Timing for Animation [Hardcover]

Harold Whitaker (Author), John Halas (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 1st edition (March 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0240508718
• ISBN-13: 978-0240508719
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,419,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Timing for Animation, April 1, 2003

By 

T. Schott "tschottoon" (TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Timing for Animation (Paperback)

Well, after waiting so long for this book to come back into print it turned out to be an overall disappointment. I found "Timing..." to be remedial and overpriced. True, timing itself is crucial to animation as with all acting, however this book offers nothing I didn't already learn from "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" or Preston Blair's How-To books, which I cut my teeth on.
If you are an animator who already owns every other book on the subject and you have 30 bucks burning a hole in your pocket then this book is for you. However, if you don't own the 50 other great animation books by Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Richard Williams, Eadweard Muybridge, John Canemaker, Brian LeMay, Jeff Kurtti, Preston Blair, Chuck Jones, Tony White, Culhane, Finch, Schneider, Adamson, Rebello, Green, and Hart to name a few; then please go buy one of theirs.
This one is going back for a refund. Sometimes you just have to say "The Emperor is Naked."

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book to have, but WAY OVERPRICED..., April 27, 2005

By 

G. Cepeda (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Timing for Animation (Paperback)

I'm downgrading this book partly because it's overpriced and frankly I wish the drawing style in it were different.

It's still a nice book to have and covers some specific timing and staging problems that a lot of other books don't, but it's not the end-all and be-all for animation timing that it gets hyped up to be.

I still don't understand why this book was out-of-print for so long in the US and why it's so ridiculously overpriced now. It's really a $15 or $20 book at most, but the publishers are charging $30!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will learn quickly with this no-frills book, May 18, 2007

By 

Chris Magee "Chris" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Timing for Animation (Paperback)

I have referred to this book for nearly ten years, and it is still my favorite with regards to the fundamentals of creating naturalistic movement.

More concise, less self-indulgent, and less bulky than either Richard Williams' "Animator's Survival Kit" or Frank and Ollie's "Illusion of Life", Whitaker and Halas' "Timing for Animation" allowed me to advance in my knowledge of timing charts and the creation of believable, naturalistic movement more efficiently than either of those two venerable books. While I tend to agree with reviewers who question the book's price, the no-nonsense explanations it contains provide a solid base from which an animator can embark upon further exploration without being too tied to a particular guru's insights.