ANIMATION VS. THE STILL PAGE

I'm being swallowed alive by trying to animate little dogs moving their legs in the snow, which you won't notice anyway.



This brings me to a point. I was telling my fellow children's book author friend Julia Sarcone Roach what I was trying to accomplish (she actually knows how to animate stuff!) and she said she doesn't know how she feels about making animations on book trailers, etc. This is because she thinks books have their own rhythm and pacing and animating them is taking away from that. I agree with that completely... in a way. This is why I can't stand what ebooks are doing with things lately. But I feel like book trailers are different. They exist to tease the reader and get them to buy the BOOK. Not the other way around. I consider the two things very different mediums. What I'm doing is taking a page from my book and delving into that world and imagining what it would be like if it came to life -- very much like I would do if I were a kid sitting on the couch and having my parent read to me. I'd always animate the stuff in my head.

So it's my HOPE that my new little project won't be taking away from my books at all! I hope what I"m doing will make people want to run out and buy them.

What I'm doing, by the way, is animating little bits of the book and I'm putting it all together with me doing a reading of the book and I'm going to add real B&W historical footage and photography. Although, I do kind of like these simple little animated bits by themselves.

Anyone have any thoughts about this?