Customer Reviews

Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Prepare to Board" covers most pre-production aspects of an animation project, but focuses mostly on storyboarding and character design. This book does a better job on both these subjects than most other books can manage on just one.

A lot of storyboarding books out there focus on the live action or advertising methods where boards are used to illustrate an existing script a sell a rough concept to non-creative executives. The methods Nancy Beiman shows are far better suited to animation's use of storyboards to create the story itself.

Along with guidelines on how to increase the cinematic storytelling power of your boards, there are also plenty of tips on how to get that power across when presenting boards to others.

When it comes to character design, "Prepare to Board" is up there with Tom Bancroft's "Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels" as one of the few indispensable resources on the subject. All of her advice is aimed at making your character designs more functional for animation & storytelling (the most important asset of any character) as well as being unique individuals rather than stock characters.

The lessons Beiman shares in this book are exactly what you need to build a strong foundation for any animated project.

I'm just an amateur artist and animator wannabee... but I have found this book to be very inspirational and am now finding new characters just flowing from my pencil tip (or tablet stylus :-P ) so much easier now... Nancy is a top-notch artist and is equally a top-notch teacher as well.

I am not an artist, so can't comment much on the core of the book (although, as a layman, I found the explainations extremely clear).

I LOVED the interviews with Ken Anderson, Ken O'Connor and T- Hee as well as the way they were illustrated (there were quite a few documents that I had never seen before).

Wow! This book contains a wealth of knowledge about storyboarding and character design that is essential reading for anyone who desires to work in the animation industry. Prepare to Board! is a surprisingly easy, clear and fun read with plenty of pictures to support the text.

Nancy Beiman explains the differences between live-action and animation storyboards, offers professional techniques for designing lively and interesting characters, and demonstrates how to properly pose, stage and compose a storyboard. She illustrates the basics to lay a strong foundation, then continues to build upon that information to push your work beyond the mediocre. More importantly, she ties in how story structure and character development work hand-in-hand to create believable and entertaining films. The interviews in the back of the book are also very insightful.

The great thing about this book is that everyone will learn something regardless of skill level- from inexperienced beginners to seasoned pros. The material in this book will definitely give you an edge in the industry and is an invaluable resource. There's a reason why Prepare to Board! has so many 5 star reviews!

Nancy Beiman is a well-known figure within the world of animation, having been a long-time animator at Disney, Warner Bros. and elsewhere, and also having taught in a variety of contexts, including her current position at Rochester Institute of Technology. Anyone who knows Nancy fairly well understands three things about her: she is a very gifted artist, she has high expectations of excellence for her students, and she is very broadly knowledgeable about the arts, traditions of humor, and animation itself. Combine these characteristics with the fact that Beiman is one of the most accomplished female animators within the US industry, and you can understand why I was eager to see this book come to life.
Over the last year, I finally completed work on a production-related book, and during that time I consulted with Nancy on various topics. She told me about her own book and, knowing about her ecclectic background and broad knowledge base, I was eager to see how her project would be realized. What I found is pretty much what I expected, a book that introduces essential concepts, but enhances them with discussion of aesthetic issues and is grounded in an appreciation for the history of classical Hollywood animation, with breadth in examples from other animation practices.
So many animation students struggle with story and developing the cinematic aspects of their work, in order to tell their story visually. Beiman's book offers instruction in chapters devoted to the development of story, storyboarding, types of stories (situation driven, character driven, ways to manipulate the `real'), character development and design, scale and location. As the book's title suggests, a large portion of the text is devoted to storyboarding in various respects: sketches and working out roughs; story beats, sequences, and pacing; and visualizing a script, among other topics. She also focuses on refining characters and art direction, including the use of color. Finally, she addresses topics related to the presentation of storyboards and their use in the production process.
Beiman's writing will appeal to anyone from the beginning artist on up, as she writes in a colorful manner and uses a range of examples drawn from her own experience and her analysis of many films. Included in the appendix are interviews she conducted with A. Kendall O'Connor, T. Hee, and Ken Anderson, and the book itself is filled with quotations and short Q and As with the likes of Tex Avery and other well-known figures. Many illustrations--both instructive and humorous--enhance the book, adding extra appeal for the reader. A number of these images come from students Beiman has worked with through the years, attesting to her influence on many young artists.
Prepare to Board is highly recommended for libraries at institutions where production is taught, particularly at the high school and undergraduate levels, and for all artists wishing to learn more about character development, story, and boarding.

Nancy Beiman is a tremendously gifted director, animator, storyboard artist, educator, and author. Prepare to Board is a phenomenal piece of work. It is exquisitely written and illustrated. The content and context of this book are of the highest quality done to date. She cleverly balances all aspects of the preproduction process with visual and textual clarity. Prepare to Board supersedes all other material that is currently available on the subject of storyboarding. Nancy's professional experience goes back more than 30 years of personally working with Disney veterans who pioneered the craft of animation. It does not get better than that, folks!

It is with great pleasure that Prepare to Board gets my highest recommendation!! We enthusiastically will be adding this textbook to our bibliography.

Michael Genz,

Assistant Professor, Animation
Edinboro University of PA

Kudos! This is an excellent book in every way. Goes way beyond storyboarding, and I hope people will realize that...it looks to be one of the very best and most useful and instructive books on animation, period. And there's a lot in here to learn about film making in general - animation (traditional or CGI) or live action. A very impressive accomplishment. Most books on animation do not have the instant 'I-wanna-read-this' quality that 'Prepare to Board' does...many of them can be a bit of a slog to get through. But this one is so well written, with references that are clear and interesting and new, that it draws you in from the start. And the illustrations are well chosen and varied. In the spirit of full disclosure, one of those illustrations is mine, and Nancy and I were partners in our own animation company for a time. But that has not influenced this review, except to the extent that I came to this book in the knowledge that Nancy really knows her subject. Fortunately, it shows. This will be used by students and teachers, and professionals as well, for a long time to come. Buy it, use it, refer to it often!
- Dean Yeagle, cartoonist and animator, Caged Beagle Productions, Inc.

Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts - does what it says.
This book will help you create a story and the characters within. I've read other books on storyboarding, but this book should be the one to start with. Then move on to Ron Bluth's - Art of Storyboard & Wendy Tumminello's - Exploring Storyboarding

Although I haven't read all the chapters of the book, I can tell you that I'm very enthusiastic about read all the book. The reason why I bought this book was because although I can draw well (I think), I got stuck trying to create my own characters and animations, but this book shows me a new way of thinking, and really inspired me to create situations, stories and new characters. It offers nice guidelines to create better characters and put this characters in the right situations or viceversa, create characters based on the story or situation.

This is a very strong book.

When it comes to storyboarding and character design there is a ton of material to cover, yet this relatively short volume captures it beautifully. The writing is never digressive or self indulgent - from page one, it's down to business. At the same time it's very accessible, especially since the illustrations complement the text so simply and effectively. Often both negative and positive examples are compared, explaining not only what to do but what NOT to do. (Something I wish more art books would try!) Topping off the book is a series of interviews from some unimpeachable masters of story and character.

Perhaps what I love the most, though, is that the book isn't just about story and character, it's about marrying story and character. They are not discrete disciplines - the one can't shine without the other! Understanding how they harmonize is critical for any artist, and this guide imparts an intimate understanding of that harmony.

All told, there's a wealth of material to absorb here. Nancy Beiman makes it both engaging and straight-forward. Whether you want it for your nightstand, your bookshelf, or your drawing table, Prepare to Board is a great buy!