Undestanding Animation

Review by Giovanni Varazzani

Despite the animation industry is old like the film industry, it has no many books that talk about the form and its concepts. There are many that treat the argument of the different techniques and how to draw for animation, but not about everything there is behind the screen.
“Understanding Animation” is written by professor Paul Wells, which is Director of Animation in the Animation Academy. With his experience as writer, broadcaster and director, he wrote different books about the argument of animation.
“Understanding Animation” is a kind of bible for animators. This book explains several aspect of animation, from history to narrative techniques, the relationship between animation and audiences. It also has a chapter fully dedicated to comedy in animation. Well explains with several points many techniques that make people laugh, techniques that in animation find a wide field to develop and explore themselves with endless solution for a really funny outcome.
Trough “Understanding Animation” Paul Wells also analyze many animations, from Walt Disney to Hanna Barbera, and in its comic section cartoon like Tom and Jerry, Road Runner and The Flintstones.
Thanks to all those reasons, I’m going to use this book to write my essay despite the fact that this book comes out as academic book, so it doesn’t have an easy reading. With its 249 pages it doesn’t have many images, thus to make me feel surprised at my first impact with it. So after few times I’ve opened this book I still have difficult to read it but I’m sure it will help once more.