Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting: The Writer's Road Map (Gardner's Guide series) [Paperback]

Marilyn Webber (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gardner's Guide series | Publication Date: October 1, 2000

Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting is the place to go for information on writing Saturday morning cartoons or animation short films! This book is user-friendly, with illustrated text that takes you through the steps necessary to create a winning script. Detailed instructions so you won't get lost on your way to becoming a successful writer for Animation. Complete, concise and fun it's packed with real examples and exercises, that includes three formats for different age groups. All you need to know to get started.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...you can arrive at the end of your scriptwriting road trip with a dumptruckload of useful information." -- --Tom Franks, About - The Human Internet

"Thorough and intelligent...covers every aspect of what it takes to write a great cartoon script." -- --Joe Ruby, President of Ruby-Spears Production

About the Author

Marilyn Webber has worked as a professional writer in Los Angeles for the past eight years. Earning her M.F.A. at The American Film Institute, her work has garnered nominations for both an Academy Award and a Humanitas. In addition, her work has won an NAACP Award, an NEA Award: For The Advancement of Learning in Broadcasting, an American Association Library Award: For Most Notable Children's Video, and winner of The Indiana Film Festival.

Miss Webber began her career in children's programming, writing Saturday morning cartoons and animation teleplays progressing to writing one hour action/adventure and dramas for both day time and prime time television. During this period, her romantic comedy screenplay, How To Kill Howie, won Best Screenplay at the Texas Film Festival, while her science fiction script, The Lawless Legion, her action script, Mouth of the Cat, her drama, A Place Called Harmony, and television spec for NYPD Blue, Suffer the Little Children, all placed as Semi-finalists in The Writer's Foundation America's Best Contest.

She has freelanced for networks such as ABC and CBS, and for studios such as Universal and Disney. Her screenplays have been optioned by numerous producers including those at Hearst Entertainment, Saban Entertainment, and Paramount Pictures.

Miss Webber has taught creative writing extension courses through Johns Hopkins University IAAY program, as well as giving independent seminars on screenwriting and writing for animation. Occasionally, she consults as script analyst. A member of the Writer's Guild of America, she has also been a judge for the Cable Ace Awards in the category of dramatic writing.

Miss Webber's other titles in The Writer's Road Map series are Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting, and Gardner's Guide to Feature Animation Writing. She has completed a historical novel, and is developing it as a mini-series. Her latest feature film, Murder Seen, a suspense/thriller for Saban Entertainment, will be released in 2001. She continues to freelance for television, and is pursuing producing and directing her feature films.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Garth Gardner Company; 1 edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966107594
• ISBN-13: 978-0966107593
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #873,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique Achievment: constructing an Animation script, November 6, 2001

By 

F.Pabzcacs "from the top of my hat" (Plano, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting: The Writer's Road Map (Gardner's Guide series) (Paperback)

Is a shame that a great book like this only have one review until now ( and a wrong one ) hence I'll try to correct this.

NOTE: Be aware that this review is for the GARDNER'S GUIDE TO ANIMATION SCRIPTWRITING ( this review is wrongly appearing TOO in the "Gardner's guide to Multimedia & animation Studios", some kind of problem in Amazon.com I Think, :-( SORRY Chaz )

I bought this book in August 2001, if you are looking for books about scripts there are many ones, some very good, but any is writed exclusively thinking in animation and cartoons. For the animator this is an invaluable reference, here is the summary:

1.- Animation - An Overview
2.- Cartoon Genres
3.- The Moral
4.- Central Idea
5.- Dead End Ahead - The Central question
6.- The Characters and the Character Arc
7.- Introduction to Plot
8.- The Twenty-Two minute Structure
9.- The Eleven Minute Structure
10.- The Seven Minute Structure
11.- Make 'Em Laugh - Levels of Humor
12.- Prose
13.- Dialogue
14.- The Scene
15.- Broadcast Guidelines
16.- The Rewrite
17.- The Writing Process of Animation
Glossary, Cartoonography, Filmography, Road Map Forms, Apendix

The book itself have a good easyreading design, with plenty of quotations and references to well known movies or series, here you have the basics of writing but you can find more profound books about this, the special of the book is that is writed for cartoons specially, have 3 chapters studying the structures of the cartoonscript of 7, 11 and 22 minutes, of course you can apply all the information for an animation of any length, movies or shorts.

Including checklists for Structure, Characters, Scenes, Dialogue, Humor, Prose, 3 Structure guides, 75 Excercises, 37 Rules and an Animated 7 minutes Teleplay in the appendix: You have here a book that will go to occupy an important place near you.

I'm not an acclaimed screenwriter in fact I'm a novice in this area but I'm working with a firm producing some animations and I can asure you that this book can prevent you some rocky mistakes in this special field and even If you are a Pro you'll find some good points here.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete cartoon-writing reference guide - Amazing!, April 14, 2005

By 

Bradley J. Krause "3d Animator" (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting: The Writer's Road Map (Gardner's Guide series) (Paperback)

I knew that scriptwriting was formulaic, with lots of rules about what should happen at what page and all of the structural details. But this book plots out exactly what a cartoon should do! From the general outline to the set-in-stone types of humor. Who knew that anyone had codified all this stuff! It's all here, from the Flintstones to South Park. This is how it's done.
Far from being confining, I'm finding that reading and re-reading this tome (easy to read tome!) is inspiring beyond belilef. I'm cranking up my DVD player and finding that every detail of every chapter is true down to the last nut and bolt. Professionals have been following these guidelines for decades!
This book must be the textbook for lots of classes about this subject somewhere.
I'm a 3d animator, and it's my goal to make animated shorts a lot more "arty" than Pepper Ann and Rugrats. But this book is such an eye-opener! I've never realized that even the cartoons that I've loved for years - Simpsons, South Park, Ren & Stimpy - all of them! They all follow the same rules.
One funny thing about this book: For a writing manual, it has a phenomenal number of typos. What a hoot. The book is incredibly easy to find your way around. The author is simply a master at her craft, and the insights are invaluable for anyone not employed in Callifornia. Yet you can find 1 or 2 typos or grammatical errors per page. I guess they skimped on the editing.
If you're concerned about developing content for your own animations, or aiming at a job scripting for cartoons, or just want to round out your knowledge about scriptwriting in general, this is an awesome book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aside from Confusing Road Analogies...Great Book!, February 3, 2006

By 

R. Cabrera "cartoonist/ animator" (Hurricane Country) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gardner's Guide to Animation Scriptwriting: The Writer's Road Map (Gardner's Guide series) (Paperback)

This is a great book for anyone that wants to learn the structure of writing for animated shows. It reveals the formula for creating successful stories, characters, and scripts.

The only drawback was the overuse of the road sign analogies. Don't get me wrong, they work fine to illustrate the points, but I just felt there were too many of them.

In any case, an excellent book if you're starting out your career in animation...like me:)!