Customer Reviews

How to Make Animated Films: Tony White's Complete Masterclass on the Traditional Principals of Animation

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I've studied animation techniques from Tony White's two previous books, but this one is the best one yet from this master animator from England. He provides an "over the shoulder" view of animation techniques, and lets you look over his shoulder on how in-betweens are done, how generic walks are created, and so on, as if you are a journeyman learning from the master. He starts off with a 10 part foundation course, with exercises for each section, and moves the journeyman animator into more and more complex animation techniques. I've got a long way go to myself in terms of my animation skills but Tony White sure has helped me along. The accompanying DVD is also very good as you get to literally watch him draw in-betweens in traditional 2D animation style, with pencil and paper! Tony also provides some lecture material on doing walks, both generic walks and walks with personality. His teaching style seems so patient and nurturing, it must be wonderful to takes courses directly from him. This book provides the next best thing!

For anyone interested or curious on how films are animated, look no further as legendary animator has written one of the most complete, concise books on how-to-animate with "How to Make Animated Films" from Focal Press.

The book is educational and utilizes a lot of images to show the reader how things are animated. White's "How to Make Animated Films" is a 10-step foundation teaching the core principles of movement in 2D or 3D animation and utilizes what he teaches at his production classes for DigiPen Institute of Technology in this book.

White breaks down each chapter as "Master Classes" and featured are:

* Masterclass 1: Animation Basics - A chapter about key positioning, breakdown positions, flipping, arcs, timing and space and more.
* Masterclass 2: The Bouncing Ball - A chapter about weight, mass and flexibility. Gravity, timing, mass, volume and more.
* Masterclass 3: Generic Walks - A chapter about the lower body, walk cycle, upper body and more.
* Masterclass 4: Personality Walks - A chapter that goes into the hip and shoulder rotation, double-bounce walk, rotation of the head, balance, timing, etc.
* Masterclass 5: Generic Runs - A chapter about running, head-on runs and more.
* Masterclass 6: Quadruped Walks - A chapter about front legs, rear legs, neck and head, tails, realistic quadruped movements and more.
* Masterclass 7: Weight - A chapter about using a rubber ball, ping-pong ball, bowling ball and comparing them.
* Masterclass 8: Anticipation - A chapter about the benefits of anticipation and more.
* Masterclass 9: Dialog - A chapter on body language, facial animation, lip synching and more.
* Masterclass 10: Final Project - A chapter on staggers, joints, eye blinks, eye brows, gravity and more.

The second part of the book deals with other aspects of animating film such as:

* Film Production 1: Exploring Ideas, Storytelling and Scriptwriting
* Film Production 2: Concept Art, Viz Dev and Camera Maps
* Film Production 3: Character Design
* Film Production 4: Thumbnails
* Film Production 5: Storyboards
* Film Production 6: Filmmaking Techniques
* Film Production 7: Audio Record
* Film Production 8: Animatic and Bacher Boards
* Film Production 9: Background and Environment Layouts
* Film Production 10: Color Script
* Film Production 11: Audio Breakdown
* Film Production 12: Block in Key Poses
* Film Production 13: Placement and Timing
* Film Production 14: Two-Dimensional In-Betweening
* Film Production 15: Rolling, Flipping and Pencil Testing
* Film Production 16: Clean-Up
* Film Production 17: Scanning
* Film Production 18: Background and Environments
* Film Production 19: Coloring
* Film Production 20: Compositing
* Film Production 21: Rendering
* Film Production 22: Final Edit

Needless to say, "How to Make Animated Films" is a very detailed book but White does a great well of explaining the details and along with those details you get examples. And in addition to the book, included is a DVD featuring lectures by Tony White (from the classroom) plus demos that are featured in the Masterclass chapters. From inbetweening to lectures on generic walks and personality walks, these are not several minute lectures, these lectures are 15-25 minutes long.

Many people may not have the chance to go to a professional school that teaches animation but fortunately Tony White does a great job in providing those interested in animation in learning the core basics of animation through this book.

If you are a person who wants to get into animating and wants to learn from one of the best, purchasing "How to Make Animated Films" by Tony White is an affordable way to do so. Detailed, educational and thorough, "How to Make Animated Films" is definitely recommended!

Learning animation takes a lot of study and practice, and if you're just starting that learning process and don't know much about animation yet, a book like The Animator's Survival Kit--Revised Edition: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators might confuse you since it's more theoretical than practical.

How to Make Animated Films doesn't go into nearly the depth Richard Williams does, but it's a lot more practical and hands-on. For someone just starting out this is probably a good book to cut your teeth on before moving on to more advanced books like Williams'.

This book covers the entirety of the animated filmmaking process. The first half teaches basic animation techniques- inbetweens, bouncing balls, walks, lip sync, etc...- while the second half of the book focuses on animated filmmaking, some of which is similar to live action filmmaking as well as animation-specific concepts like layouts, color scripts, cleanup, and the like.

Even though this book is presented as a "one stop shop" for making animated films, getting the most out this book hinges on reading Tony White's previous two books- The Animator's Workbook: Step-By-Step Techniques of Drawn Animation and Animation from Pencils to Pixels: Classical Techniques for the Digital Animator. Both are needed to make up the depth that's lost in order to cover all of animated filmmaking in 470-some pages.

I personally think there's a lot more White could've taught about animation before moving on to making a film with it. Things like drag, follow through, overlap, etc... aren't mentioned much.

The included DVD is a decent supplement to the instruction in the book. They help explain in video what White is teaching in text, although it could've gone further. The bouncing ball and flour sack exercises aren't even covered on the disc. And it would've been nice if it included the two films that're often cited in the book rather than two student pieces.

If you've studied animation for a while, even if just in reading some books, feel free to skip this one. But if you're completely new to animation, How to Make Animated Films is a good starting point and you can graduate on to other books later.

Even though contemporary animation is predominantly made by digital means, Tony White's book, "How to Make Animated Films," makes it clear that traditional principles of animation including hand drawing are still important. The book promotes itself as a complete master class of the traditional principles of animation teaching techniques made famous in the golden eras of Disney and Warner Brothers. As White states, such techniques are still in use by contemporary producers like Pixar and animators like Hayao Miyazaki. He makes the case that the core principles of animation never change and basic skills such as drawing ability and understanding of classical principles of art - perspective; anatomy; composition; light, color, and tone - will always underlie quality animation.

The book has two parts: How to Be an Animator, and How to Make Animated Films. White emphasizes 2-D skills as the best way to study and master core principles even if later those skills will be combined with 3-D skills using digital tools. Employers now, he says, expect animators to be versed in traditional principles even as they apply their skills to producing materials directed to popular productions, especially in the game making area.

Each chapter includes chapter assignments and suggestions for further reading. Part one contains chapters on animation basics like key positioning, motion, weight, anticipation, and dialogue. A handful of chapters deal specifically with drawing walking scenes - generic, with personality, quadruped walking, and the like. There is a segment on selection of necessary tools and equipment. Part two focuses on film concepts like meaning, conceptual ideas, thumbnails, storyboards, framing, transitions, staging, and continuity. All the essential film processes are covered - background and environment, audio coordination, scanning, coloring, compositing, rendering and editing. Every topic is shown in a step-by-step manner by text descriptions and explanation and with extensive illustrations.

The book is lavishly produced with heavyweight paper, multiple color illustrations on most pages, is nicely laid out, and has sidebar tips and notes sprinkled throughout. The book is unusually weighty, in the physical sense, at nearly 3 pounds!

White is an experienced animator, director, author, and educator and writes well and enthusiastically; he is in love with the animation process. If anything, he is a bit too hyped, judging by the excessive use of exclamation points, sometimes after every sentence in a paragraph! Regardless, he is a competent instructor and the book is useful even for raw beginners although some professionals wanting to become more adept at animation will be rewarded, as well.

There is a good index and six appendices, most dealing with the author's businesses and projects. The best ones include sample exposure sheets and production folder suggestions, and the glossary. There is a DVD included filled with animated movie samples and filmed excerpts of lectures.

HOW TO MAKE ANIMATED FILMS offers Tony White's course on the basics of animation. He is a famous animator, director, lecturer and professor who has been in the industry over 30 years and who currently teaches 2D animation. It's packed with charts, diagrams, and photos of animation principles and is a 'must' for any studying animation, and for any library catering to them.

The DVD is amazing in that readers are not only taught principles and concepts in the book, they are able to see them demonstrated in action in the movies on the DVD. Tony White has a talent for explaining complex ideas in simple, accessible language. He provides an "over the shoulder" view of animation techniques, and lets you look over his shoulder on how in-betweens are done, how generic walks are created, and so on, as if you are a journeyman learning from the master. He starts off with a 10 part foundation course, with exercises for each section, and moves the journeyman animator into more and more complex animation techniques. Tony also provides some lecture material on doing walks, both generic walks and walks with personality. His teaching style seems so patient and nurturing, it must be wonderful to takes courses directly from him. This book provides the next best thing!

Highly Recommended!

The book is the last of a trilogy, of sorts. Of course, you don't really need to get to the first two, but White recommends that you do. He comes across as very knowledgeable in the field, giving you tips and tricks to maneuver around seemingly small things (like how you flip through your pencil test), getting the minutiae out of the way for you to focus on the more important aspects of animation.

I only have two problems with the book so far. One is that the writing comes across as very slow. I think the book could have moved through the lessons much faster without so many descriptions of the artistic process. Instead, and I think this is reasonable, given that many of us artistically inclined folk are visual learners, White could have included more pictures and diagrams for the reader to follow. The second problem, and perhaps he addresses it in his previous books- I haven't even been all that thorough with this one- is that White doesn't address the technological issue: what programs are best for putting the animation together and how to set up a capture station (you know, scanning your drawings, photographing them...).

The book is purely a guide that takes you through the stages of understanding the form and flow of movement in animation. It's incredibly helpful in forming you as an animator, but you may have to seek out other details elsewhere.

Incredibly detailed overview of animation technique and animated film production by master animator Tony White. I think it functions best for relative beginners (some reviewers have mentioned that some of White's other books contain good introductory material that is omitted here, so absolute beginners may want to start there) or for experienced amateurs who lack good training on some of the fundamentals that this book can helpt them fill in. The very experienced will probably see it as primarily review (although isn't that true of most instruction books?).

I'm not ambitious as an animation artist, but I am an avid fan, and am very much interested in theory and philosophy of animation. I was hoping for that from this book. But it is a very practical book. As advertised, so not a deficiency of the book. I believe you will like it if a manual of exercises is what you seek.

First of all, I have to start by saying that, in looking up Tony White's credits on the IMDB (which I'm guessing only skims the surface), he is listed as an artist on one of my favorite, sadly forgotten animated series of the early '70s: "Tomfoolery," a Saturday morning series produced in England by the legendary Halas and Batchelor in association with Rankin/Bass. Based on nonsense verse by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, it was like Monty Python for kids and was waaaay ahead of its time. Good show.

Anyway, Tony White has a fantastic background in animation (he also worked on Richard Williams on such classics as the Oscar winning "A Christmas Carol"). He has a gift for communicating the technique, in the tradition of Disney Legends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

His goal is to show you how to really accomplish the goal of making animated films, and filmmaking in general, and breaks the entire process down step by step. The book is generously illustrated with White's art, lots of examples, photos and (my favorite) chapters that start with the Fleischer's Koko the Clown.

It may be too elementary for professionals who actually create animation but those within the entertainment industry who do not might do well to learn more about a very specialized production technique, as well as students and those who just want to know how it's done.

The book is packaged with a DVD featuring White giving classroom talks that cover some of the same subject matter as a complement to the text, but not as a replacement. This is an excellent book to give to that art school student or promising young artist you know.

This is one of the most interesting things I've picked up from Vine. Having friends that are cartoonists, I've seen a lot of the "behind the scenes" in animation, but this book is amazing. The drawings are great, the details are very handy and the accompanying DVD is excellent. I've shown this to said friends and they said they've learned a lot of helpful tips and tricks from Tony White. The book is delivered like a class, breaking down chapters into specific lessons so you can work on something as simple as character placement or as complex as joint movement. The DVD is full of short lectures that are very easy to take in and remember, and are delivered perfectly. Mr. White is a great teacher and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to work on their animation skills.