by 10! We can only get digitalized at the decade and century level. And in this new century, everything is digitalized!

Time Flies

Chapter 6: The Long And The Short Of ItA short chapter about a long point. Contrast, Change-Of-Pace. Thats the name of the game.The art of animation timing is related to a basic element of all art, and that is contrast. What makes a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, a building, a play, a movie, or a piece of music, or any object visually or aurally interesting and dynamic, is contrast: dark against light, large against small, blur against sharp, straight against curve, rounded against angular., close against distant, loud against soft, silence against sound, long against short, slow against fast, pause against action... Those last pairings are at the heart of animation timing. When drawing the phases of animation the inbetweens you would only use perfectly even spacing if you were animating a machine. Nothing alive moves in evenly spaced increments of your 24-frame seconds. In Chapter 3, "Animation For Dummies..." I alluded to this in general terms. Here I will try to be more specific. There is nothing more important to animation than the precise spacing between your action phases your inbetweens. If you want to create impact, the spacing must be increasingly greater as you approach your end position of an action. If you want to create a "soft landing," your spacing must progressively decrease as you move toward your end position. In the complex series of moves within any scene of animation, the interplay of short against long, pauses against movement, close spacing against long spacing contrast of movement is exactly where you create the illusion of life comedy, drama, whatever.

CRABBY APPLETON "Rotten To The Core!" From the CBS-Terrytoons serial, "Tom Terrific"

Chapter 7: Story - What's it All About?No story - no movie. Heres how to tell if you actually have a story, and if not, how to make one. Flash is fun, but I can never forget what John Hubley taught me, all those years ago at UPA in Hollywood: "First and foremost, your movie should be about something!" Even an animated film cannot escape the laws of dramatic structure. Hub recommended a book by the Hungarian* author, Lajos Egri, titled "The Art of Dramatic Writing." It was published in 1946 by Simon & Schuster, just as I was starting out in the animation profession. Fortunately, the book is still available on the internet as I write this, and very cheaply, so no excuses for not buying and learning from it. I'll attempt to distill its main point for you: More clearly than any other book I've read about dramatic writing or screenplay writing, it explains premise - which is the core of "about something." Premise is largely misunderstood and misused. It is the supposition and line of action upon which every successful dramatic story must be based. It can be stated in just a few words, and found in every play by Shakespeare or any other great writer, and even in every Roadrunner cartoon. When I had the task of adapting children's picture books for Weston Woods - the task of translating a book into an animation film, I first had to find the premise, what I called, "the core of meaning." Once I had this, I knew exactly what could and what could not be in the film adaptation. Whether he or she knew it or not, the author's original story, if truly strong, will have this premise. The premise tells us what the story, at base, is about, and where it's heading. According to Egri it must consist of three parts: character/conflict/conclusion. If you distill your story idea to this essential premise, you will know exactly how it will end, and how you will get to that ending. Note that the premise need not be always true. It may be questionable, but it is what you the author want to dramatically state. A good story must prove its premise. Here are some sample premises that Egri presents: "Blind trust/leads to/destruction." (King Lear) "Jealousy/destroys/the object of its love" (Othello) "Poverty/encourages/crime." (Dead End) "Great Love/defies/even death" (Romeo and Juliet) "Ruthless ambition/leads to/it's own destruction." (MacBeth) OK, that's all heavy stuff, but the same principles apply to our little cartoons: "Craftiness/digs/its own grave." (every ROAD RUNNER cartoon) "Bravado/leads to/humiliation" (Bluto in every POPEYE cartoon) TOM & JERRY cartoons had a sort of premise, "A clever mite/outsmarts/a larger and dumber opponent," but they were mainly just situations, with a series of attack and revenge gags, and thus were rarely true stories. It was just "David," (Jerry Mouse) usually outsmarting "Goliath" (Tom Cat), and ending when the 6 minutes were up. You will rarely form a premise before you write a story. Story ideas can come to you

in a hundred different ways. But as your idea is fleshed out, it may seem to be wandering in several directions at once. Somewhere along the line you have to stop and figure out where you're heading. You must find your premise, so you'll know how your story must end. If you want your story to ring true, you have to believe your premise. It doesn't have to be the only truth there is, but a possible a likely truth that you can put your heart into. Even a comic film should have something to say. There has to be that core of meaning that a strong premise provides. If you can't boil your story down to these three parts: , then the story is flawed, or you simply don't know what it is really about. Your premise doesn't have to glare out like a neon sign. You should have enough incident, visual effect and action to dazzle your audience, but you will know it's there, and it will be your sure-footed guide to a strong production. Your usual starting point on a cartoon film story may be a character. If you don't have one of your own in mind, maybe you'll be prompted to find one on a list such as I was given at UPA, and copied below. But for your purposes a barebones type won't be enough. The only character worth working with cannot be an ordinary anything. He, she, or it will have to be some kind of extreme, either physically, psychically, or socially. If fat, very fat. If weird, all-out weird. If opinionated, extremely. The best characters are over the top! Animation requires a magnified reality! Quite often, how a character looks will affect his or her every action. If there is a fetish, and attraction, an aversion, then that will affect action. If the character is an outcast, a social climber, or a power-player, then that will drive his or her actions. Lajos Egri points out that if you want a really strong, and interesting character, you will have to know its physical, psychological, and social make up. When you know your character, you will know what he, she or it will do or will not do, and in your animation its actions, gestures, dialog, and facial expressions will make it clear to us what its "feeling" and "thinking." That is a real character! You will get inside the character when you are writing for it, creating its poses, or animating it. Just as any other type of actor, you will become the character. Of course, Egri tells a lot more about character growth, development of action, dramatic construction, conflict, and resolution. But that is his book, and you should read it. I won't say that that average animation film will be as complex as a Broadway play, but in essence all the elements will be there, however condensed or stylized. Don't break your head with these technicalities when your mind is singing with a brilliant idea. Write it all down, so you don't lose your inspiration... but THEN put it to the test. Discover your premise and then trim and mold your material to fit. One way to start is to try the "What if?" approach. "What if such-and-such a character got into such-and-such a situation?" For example, "What if a hungry dog fell through a skylight into a delicatessen?" Another thing Hub told me was about the "Moving Train." When you start your story, the "train" is already moving; events are already in motion. This gets your little movie into action from the outset. So start in action, and fill in your exposition as you go along. Right away you are setting up your conflict, the problem to be solved, the obstacles to be overcome, the complications and switches along the way to your inevitable climax and ending. (If your premise requires disaster, then you must show how the obstacle overcomes the character!)

UPA story people didn't use any automatic plot machines, or story formulas, such as are on computer programs we have today, but they did use some idea prompters to suggest a protagonist for a story. I got this list originally from UPA storyman Phil Eastman in 1948, and I've added a few modern types to fill it out. Just for fun, try it out, and see if you can work up a story with a character from this list, within the principles I've quoted.

abortionist abstinent acrobat actor airman amateur ambassador anchor angler animal animator apparition applicant artist astrologer athlete attorney author badmouther bachelor backwoodser balloonist bandit bandmaster banker barber bastard beau beggar belle blowhard boatswain bodyguard bookkeeper bookworm botanist bouncer

devil dictator director diver doctor dreamer drug addict drunkard duke eavesdropper elderly entrepreneur evangelist experimenter fanatic farmer fat man father ferryman fetishist fisherman flapper flasher forger fornicator fortune teller frogman gardener general genius ghost gigolo goblin grocer guard

lazy person loafer librarian lobbyist lumberjack lunatic madman maid malcontent manic marshal mayor millionaire minstrel miser monkey monster mortician motorcyclist mountaineer navigator neurotic niggler nightmare nurse nympho obsessive ogre oracle owner painter paranoid parson patroller patron

shadow shepherd shopkeeper shy sightseer simpleton singer skipper skydiver smoker social worker soldier sorcerer spaceman speaker spendthrift spinster spy stevedore street cleaner stripteaser stuntman surfer swindler swordsman sycophant tattler tattooer teenager terrorist tramp transvestite two-timer tyrant umpire uncle

braggart brain bridegroom bridesmaid burglar butcher cannoneer cartoonist cavalier cavalryman caveman chairman chauffeur chef chemist clerk cobbler comedian composer compulsive computer guru congressman con-man conniver connoisseur convict cook counterfeiter coward cowboy crook dancer dandy deranged detective

hacker hangman henchman homosexual humorist hustler hypnotist idiot incompetent incontinent indecent Indian indigent infidel innkeeper introvert inventor jailor janitor jazzman joker journalist judge judo master jury killer king knave knight kvetch landlord lawyer

peer penitent pervert philanthropist philosopher photographer phrenologist physician pilgrim pirate planter playmate poet policeman preacher primate primitive prince/ess prisoner psychiatrist purist repairman revolutionary robber rou sailor salesman scamp scholar schoolmaster scientist scout scout seaman seer

unclean unhealthy userer usher vagabond vamp vampire vandal vanquished vaudevillian vendor victim villain voyeur waif waiter warbler washerwoman watchman wit witch wrangler wrestler wretch xenophobe Yankee yenta yes-man yogi zombie zoologist

At UPA we were heavily influenced by two Hungarians and a Russian: Graphically by Gyorgy Kepes and his book, "Language of Vision," story construction by Lajos Egri and his book, "The Art of Dramatic Writing," and cinematic scenography by V.I.Pudovkin in his book, "Film Acting." I wish I could say that I achieved all I've written about here in my own films. I think that my failures may have been just about balanced by successes. But through it all the principles of Kepes, Egri, and Pudovkin were the bedrock standards I constantly attempted to work by.

Chapter 8: Make Luck Happen!You need a lot of luck to make it in the movie business. How do you get lucky? Is success really just a matter of luck chance? Or can you lure luck your way? Here are some tips. Many have asked me how to get started in animation, and how to prosper in it creatively and financially. Dare I mention luck?*

I believe I have had plenty of that, and I couldnt expect anyone to profit from my tales of lucky incidents that propelled me. But perhaps a definition of luck would be useful: Everyone, at one time or another happens upon an opportunity. The vital difference occurs in if or how a person perceives the opportunity, and how he or she reacts to it, grabs it and runs with it. Many things seem to come out of the blue, a pure chance of being in the right place just as a door opens. But without preparation for that chance event, you will not be the one who will be beckoned inside. What is luck anyway? Luck can often be manipulated - given a little nudge. After all, you just can't sit around half your life waiting for luck to bless you. You can be a complete no-talent idiot and still win $500,000,000 in a lottery. You don't need any advice from me to do that - just incredible, and highly unlikely pure one-in-a-gazillion-chance, naked luck. Theoretically, any dummy can do that. But actually, having luck in breaking into the profession of your choice can be a lot harder if you don't make moves to make it happen. Here's how to make luck happen: 1. Be good at what you do. Do what you must do to get good. Watch, learn, practice, produce. Be ready. It takes work. 2. Make yourself known. Find an outlet. Become a name. Get in print, or on the net. Let your abilities, your accomplishments be out there. 3. Put out feelers. Don't hide. Write letters. Put up a web page. Send email. Make contacts. All of the above are really the same things. You want to get yourself in a position where you could be the person sought after. It worked for me when I was just past 20, when I was drawing jazz cartoons for no money in an obscure jazz record fan magazine. It gave me stuff in print with my name on it, and people at UPA happened to see it. You never know who will see something that is out there. Today, similar luck can be prompted on the internet. What you want to set up is a situation where someone looking for talent will find you.

There are two possible approaches: 1. You can study trends; what's hot what's not - ape a successful style - try to guess what's needed and figure a way to fill that need or 2. Be unique. Be outstanding. Hope to impress by indicating you are thinking ahead of the trends. That's harder and riskier, but if you can pull it off, you will be positioned for Big Things. You're more likely to score if you are in some way unique. Find a special ability within yourself and develop it. Which of those two approaches would be more natural and possible for you? In either case, be aware of the basic truth: Bert & Harry Piel, NY Art Directors Club A potential client or employer must be Gold Medal TV ad series 1953 made to believe that you can help him or her. You are not likely to be hired for reasons of charity. "Here's how I can be of value to you" That is what you have to get across, and it's far easier for that to get across if the potential client or employer comes to that opinion on his own. To paraphrase JFK: "Ask not what your employer can do for you, but show your employer what you can do for him!" Go getm, kid!

Chapter 9: We Hereby AgreeMost animation books Ive read leave out one of the most important things an animator needs to know: How To Make a Contract! Do you really need a lawyer? Here are some examples of how you can Do It Yourself and retain your hide.Most animation books I've read leave out one of the most important things an animator needs to know: How To Make a Contract! There are a vast array of ways an animator or independent filmmaker can get screwed. If you get involved with a real expert, there may be no escape. But a welldrawn written agreement can save you in most cases. Decide for yourself if you need a lawyer, but legal eagles generally fly high, and need plenty of enriched dollars to keep them aloft. I may be lucky, but I've done better on contracts I've drafted myself. A lawyer has enough boiler plate to make a contract that is thicker than Your film script often many times thicker and you probably won't understand most of it. From my vast experience with vampire producers, I have boiled down the essential armor plate to just a few pages - often just a single page - with the essentials all there. However, every project is different in one way or another, so

what I present you with here are just examples which can be modified to fit your case. The essential points: 1. Clarity. Simple, but precise language. 2. Use of the word "shall" in preference to "will." There is a mighty difference! 3. Fairness to all parties. A tricked up, one-sided contract leads to intense pain, and is non-workable in practice. In animation work there are generally three types of contracts or agreements. 1. Employment 2. Free lance, where your own creation is involved. 3. Free lance, where you are contracted to produce their project. I will show you here examples of each of these contracts, that I have actually signed and worked under, (the names have been changed to avoid attack by real lawyers.) I will follow each one with explanations of the good and bad points as necessary. This first employee agreement is authentic, and I present it in some embarrassment: "The following shall constitute and Agreement between Foxy L.Grandpa, doing business as FoxyWoxyFilms, 123 South 45th Street, New Joy, NO 10000 USA, hereinafter referred to as "Foxy," and Gene Deitch, 999 Way Out Road, Desolation Depths, NG 99999 USA, hereinafter referred to as "Deitch." 1. This Agreement sets forth the terms of employment of Deitch by Foxy. 2. Deitch shall be employed as Creative Director of FoxyWoxyFilms for a two year period beginning January 1, ----, and ending December 31, ---3. During the term of this Agreement, Deitch shall act as creator and/or director of any cartoons or cartoon productions selected by Foxy. Deitch agrees to devote his full time and efforts to such assignments for Foxy, and to perform his assignments as such places in the United States or Europe as may be selected from time to time by Foxy. His expenses in connection with any travel made at Foxy's request shall be paid by Foxy. 4. Deitch's functions as creator and/or director of cartoons and cartoon projects for Foxy shall be substantially similar to the functions previously performed by him during the two year period preceding this Agreement. 5. Foxy shall pay Deitch as a minimum consideration for his services during the term of this Agreement, a salary of $000000 per annum. This sum shall be paid at the rate of $0000 per week for 50 weeks during each of the two years of this Agreement. 6. As additional compensation for Deitch's services hereunder, Foxy shall pay to Deitch 25% of Foxy's net profits on each cartoon created and/or directed by Deitch for Foxy, after first deducting the $0000000 annual salary payable in Paragraph 5 of this Agreement. Foxy's net profits shall be as determined by its accountants after deducting all production costs, salaries, travel expenses, and a fixed 30% for overhead costs. Payment of Deitch's share of the net

profits shall be made at the end of each calendar year during the term of this Agreement, and shall be accompanied by a statement of Foxys accountants. 7. This Agreement supercedes all prior Agreements between the parties hereto, except that nothing contained in the Agreement shall affect Deitch's share of profits in [LIST FILMS] series or any other cartoon films in which Deitch has any interest, under the terms of the original Agreement between Foxy and Deitch. 8. Foxy shall have the option, exercisable by written notice given to Deitch not later than November 15, ----, to renew this Agreement on the same terms and conditions as contained in this Agreement for an additional period of two years, commencing on January 1st, ----, and ending on December 31st, ----, provided that Deitch's minimum guaranteed salary during the two-year renewal period shall be increased from the $000000 provided for in Paragraph 6 herein, to $000000 per year. 9. If Foxy does not exercise its option to renew this agreement, except that he shall continue to receive his share in the net profits subsequently realized by Foxy on all cartoons theretofore created and/or directed by Deitch and in which he has a continuing share of said profits. 10. It is agreed that in all cartoons created or directed by Deitch, screen credits given to Deitch shall be given equal prominence to the credit given to Foxy Grandpa. 11. This Agreement, being personal in nature, may not be assigned by either party hereto, except that Foxy may assign its rights hereunder to any partnership or corporation with which Foxy Grandpa shall be connected as a principal. 12. All notices under this Agreement shall be given in writing by registered or certified mail addressed to the respective parties pat their addresses as hereinabove set forth, unless notice of change of address is given. 13. This Agreement shall be construed under and be governed by the laws of the State of --------, and may not be changed orally. 14. The signatures of both contracting parties affixed hereto shall constitute this a valid Agreement.

_______________________ FoxyWoxyFilms ____________________ Gene Deitch

Witness:______________________

I signed this contract in a weak position. It is chock full of holes and meaningless promises. Here are the main points: Paragraph 3. The terms "cartoons" and "cartoon films" are imprecise, and today we would say "animated films" or whatever type of films or other work is involved. This paragraph put my location at the discretion of Foxy. Paragraph 4. This contract was a renewal of an earlier one. Paragraph 5. The amount of Your salary is of course a crucial issue, and usually requires delicate research, and the ability to feel out your prospective employer, balancing the sum against Your needs or wants, what you think is realistically sustainable, and best of all, relating it to any other offers you might have. There is such a thing ask getting too much money. If you can't produce enough value for your employer to make you worthwhile, you will certainly be out at his earliest option. I signed at a lower salary than I was actually worth to Foxy, because of other overriding personal considerations. There are always other considerations! Paragraph 6. Now here is the most meaningless paragraph of all! There are no such things as "net profits" in movie production. The biggest grossing films in motion picture history never achieved any "net profits." It's all "up front." If you are of sufficient value to your employer as to be offered a share of return on productions you contribute to, then it must be a share of gross receipts. Even 1% of gross receipts is worth more than 25% of net profits. My own personal standard for the past 30 years is 5% of gross income, from the first dollar, and in perpetuity. This should include not only returns on sales or rentals of the films in any form, television syndication, videos, etc, but also ancillary rights, including merchandising of toys, etc. Needless to say, I never received a penny from Paragraph 6. Even if any net profits miraculously appeared, this paragraph is laced with every form of weasel word old Foxy and his lawyers could come up with. Just read it carefully! Paragraph 8. This gives FoxyWoxy all of the options. I had no options to get out of the contract, and would have faced loss of all salaries and whatever rights there might be if I would quit. Paragraph 9. Ha ha! More empty guff, adding up to zero. Paragraph 10. If not money, at least glory. I was able to get major screen credit rights, and this was not just for ego satisfaction. Screen credits are also money in the bank, and vital for your next career moves. The rest of this early employment contract is standard "boiler plate," legal essentials. You'll see variations of this in the following examples. The next example is a contract where you are hired to animate someone else's creative property or properties. The names are changed, but it is based on an actual contract I worked under successfully for many years. CONTRACT FOR SERVICES

A G R E E M E N T dated this 1st day of August, Year by and between KID FOOD, INC., a [State] corporation having its principal offices in Town, State 00000 (hereinafter called "Kid inc.") and Joe Animator, 1234 Street, Town, Country (hereinafter called "Animator"). 1. Kid inc. is in the business of producing and exploiting sound and silent motion pictures, recordings, filmstrips, slides, TV programs and other so-called "Mass Media". 2. Kid inc. contracts directly with artists, illustrators, publishers, etc. for the rights for adaptation, production, co-production, and exploitation as motion pictures, (hereinafter called "Projects"), on which Animator shall perform services as: ADAPTER - ANIMATOR - DIRECTOR. 3. As compensation for the services performed by Animator, Kid inc. shall pay hereunder: A. [Several] thousand dollars ($00000.00) as a fee for the preparation of a storyboard adaptation for a film, B. A minimum of [several] thousand dollars ($0000000) as a fee for directing or supervising the production of a film up to the running length of 7 minutes. C. A minimum fee of [several] thousand dollars ($0000000) for directing or supervising the production of a film up to the running length of 8-14 minutes in length, and of a difficulty as represented by the example of the film "Suchandsuch" D. A minimum fee of [several] thousand dollars ($000000000) for directing or supervising the production of a film up to 3O minutes in length, and of a difficulty as represented by the version of "Suchandsuch", written by Animator. E. The exact fees for directing or supervising the production of each film will be agreed in writing by the parties at the time Kid inc. shall assign the project to Animator. F. In addition to the fees as listed in items A. B. C. and D. above, Animator shall receive a royalty* [commission] of 5% (five percent) in perpetuity of the gross revenue from all sources, of the films directed by Animator under the terms of this contract. 4. Notwithstanding paragraph 3 hereinabove, it is conceived that each project will be part of a half-hour presentation, hopefully for T.V. but perhaps just for Kid inc.'s regular film market. Animator will participate in the development and production of whatever additional material is required to "flesh out" productions to a thirty (30) minute length (write, direct, or both) and no additional fees will be paid to Animator for these additional services. However, Animator shall receive a royalty of five percent (5%) of Kid inc.'s gross receipts determined on a per capita basis for material produced by You and included in the completed work. The amount of royalty shall be determined on the basis of running time. 5. Animator will be consulted on the development of a television show (currently called "XX"), and other matters, and will bill Kid inc. at the rate of [several] dollars ($0000) for an aggregate week's time, when no production work for You will

necessarily accrue. Billing will be when accumulated times equals one week, and no invoice shall exceed [several] dollars ($0000). 6. Animator shall be given the first right to personally perform any required reworking of the work, including any corrections, additions, deletions, changes, reediting, or sound remixing required by Kid inc. on projects directed by Animator under the terms of this contract. Animator may release this first right in individual cases to Kid inc. in writing. Not withstanding the above, if Animator's best efforts to re-work the film do not meet with the approval of Kid inc., Kid inc. shall, at its sole discretion, have the final right to make said corrections and Animator shall furnish necessary components in Animator's possession to Kid inc. 7. Animator may be asked to participate in promotional efforts such as workshops, speeches, writing for publication, etc. For such services, Animator shall be paid a fee of [several] dollars ($0000) per day, including bona fide travel time,