keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

David Levy's books have consistent strengths. His tone is friendly and conversational. He is willing to admit mistakes he's made in his career, which gives him credibility. He interviews a wide selection of other animation professionals, so the books are not limited to Levy's own viewpoint. His greatest strength is his concern for the people side of the animation business. Levy always focuses on behaving professionally, communicating clearly and being organized so as not to sabotage a project or one's own career. All of these strengths are present in his latest book, Directing Animation . It includes chapters on directing indie films, commercials, TV series, features and for the web. Interview subjects include Bill Plympton, Tatiana Rosenthal, Nina Paley, Michael Sporn, PES, Xeth Feinberg, Tom Warburton, Yvette Kaplan and many others. Each of these people relate good and bad experiences they've had directing, giving a rounded view of the job and a host of thi...

Animation Development From Pitch to Production by David Levy is a very good book about a very bad process. What's good about it is that Levy does not minimize the difficulties of pitching and maneuvering a creation through the broadcast bureaucracy. He interviews creators and development executives about the various stages of the process and he is as quick to point out mistakes made by creators as those made by broadcasters. Levy has pitched his own material for over ten years and he is not shy about relating his own experiences, including those with unhappy endings or those where he later recognized he was at fault. If you are interested in selling a show to television, this book is the best preparation in print that I'm aware of. If you've just toyed with the idea, this book will let you know what you're up against and perhaps persuade you that there are better ways to spend your time. The development process is a badly flawed process on multiple fronts. One of t...

This week, two very good sources of information, one on the east coast and one on the west, have blogged their thoughts about animation students approaching the end of school year and moving into the wider world. Independent animator and instructor David Levy's thoughts about thesis films may be coming too late in the school year to be much help to this year's graduating students, but it's definitely worth reading for those students with a year or more to go. For those students who are graduating and looking at an uncertain job market, Steve Hulett, business rep of The Animation Guild, summarizes a talk he gave to the students at Cal Arts. Their advice sounds pretty good to me.