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Animated Storytelling, 2nd edition

Published by Peachpit Press (August 13, 2019) © 2020

  • Liz Blazer

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Animation is a limitless medium for telling stories. Artists can create worlds, defy gravity, flip from factual to fantasy, and transport audiences to places they never imagined. The challenge is having the discipline to reel it in and be intentional about your storytelling choices. This book shows you how.
In Animated Storytelling, learn how to create memorable stories using animation and motion graphics by following 10 simple guidelines that take you through the stages of concept development, pre-production, storyboarding, and design. Explore traditional linear storytelling and learn different processes for creating successful nonlinear animated stories, and also discover the wonders of experimental filmmaking.

Award-winning filmmaker, educator, and motivator Liz Blazer uses clear examples and easy-to-follow exercises to provide students with the instruction, encouragement, and tools they need to get their designs moving.
Whether your course is designed to help students create exciting shorts for film festivals, effective messaging for broadcast or online, or simply to gain a deeper understanding of the medium, Animated Storytelling simplifies the process of creating clear and engaging stories for animation and motion graphics so students can get started easily.

Animated Storytelling teaches students how to:
• Write a creative brief for a project
• Find and communicate a story’s Big Idea
• Create tight stories with linear and nonlinear structures
• Explore experimental filmmaking techniques
• Use storyboards to communicate a visual story
• Use color to clarify and enrich a story
• Define the rules for an animated world
• Ease into the challenging task of animation
• Make the work students want to be hired to do
• Share their work with the world!

The full-color guide to creating memorable stories with animation and motion graphics: 10 simple guidelines you can rely on in every project
  • 10 easy ways to tell powerfully compelling stories with animation and motion graphics: a simple, accessible guide to getting started with motion
  • Two books in one: both animation instruction and storytelling techniques
  • Includes hands-on prompts and practice assignments honed and tested with hundreds of students and industry pros
  • Loaded with even more visual examples, including storyboards, charts, and graphs that illustrate key principles
  • Comes with instructor resources, including PowerPoint slides and instructor notes
  • Includes an all-new chapter on unlocking your story through visual storytelling, not words
  • Updated to reflect extensive feedback from teachers, students, and professionals
This improved and expanded Second Edition contains:
  • More of the story graphs and charts readers loved so much, illuminating powerful alternatives to writing and storyboarding for creating stories
  • An all-new chapter, Unlocking Your Story, using images, characters, and universal conflicts to ignite storytelling for visual thinkers who find it hard to achieve creativity with words
  • More guidance on experimental storytelling and world-building, with new visual examples
  • Updated art, including new work by the author’s enormous creativity community
  • New interviews with animators whose work is especially current and relevant
1. Pre-Production
2. Storytelling
3. Unlocking Your Story
4. Storyboarding
5. Color Sense
6. Weird Science
7. Sound Ideas
8. Design Wonderland
9. Technique
10. Animate!
&. Show and Tell

LIZ BLAZER is a filmmaker, art director, designer, animator, and educator. She has worked as a development artist for Disney, director for Cartoon Network, special effects designer for MTV, and art director for the Palestinian/Israeli Sesame Street. Her animated documentary Backseat Bingo traveled to 180 film festivals in 15 countries and won many awards, including awards from the HBO Comedy Arts Festival, Animation Magazine, and the International Documentary Association. As an educator, Blazer emphasizes storytelling and pitching as she guides her students to bring their art to life through animation.

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