Book Review - Inspired 3D Short Film Production
Well since I am doing so much research and reading on this project I thought I would try and help out other people working on short animated films by reviewing book on the subject. So to start off with the first book is one I just picked up called Inspired 3D Short Film Production by by Jeremy Cantor and Pepe Valencia. Now to the review:
I like many other people wanting to make a short animated film had a LOT of questions about where to start. I ended up finding most of the answers online and by reading general books about film production etc. But I wish I would have found Inspired 3D Short Film Production at the start. It really does answer most of the basic questions you will have. It also answers some questions you probably did not think to ask. But also you have to remember what the books is not. Its not a software specific book. It will not show you how to make a movie in say Maya or 3DS Max. But in summary I do recommend this book to any one interested in making a short animated film. (Below is the Amazon Editorial review and a link to Amazon. If you happen to buy it using the link part of the money will go to helping produce this project.)
Amazon Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Covering every aspect of the short-film production pipeline, this book demonstrates each concept and technique through a combination of general theories, examples, exercises, case studies, and interviews with short-film directors and industry specialists. Full of amazing imagery and one-of-a-kind content (including a robust DVD filled with dozens of award-winning short films) it is a must-read book for current and future animated filmmakers.About the Author
Jeremy Cantor dropped out of his Computer Science/ Math/ Pre-Med studies in the mid 1980s and ran away to art school, hoping to never touch a computer again. Jeremy “made the jump to light speed” when he landed a job as a lead creature animator on Starship Troopers (Academy Award Nominee for Visual Effects) at Tippett Studios in Berkeley. He stayed at Tippett for a few years, helping with the animation supervision on Disney’s My Favorite Martian and several other film demos and pre-production sequences. In the fall of 1998, Jeremy returned to Los Angeles as Sony Imageworks’ Animation & Character Setup Supervisor on the Academy Award nominated “Hollow Man” (Best Visual Effects). Recently he has worked as a lead animator on “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Evolution”. Currently, Jeremy is the Art & Animation director on “Full Spectrum Warrior”, a console based training simulation project for the U.S. Army, on which he is responsible for all visual assets and animation-related tools programming. He also teaches CG Character Animation at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, and his latest CG short film, “Squaring Off” will be featured in ¿North America¿s Best Animated Shorts¿ (DVD collection) scheduled for release this Spring. Pepe Valencia has been at Sony Pictures Imageworks since 1996 where he was recently supervising the animation on “Charlie¿s Angels 2″. Previous projects at Sony include: “Stuart Little”, “Stuart Little 2″, “Charlie¿s Angels”, “Harry Potter & the Sorcerer¿s Stone”, “Hollowman”, “Godzilla”, “Starship Troopers”, & “Snow Falling on Cedars”. Before joining Sony, he worked at Cinesite as a Technical Director on Space Jam and at a number of smaller production houses. Previous to that, he spent five years animating and lighting TV Commercials. His independent work has been shown at SIGGRAPH ¿90, Imagina 92, Art Futura 92, and Cannes ¿94. He served as a member of the Short Animated Films jury for the 2001 ASIFA Annie Awards and has written articles for “Cinevideo 20″ and “Campana”. He has lectured at the Reina Sofia Art Center, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and taught courses at the Centro Monserrat and the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. In addition to a strong background in both the visual arts and computer technology, he brings to animation a breadth of experience in theater including four years with TEC in Madrid. Pepe teaches the Digital Shorts Workshop at the California Institute of the Arts and is currently lending his character animation skills to Tadpole, Sony Imageworks¿ second animated CG short film.