In 2020, after years of working in animated film and TV development as a writer and script editor, Alizée Musson began teaching animation writing workshops for screenwriters and animators. During these workshops, students often asked about the relationship between scripts, storyboards, and animatics in the development phase. Curious about how animation filmmakers use these tools differently to turn ideas into stories, Musson set out to answer a fundamental question: is animation written with words or images?
The question became the premise for the new book, “The Art of Writing Animation,” which dives into the process of writing animated films and series through 25+ case studies and interviews with animation professionals from all over the world. Rather than listing a set of guidelines and formulas for writing animation, the book is designed by makers for makers, taking the reader behind the scenes to show how filmmakers approach the development phase across different styles, genres, and cultures for shorts, features, web, and TV series.
From Hollywood and independent cinema to television, the book features insights from the creators of Ratatouille, Inside Out, Peppa Pig, Chicken for Linda!, Netflix’s Supa Team 4, Mars Express, American Dad!, and many more, who generously shared their creative processes and journeys:
- Brenda Chapman shares how her career as a story artist on films such as Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame influenced her work on Pixar’s Brave.
- Tomm Moore discusses how he grew as a storyteller from making The Secret of Kells to Wolfwalkers.
- Michaela Pavlatova explains how her process changed from making shorts to writing her first feature, My Sunny Maad.
- Yoshiaki Nishimura, Studio Ponoc’s founder and producer, shares his memories of working with Isao Takahata on The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.
As new technologies like generative AI threaten to disrupt how animated films and series are made, the book arrives at the right time to focus on filmmakers’ creative processes and nurture human creativity. Musson hopes this work will spark new discussions around development in animation and its crucial role in shaping stories—both on the written and visual side—while inspiring new generations of emerging talents to experiment with their own creative processes.
The Art of Writing Animation by Alizée Musson is available now here.
