Does the humor fit the story?
Have you set up your gags, milked them, topped them, and paid them off?
Will the humor work internationally?- Dialogue
Does the dialogue move the story along?
Is the dialogue necessary and not repetitive with the visual information? Too much
talk and not enough action?
Read the dialogue out loud. Does it seem natural?
Is the dialogue individual to each character so we can identify the characters by
listening to the dialogue?
Is the dialogue in character and believable?
What about subtext, people talking around the main issues as people really do
instead of blurting everything out? Do you use subtext?
Does the dialogue sound like exposition, especially at the beginning? Boring dia-
logue? Repetitive dialogue? Are you including only the essence?
Does any of the dialogue stick out and sound wrong?
Is the dialogue either up to date and very contemporary or classic and timeless? Is
it age appropriate? Can the youngest child understand enough?
Have you used the dialogue tags of the characters that have them but not too much?
Is it as funny as it can be?
As clever as it can be?
Polished? Have a nice rhythm? - Budget
Is this primarily a CGI or a traditional project? Plan your story with the specific
expenses of either in mind. CGI often allows animation and detailed coloring to
be done cheaper. It allows crowd scenes to be done much cheaper and camera
moves made more easily. CGI is expensive in rendering difficult surfaces like fur
or water. It is more likely to require realism with expensive, time-consuming light-
ing, realistic animation, and lots of special effects.
Are there any scenes that are just too expensive for the budget? Could scenes be
staged in a way that would be cheaper without sacrificing anything important?
What about unnecessary characters? Can some be cut or combined?
Could stock backgrounds, characters, animation be used without damaging the
story?
Are special effects too expensive as written?
272 Animation Writing and Development