Animation writers’ group
August 14th, 2009Yesterday evening I attended my first animation writers’ group meeting.
Kate Vyvyan, an animation writer and producer, chaired the meeting and kept the conversation flowing.
Also present were Adam, a physician turned filmmaker with some unusual ideas for a new animated TV series, and Jeff, a cartoonist with a dark sense of humour who wanted to turn his ‘toons into a short film. Adam treated us to a special viewing of the opening credits for his show, and Jeff passed around sheets and sheets of hilarious Gary Larson-esque cartoons.
I seized the moment and showed the others an idea that I had pitched for our Diploma of Animation final project, and received some excellent feedback, filling up a page with notes on increasing my character’s appeal and engaging the audience.
Kate also spoke about what was going on in the animation industry, events that she had attended and would be attending (SPAA! MIPCOM!), and we also had a look at this month’s topic, adapting children’s books for animation.
Many heads are better than one and I found the writer’s group meeting encouraging and invigorating. It looks like I have another event to mark permanently on the calendar!
When: Meetings are usually held on the second Tuesday of every month, but it is best to check with WAnimate beforehand.
If you receive an invitation to the next meeting, RSVP as soon as possible to confirm your attendance. Meetings are cancelled if there aren’t enough attendees.
Where: The Australian Writer’s Guild HQ, 196 Oxford St, Leederville.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
hi. I want to know if I can give my writings and ideas to you as a writer of animation.Im’ an Iranian and have lots of limitations. can you guide me? I have lots of Ideas.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
and I don’t know how to put my ideas in practice.I want to know how the writers of animations work .do they draw the drafts of their ideas? is it different of normal scripts of films? I have’nt found any sources in persian.
April 10th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Hi Neda, I cannot help you directly but I can certainly get you started with the following advice.
- Writing an animation script is not much different from scriptwriting for live action (see http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/179348.html). Having said that, there are stories that are better suited to animation than live-action and vice versa.
- Read a lot of animation scripts. Drew’s Script-O-Rama (http://www.script-o-rama.com/) should have a few.
- Read a lot of books about scriptwriting. “The Screenwriter’s Bible” by David Trottier, and “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder, should give you a good grounding. And “On Writing” by Stephen King, is an excellent book about writing in the general sense, and a wonderful lesson about perseverance.
- Subscribe to/read good blogs about scriptwriting. I check The Story Department regularly (http://thestorydepartment.com/) for up-to-date articles about scriptwriting.
The very best of luck to you on your writing journey!
Evangeline