I attended Concordia University here in Montreal. I got a BfA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Cinema, Animation Option.

Animation?

I was a cartoonist, drawing motion for film. Other people created motion using clay- or plastic puppets, or drew with paint.

Animation Legend

At the NFB (National Film Board) of CanadaNorman McLarendesigned some very inventive animated films.

Historic Company

Filmationwere one of the companies that I grew up with. You may know them for creating Scooby-Doo.

They created a limited form of animation where they constantly re-used movement segments over and over, often with just a different background painting.

At first I looked down on this, until I did the same thing to save money. Plus, I used frequent re-cycles for repetitive movements, and even when I just changed mouth movements on a character. For me to keep criticizing a company for what I also did would be hypocritical.

What does this have to do with writing?

As I told one of my nieces last Sunday (she’s learning Animation now), I learned the mechanics of it the first year. The others were really just to experiment with other kinds and styles, other approaches to storytelling.

I was okay with other animation styles (other folks were better), but my biggest strength was screenplays — the writing of them. That`s the angle that I focused on.

Telegraphing

From my screenwriting (and decades of comicbook reading), I’ve developed a telegraphing style of both writing scripts and fiction. All actions and dialogue are in a 1:1 ratio.

I have to work out more varied storytelling styles.