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Figure 12.1 Who knew that one little needle was capable of bringing down the house? Courage the Cowardly Dog, “Hothead,” written ...

Figure 12.1 Continued ...

192 Animation Writing and Development humor. Study what films and television shows are successful in that country and which ones ...

Have you exaggerated as much as you can for the level of humor of that series? Do all of the gags have a setup, increased tensi ...

Exercises Watch a classic cartoon. List as many of the gags as you can. Rewrite five of the gags by updating them, giving them ...

CHAPTER 13 Dialogue 195 The Purpose of Dialogue You want to show your story, not tell it! At its best, animation is all about ac ...

might talk around a problem as we often do in real life, but because younger kids probably won’t understand subtlety, writing ta ...

logue sounds like real talk, but it isn’t. It’s the essence. In real dialogue we tend to interrupt each other, repeat the last p ...

Filler dialogue and repetition. Make every word count! Don’t tell the audience what they’ve just seen or what they’re going to ...

Exercises Who was your best friend when you were a child? Recall a childhood disagreement or misunderstanding. It helps to reca ...

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CHAPTER 14 The Script 201 The Animation Writer as Visual Director Writing an animation script is somewhat like directing a film. ...

Format Discuss formatting with the story editor. You may be able to download a script template. In any case you must know techni ...

next page if it won’t fit. You’ll notice that most scripts have each character typed in caps the first time that they appear. Mo ...

and they’d better belong to your star! Be sure to be clear to the executive readers and the artists that follow, explaining even ...

Checklist Did you make all the changes indicated from the notes the story editor gave you? Is the structure all there: a protag ...

206 Animation Writing and Development Jackie Chan Adventures “QUEEN OF THE SHADOWKHAN” (Script #206) TEASER EXT. MEDIEVAL CASTLE ...

DOWN SHOT—several Shadowkhan, climbing up the shelves toward him. UPSHOT—several more Shadowkhan crawling upside down along the ...

ACT ONE INT. ANCIENT LIBRARY—CASTLE—NIGHT, CONT. REESTABLISH—the various Shadowkhan creeping toward Jackie (who still stands ato ...

UPSHOT—JACKIE GRABS a rung, stopping himself; above, several ninjas slink spider-like down the shelves. DOWN SHOT, PAST JACKIE—( ...