Edward Kay

As anyone who has been following my blog and correspondence with my e-penpals knows, I have been planning to post some resources that I think will be helpful for people interested in writing for animation. A few people (stand up Francis, Ale, and Ginger) have sent me great ideas for Jimmy Two Shoes episodes, and alternate characters for the series.

All these ideas have to go through the usual channels (in other words, through the production company, from an agent, and with a signed release form). It’s all a little baffling and intimidating if you’re new at the game.

When I was starting out in the business of writing for television, there was hardly any television industry in my country (Canada) and I didn’t have the nerve – or the Green Card – to pick up and go to L.A. to write. So I pounded on a few doors for a few years and eventually, in the mid-1990s, broke into the business writing for a live-action political satire show entitled This Hour Has 22 Minutes. It was and is a terrific show. Wicked smart and very, very funny. So much so that I honestly feel that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report owe it a debt of inspirational gratitude.

Long story shorter, I became interested in writing animation when, after three years at 22 Minutes, an opportunity came up to co-create an original new series for Teletoon, which was a relatively new specialty channel at the time. What a wild ride that was! With two other partners, I co-created a series that was at first called “Ollie’s Under-The-Bed Adventures”. After legal rumblings from a company that already had their own Ollie and industry feedback that something involving children under a bed might smack of things that were at worst illegal and at best possibly depraved – we changed the name to “Olliver’s Adventures”. The pilot episode that I wrote won a Gemini Award (Canada’s version of the Emmy’s) for Best Animated Program, and we sold the series in Japan, Great Britain, Australia and several other countries. It was a revelation. It was huge fun writing the show – and I could even make a decent living at it! From there, I became more and more interested in creating animated series, and learning my craft by writing for other animated series. I co-created Jimmy Two Shoes with Sean Scott, and have a new series in development with Nerd Corps, which I can’t talk about yet (I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement), and wrote a novel entitled STAR Academy (for “Superior Thinking & Advanced Research) that has been optioned for television, and which I hope will become a series. I also co-created a series (live-action) called “Finding Stuff Out” with Jonathan Finkelstein at Apartment 11 Productions. We are just about to begin working on the first season, which has been picked up by TV Ontario, and Knowledge Network.

I was fortunate in that after I caught a break writing for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, all the rest of the pieces more or less fell into place.

But for everyone trying to make that first break for themselves, how do you learn to write for animation, and find a way into the business? For now, I’ll keep this short – mostly because I’m working on “Finding Stuff Out” – but I’m going to start modestly, and gradually add more and more resources here.

For starters, here’s a book that I think provides an excellent overview of writing for animation: How To Write for Animation, by Jeffrey Scott.

One great feature of this book is that it tells you how to write a “beat sheet”. I actually didn’t know what that was when I first got into the animation business. So here’s what it is: a point-form breakdown of your story that will save you hours and hours of precious writing time, by keeping you from going off on dead-end tangents. If you want to write for animation – or live-action comedy or drama, for that matter, I highly recommend that you read this book.

Here’s another book that I think is extremely useful: The Art of the Storyboard by John Hart. It covers the storyboard process for both animation and live action (i.e. shows with flesh-and-blood people in them). Even if, like me, you’re not very good at drawing, it will help you start thinking in a more visual manner. Unlike live-action scripts, animation scripts have a lot of visual description in them from the writers, whether the writers can draw or not. It’s ironic, really, because after going through the writing and story editing processes, the scripts are then handed off to the animation director, storyboard artists, and animators, who are some of the most visually oriented people you could ever meet. Live-action scripts, on the other hand, end up in the hands of a director who may or may not have a keen visual sense, but will probably be quite annoyed if you write a lot of camera direction in the action lines. And if you actually can draw, it will help you hone your vision. Either way, it’s all about visualizing in your mind’s eye.

Okay, gotta run for now, but that’s a start. I will update this, so check back.