Customer Reviews

Paper Dreams: The Art And Artists Of Disney Storyboards

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Too often in animation titles, the storyboard element is relegated to a minor footnote. This book presents a wonderful insight to the creative process of animation film making. Many animators and students collect resource material from feature films, and storyboard examples are rare and treasured items. As a storyboarder myself, I was in awe of the beauty and clarity of these works, many I was seeing for the first time. However, anybody with an interest in art or animation will enjoy this book. It is an amazing and definitive collection.

I have most of the 'Art of' books and, though this is a little more pricey than the others, it is worth every cent. It is refreshingly reassuring to finally have a Disney art book NOT written by a Disney staffer, but by a film academic. It was great to read about the men who worked alongside Walt and knew him for all his faults as well rather than the godhead he has become to the company. This book, while showing page after page of behind-the-scenes miniature masterpieces that went into making the classic early features, also describes the not-so-happy endings that such chemistry produced among Disney and his storymen sometimes. It also covers the latter-day storyboard masters like Chris Sanders and the Brizzi twins. I have ambitions of being a Disney storyboard artist someday and this book is perfect inspiration. More than worth it.

This book shows off the (oddly enough) unsung heros of the Disney Animation Department, the Story Artists. Like his previous book on Disney Inspirational artists, John Canemaker piles on the rarely seen outside of Disney pre-production sketches that form the basis of all to follow. GREAT reproductions--and great to see the subject and the studio treated not only with great respect, but a healthy amount of constructive criticism, too. Beautiful job. I'm waiting for a companion volume featuring unedited complete storyboards for ALL the features(!).

This is a very informative book about the history of Disney's story department staff and the storyboards they created. I learned a lot. I would have liked to have seen more information about their art techniques, but the information about their careers and the vast amount of images made up for it. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Carl Barks, which shed more light on the man behind the works I've read since I was a kid.

Length:: 0:24 Mins

Paper Dreams is an oversize book about the storyboards and artists working for Walt Disney Studios. The author John Canemaker has provided great depth through his research and writing compared to the other book on storyboard that I have, Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Story (Walt Disney Animation Archives).

Published in 1999, the book takes a close look at the storytelling department of Disney, from where storyboards were created -- sketches on the floor of Webb Smith's office were pinned to the board for the first time. John Canemaker has loaded the book with lots of quotes from Walt Disney, the animators and story artists, providing insights into the storytelling process. The evolution of storyboards and their relevance are laid out to us, as each animated short gets progressively longer until full length movies were created.

There are chapters on profiles of story artists and their work. The more famous ones include Bill Peet, Joe Ranft, Joe Grant, Chris Sanders, among many others. We're introduced to their personal style of storytelling, their characteristics and interaction with other artists. There are many interesting stories like how Walt would criticise storyboards so as to improve them, a process which was called "plussing", or how different artists would defend their boards against critiques from others.

In addition to the commentary, the book's also filled with original storyboard scans from the library, photographs and paintings, all selected from their impressive archive from 1930s to the late 1990s.

There's a lot to be learned from the book, highly recommended to animation fans, art students, Disney collectors and pop culture enthusiasts.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

This book arrived in prestine condition. It is a Christmas gift for my husband, so I had to peek inside to ensure it was something he would want. Boy is he going to really enjoy this book. The hardcover is nice and makes a great impression. Thanks again for the fast shipping and great condition.

As my title says, this book is about the history of storyboard and not about it's craft. It is excellent, huge and with obscure information about how it developed until today.

However, if you are an animator or a filmaker and want to learn about how to make a good storyboard, this is not the book at all. That is really the true message in this review, since I know a lot of people will look forward to it in this way.

As a history book it is just great, showing early disney scripts from walt himself, and recalling early anecdotes about the craft in the studio

Fantastic book! Bigger than I thought but a must have for any Disney fan. Great for any art student wanting to learn about peoples work like Bill Peet. It's got some great boards from Song of the South.

If the Disney American Animated Film has one stigma, is the belief that it is made for childern. Mr.Canemaker's book disproves that notion by recounting stories by those lucky few that got to meet Walt,work with him and put his "Dreams" on "Paper" before they were made a reality on film. We are privy in the world of Walt Disney and the people who put his ideas on paper only to have Walt think that they could be better than that.The book is filled with instances of Walt cursing-four letter words and all,when his Soryman ideas did not cut the mustard. Why should they since Walt "was his own best storyman." We get to meet the men that were up to par with Walt-T.Hee and Bill Peet. But these man could be considered Lucifer to Walt's Christian God-those who wish to be better than him or take his place would end in Hell, which in a sense they did. Finally, lets not forget the geniuses Walt himself dealt with-Salvador Dali and Orson Welles. If there was anyone that could top Disney himself ,it was Orson,as described by Walt Himself.