Archive for the ‘membership’ Category

Monday, February 14th, 2022

BIG NEWS! More Downloads For Annual Members

Introducing Animation Resources Annual Member Archive

ATTN: GENERAL & STUDENT MEMBERS!

February is Members Appreciation Month. It’s the time of year when we thank our steadfast members for their continued support of this project, and encourage new people to join us. This year, we are thanking our annual members with a NEW download page… an archive where we will re-upload complete Reference Packs from past years. To start it out with a bang, during the month of February, we will be rerunning the entire "Zim Course in Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature"… that’s four volumes totaling 700 pages! After February, we will be sharing at least three complete past Reference Packs a year on the Annual Member Archive Page. From here on out, General and Student Members will have access to NINE RefPacks a year! But that’s not all, we will be archiving our older podcasts here as well, including all the supplemental e-books and videos that go with them!

Our Quarterly Members will still receive our bi-monthly Reference Packs like usual. But if you are a Quarterly Member, we think you might want to consider switching your account to a General Membership to take advantage of this new archive. If you still have time remaining in your Quarterly Membership, just let us know that you want to switch to an annual membership and after you upgrade we will credit your login with the additional time. Just drop a line to membership@animationresources.org and let us know you would like to upgrade your account.

More members mean we can share more content on our download pages. Encourage your friends and co-workers to join Animation Resources. Every penny of the dues goes to sharing more treasures with you. Remember, Reference Packs aren’t on the page forever. They change every two months. Download the current one now before it expires off the page!


If you are an annual member (General or Student)…
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Login To The Bonus Archive Page

If you aren’t a member yet…
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JOIN Animation Resources Now!


Here is a sneak peek at what the Annual Members Bonus Archive Page looks like. If you join today, you’ll be able to access all these amazing resources, and have access to our current RefPack as well.

Bonus Archive

As a special thank you to our annual General and Student members, we have created a special page where we will archive past Reference Packs. There will be at least three reruns of complete RefPacks per year.

Below are the links to the current Bonus Reference Pack. To download the files, RIGHT CLICK on the link (Mac users CONTROL CLICK) and select SAVE LINKED FILE TO DISK. We are delivering high resolution files to you. When you click, it might take several minutes to finish the download, so please be patient. If the link doesn’t work, refresh this page and try again. It’s best to download the files one at a time, rather than all at once. This will avoid timeouts.


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Problems or questions? Email…
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membership@animationresources.org


PLEASE NOTE: This material may be protected by copyright and is provided to supporters of Animation Resources under Fair Use provisions for critical analysis, educational and reference purposes only. Permission to copy and print is granted for personal use only and these files are not to be distributed or shared with others. All rights reserved. After the period of availability, these files will be deleted from the server and may never be offered again. Downloading of this material constitutes agreement to these terms.

Three times a year, Animation Resources shares a new Bonus Reference Pack with its Annual Members. They consist of an e-book packed with high resolution scans and video downloads set up for still frame study. Make sure you download this Reference Pack before it’s updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!


REFPACK014: January / February 2017

Members Appreciation Month Special:
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The Complete Zim Course

The Zim Book on Cartooning

Animation Resources appreciates its members. To recognize our indebtedness to the people who support our work, we are re-running the entire Zim Course in Cartooning and Caricature. Download these four e-books and enjoy over 700 pages of tips and advice by one of the greatest cartoonists who ever lived— Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman. Thank you for your support of Animation Resources. Our members make everything we do possible!
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PDF E-BOOK:
Zim Cartooning Course

Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman
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Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature Volume 1: Books 1 to 5 (1914/1920)

Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art and Caricature consists of twenty 32-page books packed with artwork, practical advice, homespun philosophy and plain old horse sense. Every month a new book would arrive in the mail, and the student would be responsible for arranging to ship their completed assignments to Horseheads, NY where Zim would review and critique them for a small fee. These books are among the rarest and most sought after cartooning instruction books in existence.

This PDF e-book contains the first five lesson books compiled from both the 1914 and 1920 editions of the Zim course, and includes a foreword by Ralph Bakshi and an introduction by Stephen Worth. The lesson books are supplemented with full page color illustrations by Zim taken from issues of Judge’s Library magazines from the 1890s. This PDF e-book is optimized for display on the iPad or printing two up with a cover on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

BONUS: Zim Cartooning Course Vol. 1
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Adobe PDF File / 200 Pages / 408.2 MB Download

PDF E-BOOK:
Zim 02

Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman
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Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature Volume 2: Books 6 to 10 (1914/1920)

A few years back, I stumbled across a "how to" book on cartooning by Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman. I happened to be speaking on the phone to Ralph Bakshi, and I mentioned the book. "Oooooohhh! So you’ve discovered ZIM now! He’s one of my secrets…"

In 1967, right after he had resigned as the head of the Paramount cartoon studio, Ralph and his wife Liz were walking through Brooklyn when they saw a sign on an old house advertising an estate sale. They went inside, but it was late in the day and there wasn’t much left. Ralph glanced up at a tall bookcase and saw a pile of pamphlets stacked up on a high shelf. It was too high to reach, so he didn’t bother to look at them. As they were walking out the door, he got the feeling that he needed to go back and look at the pamphlets. It was a good hunch. The stack contained a nearly complete set of Zim’s correspondence course in cartooning. He asked the estate agent how much they cost, and was told $50. That was more than he and his wife had in their pockets, so Liz volunteered to run home and get the money. The Zim books were on Ralph’s desk every day throughout the production of Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic and especially Coonskin. This set is Ralph’s most prized possession, and now he is sharing them with Animation Resources.

Zim’s course is much more than just a “how to draw” course. In short anecdotal paragraphs, Zim succeeds in conveying what it means to be a cartoonist… the history behind the artform… how to deal with everyday problems and setbacks… and how to live the life of an artist.

Animation Resources restored and published Ralph’s 1914 Zim course, along with updates made to the course in 1920, as a series of four downloadable high resolution e-books. This PDF e-book is the second in the series, and is optimized for display on the iPad or printing two up with a cover on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

BONUS: Zim Cartooning Course Vol. 2
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Adobe PDF File / 198 Pages / 427 MB Download

PDF E-BOOK:
Zim Cartooning Course Vol 3

Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman
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Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature Volume 3: Books 11 to 15 (1914/1920)

As the decades have rolled on since Zim’s passing in 1935, he has come to be routinely omitted from accounts of the history of cartooning. Although Thomas Nast, T. S. Sullivant, Frederick Burr Opper, Richard Outcault and James Montgomery Flagg are frequently mentioned in histories of cartooning and illustration, Zim’s name is conspicuous by its absence. When he is mentioned at all by historians, it is in reference to the "political incorrectness" of his humor. But Zim’s legacy is more important than history gives him credit for. His contribution to American culture is both historical and artistic.

During the last decades of the 19th century, America was a land being built by poor, hard-working immigrants. Zim was one of them. He took caricature out of the drawing room and into the streets. When Zim entered the business, cartooning existed to glorify (or more often, defame) famous American political leaders. Zim took caricature further, poking fun at the real Americans of the day— the people he saw in the streets of the Italian, Jewish, Black and Irish districts of New York City.

These precious drawings are a priceless window into the past. More than a hundred years later, we are fortunate to be able to see the world of the 1890s through Zim’s observant eyes. Zim’s fondness for the common man is apparent in every line that flowed from his pen. He didn’t just achieve his boyhood goal of becoming American through and through; utilizing the art of caricature, he vividly documented the day-to-day reality of millions of others Americans just like him.

Animation Resources is proud to present our third volume from the Zim course as a downloadable high resolution e-book. This PDF e-book is optimized for display on the iPad or printing two up with a cover on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

BONUS: Zim Cartooning Course Vol. 3
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Adobe PDF File / 212 Pages / 455 MB Download

PDF E-BOOK:
Zim Course Volume Four

Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman
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Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature Volume 4: Books 16 to 20 (1914/1920)

Eugene Zimmerman, better known simply as "Zim" was one of cartooning’s most important figures, but he is rarely mentioned in current histories of the medium. This is unfortunate, because Zim wasn’t just a great caricaturist and cartoonist, he was a great educator as well.

The "Zim Correspondence School of Comic Art and Caricature" packs a lifetime of experience into twenty small booklets. There are no chapters or formal lessons, just common-sense advice and lots and lots of brilliant drawings. Zim teaches his students the same way he learned his trade, one step at a time. Each page is a self-contained bit of sagely advice, intended to be studied a page or two a day. As readers work their way though the course over the span of a year, the information accumulates, gradually transforming them from a talented amateur to a seasoned professional artist. No one was more qualified to teach students how to think like an artist than Eugene Zimmerman.

Zim first published his cartooning course in 1914 and revised it in 1920. We have compiled all of the information from both editions into four e-books for our membership. Along with the course, we have included full page color cartoons by Zim from the pages of Judge magazine. We are proud to have been able to bring the entire Zim Cartooning Course to you as downloadable high resolution e-books. This PDF e-book is optimized for display on the iPad or printing two up with a cover on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

BONUS: Zim’s Cartooning Course Volume 4
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Adobe PDF File / 198 Pages / 198 MB Download

Podcasts Archive

Animation Resources has embarked on a podcasting series with informal screenings, interviews and seminars. We are sharing this archive of past episodes that have expired off the Members Only Page with our annual members as a thank you for your support.

PDF E-BOOK / HD VIDEO / PODCAST
Chuck Jones Bar Sheets

Chuck Jones Bar Sheets
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“How The Grinch Stole Christmas” (1966)

Animation Resources is proud to share with its members our most ambitious project to date— a podcast detailing the timing techniques used to make the Chuck Jones television special “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”. Chuck Jones was a master at controlling the pacing of the action for every single frame of his films. The method of timing cartoons in the golden age of animation is nothing like the way it is done today. We think you will learn a lot from this research, and perhaps discover some techniques to improve the timing of your own projects. Animation Resources would like to thank Doug Ward and the family of Dan McLaughlin for sharing this important set of documents with us.

CLICK To Listen To The Podcast Now:
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AD002: Chuck Jones Bar Sheets
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MP3 Audio File / 58:13 / 70 MB Download

CLICK To View The Supplementary Files:
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E-Book: Chuck Jones Bar Sheets
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Adobe PDF File / 74 Pages / 555 MB Download

Video: Grinch Timing
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MP4 Video File / HD Widescreen / 25:55 / 1.19 GB Download

SD VIDEO / PODCAST
The Saw Mill

The Saw Mill
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Larry Semon / 1922

Golden age animators studied silent films to learn staging, posing, timing and comic action from the masters of slapstick comedy. Animation Resources Vice President, Taber Dunipace is joined by Stephen Worth in an “Animated Discussion” analyzing Larry Semon’s “The Saw Mill” (1922).

CLICK To Listen To The Podcast Now:
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AD001: The Saw Mill
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MP3 File / 48:02 / 74 MB Download

CLICK To Download The Video Being Discussed:
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Film: The Saw Mill (1922)
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M4V File / SD / 25:18 / 249 MB Download


Previous Podcasts

VIDEO SEMINAR 001: BG Layouts By Nestor Redondo
Aired 07/21/17 / YouTube / 720p HD / 2:00:00

ANIMATION INTERVIEW 001: Andrew Chesworth
Aired 06/19/17 / MP4 Video File / SD / 58:46 / 1.2 GB Download

LESSON 001: Warming Up Exercises
https://animationresources.org/art-education-warming/
Aired 08/27/16 / MP4 Video File / 1:05:36 / 1.3 GB Download

ARCHIVE 001: About Our Archive Database
Aired 10/11/16 / YouTube / 22:16

BOOK LOOK 001: Taschen’s Disney Film Archive
Posted October 14, 2016 / YouTube / 31:06
You can order a copy of this great book for yourself at Amazon.com.


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More members mean we can bring you more special downloads.

Problems or Questions?
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Thank you very much for your support. We greatly appreciate it.
The Animation Resources Board of Directors

Members Appreciation Month

It’s Members Appreciation Time again at Animation Resources, and for the next 30 days we will be sharing reasons why you should be a member of our important project. For more information on the benefits of membership, see the Member Appreciation Page. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Wednesday, August 25th, 2021

Now Is The Time To Join Animation Resources!

Membership Dues

Dues Are Increasing At The End Of The Month

Animation Resources is growing. As we grow, we provide more and more valuable self-study material to our members, and our Membership Dues need grow to support the bandwidth and expenses required to provide those resources. We plan to raise the dues across the board at the end of the month. If you are currently a member, this doesn’t affect you. Your dues will always remain the same as long as you maintain your membership. That is our way of thanking the people who helped us grow. But if you aren’t a member yet and you’ve been considering joining, NOW IS THE TIME.

When you think about it, our membership dues are one of the biggest bargains in animation. Breaking down our annual General Membership rate of $85 into months, that is only about $7 a month… You probably spend more than that for lunch! But Animation Resources’ Reference Packs stay with you much longer that a burger and fries. We’re working to help you grow as an artist by sharing education and inspiration curated by professional animators. Isn’t your creativity worth nourishing too?

If you join today, your dues rate will remain the same for as long as you’re a member. If you wait until after our dues go up, you will pay more, not just this year, but every year from now on. It just doesn’t make sense to wait. General Membership is just $85 a year, and it’s $60 a year if you are a full time student or educator. If you would rather pay quarterly, the rate is currently $25 for three months. All of these will be increasing in a month or so, so don’t delay. Once you join, your dues will never increase. That is our promise to you for your continued support.

Every year people spend tens of thousands of dollars on a college education. Animation Resources helps you expand and continue that education for only $85 a year. Don’t you owe it to yourself to invest in yourself? Join today…

CLICK to Join Animation Resources Today

JOIN ANIMATION RESOURCES

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Friday, April 30th, 2021

NEW REFPACK FEATURE: Slapstick Analysis


REFPACK 039
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April-May 2021

MEMBERS LOGIN To Download Video

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content

Every other month, members of Animation Resources are given access to an exclusive Members Only Reference Pack. These downloadable files are high resolution e-books on a variety of educational subjects and rare cartoons from the collection of Animation Resources in DVD quality. Our current Reference Pack has just been released. If you are a member, click through the link to access the MEMBERS ONLY DOWNLOAD PAGE. If you aren’t a member yet, please JOIN ANIMATION RESOURCES. It’s well worth it.

Slapstick Analysis

Chuck Jones cited Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd as the film makers he most admired. At the Disney Studios, animators were trained in action analysis classes, studying slapstick comedies frame by frame. These films are like textbooks for animators, packed with techniques for staging, timing and gag construction. Since many of these films are difficult to find today in formats that allow easy still frame study, in the coming year we will share a slapstick film in every RefPack, so you can build a library of these important films to study.

DVD QUALITY VIDEO:
Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow ep01
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Kevin Brownlow & David Gill / 1987

As we have mentioned before, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, many great documentaries on film history were produced in Great Britain. One of the best of these was a three part series titled, "Buster Keaton- A Hard Act To Follow". Over the next few Reference Packs, we will presenting this whole series, starting this time with episode one.

Buster Keaton

Normally in these introductions, I provide a brief history of the featured artists and attempt to explain their place in history. Since this series is a biography of Keaton, I’m freed from that duty and I can go straight to explaining how this particular film maker is important for animators to study.

I will say this about Keaton’s historical context… Many young artists look upon films made before Star Wars as "old fashioned", and that isn’t entirely unjustified. A lot of elements in older films do feel irrelevant to our modern lifestyle. Rotary telephones, suits and fedoras, daily newspapers and milk bottles on the porch every morning… all these things have become dusty memories from the past. Black & white movies seem even further in the past, to the point where we think of entire periods of American history as being in black & white. Silent films seem even further removed from modern reality… Keystone Cops, Model Ts with a crank in front, trolley cars and general stores filled with wooden barrels of basic supplies. Even though these were common sights at the time these films were being made, they can feel like a whole different world to modern viewers. Not so with Keaton.


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Buster Keaton

Keaton’s universe is timeless. Many of his films were period pieces and were removed in time from the audiences who saw them on first release. Several of his best films were set in the era of the Civil War, with incredible attention to detail when it came to the historical accuracy of sets, props and costumes. Yet even though the films accurately depict life 150 years ago, it is still easy for a 21st century viewer to become totally immersed in the story and characters… more so than other comedians like the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy. Why is this? The reason is Keaton himself. His character is an understated personality, but it is the kind of character that all kinds of audiences immediately feel empathy with. While Harold Lloyd played the quintessential "everyman" representing the 1920s, Keaton was a timeless "everyman".

Buster Keaton

Keaton’s feature films are essential viewing. The General, Sherlock Jr, Steamboat Bill Jr, Our Hospitality, The Navigator— every one is a masterpiece. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Keaton’s early comedy shorts with Fatty Arbuckle can be harder to find to view, but they represent a model for perfect comedy teamwork, with two geniuses working at the peak of their creativity in tandem. And the early solo Buster Keaton shorts are fascinating early glimpses of the heights Keaton would scale in just a few short years. As an animator, you owe it to yourself to search out these films and study them. There’s a wealth of information in them to inspire and inform film makers of all types.

Buster Keaton

First of all, Keaton was a master of comedy. His youth in Vaudeville trained him how to walk funny, how to fall funny, how to elicit laughs, milk them, and build to a topper gag that leaves the audience satisfied. His films are genuinely funny.

His sense of timing was flawless. When he made his films, the cameraman was instructed to crank the camera at various speeds, depending on the type of scene he was photographing. A romantic scene would be over cranked a bit, to make the action a little slower and more dreamy. An action scene would be under cranked so it would play a little faster on the screen. When the film was edited and ready to release, Keaton would determine the perfect frame rate and paste notes on the film cans for the projectionist instructing them about the proper speed to run it through the projector. The General, Keaton’s epic film about the Civil War, carried a note to project it at 26 frames per second, which was faster than the standard film speed of 24 fps. It isn’t always presented this way, but when it is, the film achieves a heightened reality, leaning towards the look of video. When the faster frame rate is combined with the meticulously researched set and costume design, and the massive power of the authentic locomotive used in the film, it really gives you a sense that you are transported back into the 1860s.


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Buster Keaton

Even though Keaton’s films are structurally as tight as a drum, he didn’t shoot using scripts, only a brief outline of the intended action and overall narrative. When he constructed sets and brought his crew together, they improvised on the spot, taking detailed notes on continuity so they could tie it all together at the end, even if they didn’t know the details of what the ending would be yet.

The staging in his films are worthy of study as well. Shots are always perfectly composed in a way that clearly contains the action, without needing improvised camera movements to keep it in frame. It’s a model of straightforward simplicity, which is imperative for comedy, because If it looks complicated, it probably won’t be funny. Keaton succeeds in making the most complex shots feel simple. It’s difficult to conceive of how some of the chase scenes were constructed. They fit together so perfectly! It must have been a challenge for Keaton to break the sequences down into individual scenes shot on different days… and then cut them into continuity and have them fit together so perfectly. There are sequences in Sherlock Jr. that I’ve studied many times and still have no idea of how they were planned out and executed.

Buster Keaton

If you have never seen a Buster Keaton film before, this documentary will give you a taste of what you’ve been missing. If like me, you have studied all of his films over and over many times, you will learn new things about Keaton and his creative process that you didn’t know before. Please take the time to sit down and carefully watch this program, and I hope will make the effort to seek out Keaton films to study. It’s a rare opportunity to sit at the feet of a master, and even though these films were made a century ago, "A Hard Act To Follow" allows you to do just that.

REFPACK039: A Hard Act To Follow ep01
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MP4 Video File / SD / 53:10 / 1.74 GB Download


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JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content


Not A Member Yet? Want A Free Sample?

Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

Sample RefPack

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