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.

Aimed at budding desktop filmmakers, this volume presents an overview of 3D short filmmaking, from story development through post-production. Case studies and interviews with industry professionals augment the text. It is assumed that the reader possesses some proficiency with a piece of CG software (such as Maya or 3D Studio MAX) and a non-linear editing package. The DVD contains dozens of award-winning short films, including "Cane Toad," "Guernica," and "Top Gum." Oversize: 9x7.5".
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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.

No other storytelling medium offers the flexibility of animation. This title covers every aspect of the short-film production pipeline, demonstrating each concept and technique through a combination of general theories, examples, exercises, case studies, and interviews with short-film directors and industry specialists. It includes a robust DVD full of dozens of award-winning short films.

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' AnimationandCharacter Setup Supervisor on the Academy Award nominated "Hollow Man" (Best Visual Effects). Recently he has worked as a lead animator on "Harry Potterandthe Sorcerer's Stone" and "Evolution". Currently, Jeremy is the ArtandAnimation 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 Americas 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 "Charlies Angels 2". Previous projects at Sony include: "Stuart Little", "Stuart Little 2", "Charlies Angels", "Harry Potterandthe Sorcerers Stone", "Hollowman", "Godzilla", "Starship Troopers",and"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.

1. Introduction 2. Story 3. Character Design and Development 4. Production design 5. Storyboarding and Animatics 6. Technical and Structural Considerations 7. Modeling 8. Texture Mapping and Background Painting 9. Character Set Up 10. 3D Animatics and Layout 11. Animation 12. Camera Direction 13. FX 14. Audio 15. Lighting and Rendering 16. Compositing 17. Editing and Post Production 18. What to do with your finished short Appendices: A: Glossary of Terms B: Resource Lists C: Complete Bibliography D: Film Suggestions