Episode 105 - In Conversation with Nancy Beiman

Animation director, character designer, animator, and teacher Nancy Beiman (Image courtesy of https://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.5/2.5pages/2.5bennbeiman.html).

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

Chris and Alex return after their belated summer hiatus with Episode 105 of the podcast, and a very special instalment that features them in conversation with renowned animation director, character designer, animator, and teacher Nancy Beiman, who has worked at a number of studios (from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin studio to the Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers) as well as on feature films including A Goofy Movie (Kevin Lima, 1995), Hercules (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1997) and Treasure Planet (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2002). She is also the author of two landmark books on animation acting and storyboarding - Prepare to Board! Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts (2007) and Animated Performance: Bringing Imaginary Animal, Human and Fantasy Characters to Life (2010) - and the recent How I Finally Got to Live a Cat's Life: A Cartoon Diary 2020-2021 (2022), which promises “the diary of a cartoonist "character" who got the ultimate Staycation!” Listen as they discuss her extensive career in Hollywood animation, including her training at Cal Arts ahead of becoming a supervising animator and the origins of the mysterious “graphic blandishment” role; the evolution of U.S. animation within the 1970s and 1980s as a continuation of classical traditions rather than a phase of transition; voice artistry and the creative bargain that the animation process must strike with voice performance tracks; animation as a form of dance, and the way that animators are continually blending a multitude of sources and inspirations; technological advancement in relation to characterisation; and the creative value of simply looking at things given how the development of an animated film is always greater than the sum of its parts.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

Suggested Readings

• Hosea, Birgitta. 2010. “Drawing Animation,” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 5, no. 3: 353–367.

• Sergeant, Alexander. 2018. “The "Iconoclast of Animation": Counter-Culturalism in Ralph Bakshi’s Fantasy Films.” In Fantasy/Animation: Connections Between Media, Mediums, and Genres, eds. Christopher Holliday & Alexander Sergeant, 141-157. London: Routledge.

• Thomas, Frank and Ollie Johnston. 1981. Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. New York: Abbeville Press.