The author of Animated Performance, Nancy Belman, is a professor at Sheridan Institute in Canada and has produced, directed, storyboarded and animated for television commercials, specials and features. Her employers have included The Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers. Nancy has been teaching at college level since 2000. Her previous book on storyboarding has been adopted as a standard text in animation schools around the world. Having read her latest offering , I am sure Animated Performance is going to follow in the footsteps of her first book and become a standard text.

In many ways the book shouts out classroom. It is printed on heavyweight paper that will stand up to a lot of thumbing. Each chapter deals with a specific topic with an exercise to reinforce what is being explained. It follows the golden rule of three; tell people what you are going to say, say it and then tell them what you have said. Each chapter starts with a page in large text explaining what is going to be learnt. For example in chapter 1 we are told “In this chapter you will learn how to stage an animated performance in your own imagination through the use of rapid sketches, or thumbnails, that will allow you to analyse and perform actions that transcend the limitations of the human body or the laws of physics. With this technique you can literally become any creature that you can imagine…”

The Art & Making of Arthur Christmas works on two levels; it contains over 300 photos, paintings and sketches made during the film’s production so it resembles an album the Clause family might have commissioned to mark a special occasion. The occasion is Santa’s impending retirement after 70 years in the job, where he is expected to hand over the reins to his eldest son Steve, or will he? You could leaf through the book with a young child without spoiling the magic of Christmas. On another level the text gives an insight to the care and creativity that went into the animation. Over 25 key members of the team were interviewed for the book and what they said tells the production story.

Arthur Christmas is a co-production between the British Aardman Animations and the USA Sony Pictures Animation. The book is told from a British perspective of developing the story, characters, props and settings, which mostly took place in the UK…

This book tells a story of personal greed and the struggle to maintain power at the top of the Disney organisation towards the end of Michael Eisner’s term as CEO. Once I got into the book I found it a real page-turner as it documented Roy Disney’s attempt to remove Mr Eisner from his post, after 20 years at the top.

The author James B. Stuart is a former page-one editor of The Wall Street Journal. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his reporting of the stock market crash. The book is based primarily on first hand reporting consisting of hundreds of interviews and a review of many thousands of pages of documents.

Part of the book documents the conflict between Michael Eisner and Disney chairman, Jeffery Katzenberg. After Katzenberg was forced to resign from Disney he mounted a court battle for the compensation he believed he was due under his contract. At one point Katzenberg indicated that he would settle for $60 million. Eisner and the Disney board would not concede this but the eventual court case led to a settlement of $280 million. This is an eye watering amount in anyone’s reckoning, especially when the Disney animators were, at the time, being paid the lowest wages the studio could get away with. Jeffery Katzenberg moved on to DreamWorks where he oversaw the production of many hit animation movies including Shrek. Ironically this started a wages war between Disney and DreamWorks as they tried to entice the top animators to their studio…

Fast track the learning curve to making your own stop motion movies. It’s fun, it’s crazy, it’s addictive. The Stop Motion Handbook leads you through simple and robust processes helping both beginner and amateur animators make good decisions when creating stop motion movies. As you learn how to avoid numerous common mistakes, your first movies will have the quality of a more seasoned movie maker. It’s a great guide for teachers, parents or children who want to produce their own stop motion movies.

The multiple Oscar-winning creators of Wallace and Gromit show you how to make your own successful animation films in a new, thoroughly revised edition of this acclaimed book. Peter Lord co-founder of Aardman guides the reader through the entire process of 3D animation, culminating in a practical, fully illustrated step-by-step description of how to create effective characters, a storyboard, sets, and eventually make an entire film. In this new edition, the section on CGI has been updated, and the chapter on Making a Film has been completely overhauled to bring out the difference in structure, thinking and technique when applied to scripting, characterization, short films, television work, advertising and feature films…

Another book in the ‘Art of Pixar’ series, this detailed look into the creation of the second installment of the Cars series shares the artwork and experiences of the animators behind Pixar’s most commercially successful franchise.

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award(R)-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and most recently, UP, the northern California studio has won 24 Academy Awards and its nine films have grossed more than $5 billion at the worldwide box office to date…

Be inspired by award-winning animator Barry Purves’ honest insight into the creative process of making stop motion animations, using his own classic films to illustrate every step along the way. With Barry’s enthusiasm for puppets in all their many guises and in-depth interviews from some of the world’s other leading practitioners, there is advice, inspiration and entertainment galore in Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance.

And there’s more! Many of the artists and craftsmen interviewed have contributed their own specially drawn illustrations – showing their inspirations, heroes and passion for their craft. These beautiful images help make the book a truly personal journey into the heart of the animation industry with broad appeal for anyone with a love of animation…

Basics Animation: Stop-motion teaches the skills required to develop as a creative stop-motion animator or articulated puppet maker. It explores how all the elements of film-making camera work, design, colour, lighting, editing, music and storytelling come together in this unique art form. Students will learn to use and exploit the particular types of movement, characters and stories that characterise stop-motion. The book is packed with tips and suggestions to help you get the most out of your own stopmotion films, accompanied by full-colour illustrations and case studies demonstrating how film-making masters through the years have used it in feature films, short films and TV series. Basics Animation: Stop-motion also examines the evolution of stopmotion, from its almost accidental beginnings to a much-loved form of storytelling in its own right one that continues to push boundaries after 110 years…