I have been updating my ebook, something I normally do just before Comic Con each year. This year I am updating it before the Stop Mo Expo. That means I have been a bit crazed for the last 4 days. Lots of research on produces and produce prices. Lots of new reviews of produces and books. I just got around to reviewing the Ken Priebe Stop Motion book. Here is that review doing double duty as a blog entry:



The Art of Stop Motion Animation
Ken A. Priebe
Thomson Course Technology
25 Thomson Place
Boston, MA 02210
ISBN-10: 1-59863-244-2
http://www.courseptr.com
$49.95
$32.99 at Amazon.com


Books on the how-to of stop motion are few and far between. Books that address the beginner or student (outside of my own stop motion section in my Animation on a ShoeString ebook) just do not exist.

Ken dares to start at beginning level and goes to about mid independent film or entry level professional level. A gutsy thing to do. Think about it. This is an area that needs to be covered and never is cover. This makes the book valuable. High-end how-to books are pretty and have a build in fan market but what real use are they to the beginner who can never hope to duplicate the work? Not the case here.



I like this book a lot but there are a few small things a little strange about the CD that comes with it. The CD is very weak, an after thought. I see the hand of a publisher here demanding CD content on top of an already overly tight deadline.

The video clips on the CD are in a weird codex and would not play smoothly on any of my machines. But if they had played without a hitch they would still have been just adequate. Not really adding anything that is not already in the text. My real problem was with the 2 Exposure Sheets. What are they all about? This is stop motion, straight-ahead animation folk. The Exposure Sheets should have been left out. They have no place in a stop motion book.

Forget about the CD it only mars an otherwise fine book. I don’t want you to think I am down on this book in any way, the book itself is a very welcome offering with a lot of very useful information. I am very happy with this book because it fills a gapping hole in animation education that has been neglected for far too many years.


Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy)  ¶ 7:03 AM