Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions (MWP)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932907491
ISBN-13: 978-1932907490
Product Dimensions: 27.7 x 18.8 x 1.8 cm

Sheridan College is famed world-wide for its award-winning animation programs (Computer Animation, Digital Character Animation, Digital Visual Effects.). Full disclosure: I took their one year Media Fundamentals program. Author Ellen Besen, who has been working in the field for over 35 years, is a former faculty member, while illustrator Bryce Hallett is a Sheridan graduate and has enjoyed a very active career working on a variety of films, music videos and tv shows. This is important because it shows the publisher's commitment to putting out a book written by people in the industry and 'in-the-know'.

Many people are lucky enough to go to animation or film school, but not everyone does. Some people take a class here and there, while other people are completely self-taught. I have mixed feelings about the value of going to film school. These days, with the advent of less expensive, but still-powerful computers, and the wide variety of software available, some of it free or very cheap, as well as alternate distribution channels (YouTube, Vimeo, bittorrent, burning one's own DVDs, etc), it's easier than ever to actually make an animated film. Whether or not it's any good is another matter.

Story is still important, but so is knowing how and why to do things when making an animated film. People who don't go to school don't always have the benefit of knowing these 'secrets', and often have to learn by trial and error, if ever. Subtitled: "100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writer, Filmmaker, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know", it is exactly that. This solid widescreen style 245-page book covers subjects like ideas, scripts, storyboards, film structure, sound, animation techniques, performance, timing and special effects.

This handsomely-designed and beautifully-illustrated book will serve as an instructional guide, and also for a reference for years to come.

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Paperback: 155 pages
Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions (MWP)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932907424
ISBN-13: 978-1932907421
Product Dimensions: 27.7 x 18.8 x 1.3 cm

The second edition of this classic is even better than the first. It's subtitled: "Great Camera Moves Every Filmmaker Should Know", and indeed it contains a great deal of information that some people pay a lot of money to learn in film school.

Not that a book can replace a class necessarily, but there are tried and true shots, methods and techniques for making a film. Yes, story is important, but there are certain ways of doing things, certain types of shots, that are very important to know. Some of these aren't obvious (which is sort of the point), but which help move story along visually in a way that helps people to enjoy what they are watching.

With the falling price of video cameras, computerized editing and the rise of sites on which to share videos, it seems like everyone is busy shooting a movie of some sort, be it a kid's birthday party, a friend's wedding, a sporting event, or something more ambitious like a documentary or a feature. And it's not just filmmakers or videographers which will find the book valuable. This book is very helpful for cartoonists, sequential artists, animators and pre-viz artists too.

Jose Cruz is both an illustrator and a storyboard artist, and his images really convey Jeremy Vineyard's jargon-free explanations. It's important to know not just the how, but also the why. It's always helpful to see explanations in action and this book accomplishes this by using examples from well-known movies. Imagine being to be able to watch a movie on DVD, using the remote to pause at a scene and then referring to the book to see how it was done, and understand why.

While only 155 pages, this book contains a wealth of information. It covers basic cinematic techniques, composition techniques, crane techniques, techniques of movement, techniques of perspective, specific camera techniques and editing techniques as well as a very long list of miscellaneous techniques. Because its value is not just in being instructional, but also serving as a reference guide, it doesn't have to be read from the first page to the last page, one can just jump in anywhere. The six-and-a-half index is especially helpful as it contains the names of movies (several hundred spanning more than a century of filmmaking). This makes it easy to look up a particular film, flip to the right page, and see how a certain shot was made.

"Setting Up Your Shots" is designed in a 'wide-screen' format, just like a movie, and can easily be slipped into a Ziploc baggie and tossed into a backpack and taken along on a shoot.

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Editor John Joseph Adams has posted six stories from his anthology, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, at the book's website.

Book Description: "Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon - these are our guides through the Wastelands...

From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity.

Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon."

Book Trailer:


"And the Deep Blue Sea" by Elizabeth Bear

A motorcycle-riding courier is tasked with transporting fetal stem cell cultures to Sacremento in Elizabeth Bear's "And the Deep Blue Sea". Riding across a radiation-drenched America is hard enough for her, but there is another obstacle in the way. The title offers a hint: it's the Devil, who, appearing as a man named Nick, otherwise wants to cash in on a previous debt and collect the courier's soul. The setting here is pretty bleak, replete with dead towns, decaying roadways, radiation, oppressive heat, and the requisite post-apocalyptic desolation. The tough, female lead does not lack perseverance in the trying environment. She makes some hard decisions even when Nick (whose true identity and nature is symbolized throughout the story) throws his worst at her. Alas, the open-ended finish leaves the reader to decide whether the courier beats the Devil, taking some of the import away from the fight between them. (3 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

"Bread and Bombs" by M. Rickert

It took a while for me to get into "Bread and Bombs" by M. Rickert, probably because I didn't realize that the author was dropping tiny hints at an American society that wasn't quite right. Then it became obvious that it was a culture resulting from a generation of terrorism fears. The story was written in response to 9/11 and deals with themes of liberty and prejudice, but it also does an excellent job of showing how society has changed (like the absence of commercial airplanes, for example) and how people are gripped by fear (like reaching for helmets when they do hear what must be a war plane). The contrasts between the elder generation's reminiscences of everyday freedom and the next generation's complete obliviousness to it were chilling. (4 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

"When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow shows us a geeks-eye view of the apocalypse in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth". In this story, we get to see the apocalypse as it happens, with our hero, Felix the systems administrator, holed up in a hermetically sealed "clean room", communicating with other sysadmins locally and afar. The end of the world comes in several forms (nuclear, biological, and electrical) and these scenes are as harrowing as any of the best apocalyptic fiction has to offer. Minor puffs of steam are lost as the narrative dawdles with political jockeying of the survivors, but in the end this is a damn fine story. (4.5 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

"The Last of the O-Forms" by James Van Pelt

James Van Pelt provides a decidedly uncommon post-apocalyptic setting in "The Last of the O-Forms". In this future, the big calamity is a plague that has made genetic mutations the order of the day, in animals and humans. Rare are animals in their original form ("o-form"). Dr. Trevin's Traveling Zoological Extravaganza is a business venture that attempts to capitalize on these freakish animals. Of course, since they are becoming more prevalent, the attraction falls on hard times. What's different from most other post-apocalyptic stories is that takes place not so much after society has quickly broken down, but while it is slowly breaking down, making it oddly attractive in fashion similar to the depressing, Dystopian setting of The Children of Men. In a short space, the author manages to create a sense of family in Trevin and his partner, Caprice, a very intelligent mutant who looks like a child. He also manages to create a character worth rooting for. (4 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

"Still Life With Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey

The short-short story "Still Life with Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey (an updated version of the story that appeared at Infinite Matrix) is more experiment than narrative. As the title advertises, this is a snapshot of life after the apocalypse - in this case, an implausible series of violent riots that spread across the globe. The view is through the eyes of those who are still around to clean up the mess; an interesting perspective but ultimately an untapped potential in an uneventful piece. (2 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

"Waiting for the Zephyr" by Tobias S. Buckell

In "Waiting for the Zephyr", Tobias Buckell conjures up a small American town. Mara wants to leave because the town is in decline, but her boyfriend and family want her to stay. The arrival of the wind-driven ship, Zephyr, is her chance for a better life. The plot presents a decent conflict, but the story's short length allows no time for showing exactly why Mara should decide one way or the other. (3 out of 5 stars, review by John on SF Signal)

Unfortunately, the stories are in a tiny frame which makes reading online a bit difficult. I think I'll be downloading them and making myself a nice little ebook.