7 Animation Books by Women That Every Animator Should Read/Own
After my previous post I had a request for animation books written by women, which is an excellent request from @furrama. I went through my library and did a quick search for some more recommendations. Sadly there aren’t many compared to all the books written by men, but they are still fantastic. Thanks, @furrama for the suggestion!
The Animation Bible by Maureen Furniss
The Animation Bible is the first book any aspiring animator will want to own—and with increasingly affordable tools for digital animation and the vast forum of the Internet for free distribution, animation is becoming more popular than ever.
Animation authority Maureen Furniss covers every aspect of production, from finding a concept, choosing a medium, and creating characters all the way to getting the end result screened and distributed. In addition to traditional cel animation, Furniss also examines direct filmmaking, stop-motion animation, and Flash, as well as early motion devices and toys that produce animated images, all with case studies illustrating the successes and difficulties experienced by professional animators. Furniss goes beyond the image on the screen, discussing visual storytelling, sound design, and how to schedule, budget, and pitch an animated film.
Animated Storytelling: Simple Steps For Creating Animation and Motion Graphics by Liz Blazer
Animation is a limitless medium for telling stories. Artists can create worlds, defy gravity, flip from factual to fantasy, and transport audiences to places they never imagined. The challenge is having the discipline to reel it in and be intentional about your storytelling choices. This book shows you how.
In Animated Storytelling, you’ll learn how to create memorable stories using animation and motion graphics by following 10 simple guidelines that take you through the stages of concept development, pre-production, storyboarding, and design. Award-winning animator Liz Blazer uses clear examples and easy-to-follow exercises to provide you with the instruction, encouragement, and tools you need to get your designs moving.
Whether your goal is to create exciting shorts for film festivals, effective messaging for broadcast or online, or simply to gain a deeper understanding of the medium, Animated Storytelling simplifies the process of creating clear and engaging stories for animation and motion graphics so you can get started easily.
In Animated Storytelling, you’ll learn how to:
Write a creative brief for your project
Find and communicate your story’s big idea
Create a tight story using linear and nonlinear story structures
Use color to clarify and enrich your story
Define the rules for your animated world, and commit to them
Ease into the challenging task of animation
Make the work you want to be hired to do
Share your work with the world!
Animation Unleashed: 100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writer, Filmmaker, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know by Ellen Bessen
Make your animation say what you want it to say. Animation’s potential as a powerful tool for communication is just beginning to be understood. This book reveals key principles, useful for both professionals and beginners, which will help you harness the full power of this exciting and ever expanding medium.
Living Life inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation by Martha Sigall
Martha Sigall worked with all the classic cartoon characters-Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry, Droopy Dawg, Beany & Cecil, Tweety, and Porky Pig-and the madcap artists who created them-Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Bill Melendez, and Ben (Bugs) Hardaway.
As a teenager Sigall became an apprentice painter working in the Golden Age of Hollywood at the Leon Schlesinger studio, making $12.75 per week coloring animation cels that would introduce Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd to the world. She recounts her wild and wonderful experiences with the Warner Bros. cartoon crew, working and laughing all day with the animators, partying all night with the Looney Tunesgang on the bowling and baseball teams, and participating in weekend scavenger hunts. She was president of the in-house “Looney Tunes Club,” co-wrote the company gossip column, and performed in the company’s theatrical troupe.
After World War II, Martha joined MGM Animation (Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery) in Culver City as an assistant in the camera room and later freelanced her ink and paint services, creating art for many classic features, shorts, commercials, and TV series-including Garfield, Peanuts, and The Pink Panther.
Written with warmth, humor, and a touch of nostalgia, this is a rarely told story of what it was like to be a part of a team of artists who were creating masterpieces of animation. Martha recalls her lifelong friendships with writer Michael Maltese, animators Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Herman Cohen, Paul Smith, Bob Matz, and many others. She writes of her experiences of being a woman in a male-dominated industry, particularly during the war years when she was one of the first women camera operators in the industry.
Lovely Ladies of Animation by Lorelay Bové
The beautiful minds of six extremely successful women artists in the entertainment industry present Lovely: Ladies of Animation. The history of art in animation has had many female heroes; this elite group is continuing the tradition and building upon it. Featuring the first published personal works by Lorelay Bové, Lisa Keene, and Claire Keane along with the works of previously published Mingjue Helen Chen, Brittney Lee and Victoria Ying, LOVELY is an indispensible addition to the library of anyone interested in animation. With a variety of styles, from graphic works to realistic portraits, these images will inspire and delight the viewer with each turn of the page.
Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation by Mindy Johnson
From the earliest origins of animated imagery, the colorful link between paper and screen was created by legions of female artists working on the slick surface of celluloid sheets. With calligraphic precision and Rembrandtesque mastery, these women painstakingly brought pencil drawings to vibrant, dimensional life. Yet perhaps as a reflection of the transparent canvas they created on, the contributions and history of these animation artists have remained virtually invisible and largely undocumented, until now. Walt Disney’s pioneering efforts in animation transformed novelty cartoons into visual masterpieces, establishing many “firsts” for women within the entertainment industry along the way. Focusing on talent, Disney sought female story specialists and concept artists to expand the scope and sensibility of his storytelling. Upon establishing the first animation-training program for women, ink pens were traded for pencils as ladies made their way into the male-laden halls of animation. World War II further opened roles traditionally held by men, and women quickly progressed into virtually every discipline within animation production. Disney’s later development of the Xerox process and eventual digital evolution once again placed women at the forefront of technological advancements applied to animated storytelling. In her latest landmark book, Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation, author Mindy Johnson pulls back the celluloid curtain on the nearly vanished world of ink pens, paintbrushes, pigments, and tea. From the earliest black-and-white Alice Comedies to the advent of CAPS and digital animation, meet the pioneering women who brought handrendered animated stories to vibrant, multicolored life at Walt Disney Studios and beyond. Extensively researched with the full support of the entire Walt Disney Studios archival resources, plus a multitude of private collections, firsthand accounts, newly discovered materials, and production documentation, as well as never-before-seen photography and artwork, this essential volume redefines the collective history of animation.
A New History of Animation by Maureen Furniss
A brand-new, comprehensive history of world animation
A New History of Animation guides readers through the history and context of animation from around the world. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the subject and explains all the key technical concepts, filling a gap in the market for a complete and well-researched animation history textbook that can be used by teachers in trade schools and universities worldwide, as well as by readers interested in the story of this evolving medium.
Topics covered include: early cinema and the foundations of the animation industry; animation as modern art and the emergence of the major studios; animation during wartime; stop-motion; new audiences for animation, in advertising, television, and games; animation from Eastern Europe; short films; computer-generated animation; international animation from Japan and elsewhere; and animation as an art form.
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