Animation Writing and Development

Chapter 1

Introduction to Animation

What Is Animation?

The word animate comes from the Latin verb animare, meaning “to make alive or to fill with breath.” We can take our most childlike dreams or the wackiest worlds we can imagine and bring them to life. In animation we can completely restructure reality. We take drawings, clay, puppets, or forms on a computer screen, and we make them seem so real that we want to believe they’re alive. Pure fantasy seems at home in animation, but for animation to work, the fantasy world must be so true to itself with its own unbroken rules that we are willing to believe it.

Even more than most film, animation is visual. While you’re writing, try to keep a movie running inside your head. Visualize what you’re ...