Animated Performance

Review: Nancy Beiman’s absolute classic gets a refresh – and it's a must-have for all artists!

Our Verdict

Nancy Beiman’s iconic study benefits from an update, but its basic principles remain thankfully intact.

For

  • Re-vamp of must-read instructional manual
  • Extended content
  • 38 drawing exercises

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Nancy Beiman has an impressive animation pedigree, having worked at six major studios. She’s also a professor at Sheridan College in Oakville, Canada. And it’s this combination of experience, insider knowledge and teaching ability that made Animated Performance – her 1998 instructional manual – a must-read for animation students. 

This second edition is newly revised, updated and extended, but the central premise remains. Beiman asks you to consider how to ‘get a performance’ out of your characters, seeing the skill of the animator as ‘an actor with a pencil’. Your aim should not be to replicate live action, but to enable your characters to creatively transcend the confines of the physical world to enhance the audience’s enjoyment.

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The Verdict
10

out of 10

Animated Performance

Nancy Beiman’s iconic study benefits from an update, but its basic principles remain thankfully intact.

Tom May

Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.