Rating: 
Summary: Avoid like the plague!
Review: If you have at least one creative bone in your body, don't buy this book! All it is is a guideline for executive monkeys to beget executive monkeys. It degrades and undermines the REAL talent in animation... the ANIMATORS.
Rating: 
Summary: Tremendous wealth of info on animaton production
Review: Okay, you bought every book out there on how to create animation and you have a project you're trying to produce. Well, up until now you would have to track down [costly] freelance producers to put together your budgets and schedules and lose a big percentage of your creation to people who don't hand out trade secrets for free.Not anymore! This book is packed with charts and diagrams of animation production that can be fit to whatever type of project you are planning on pitching. To the purist this book would seem to be the end of the world. Just because the book describes top heavy management doesn't mean we are obligated to follow [along]. "Producing Animation" lists every job out there, so we can pick and choose which ones are redundant and need to be streamlined.
This book has no place in a purists library. If all you want to do is have your work viewed at experimental film festivals keep working with your small group of volunteers. But those of us who need a resource to take our ideas to TV or the theater need look no further, because as of yet there is nothing else. Thanks to Catherine and Zahra, you've probably taken much flack for putting this info out there for animators to buy.
Rating:
Summary: The Myth That Took Over an Industry
Review: This book is simply the re-hashing of the kind of idiotic guess-work that has put the state of the American (and worldwide) animation industry in the disastrous state it now finds itself. Reading this, the uninformed reader will probably be impressed with the amount of "stuff" that supposedly goes into making cartoons ... but in actual fact, once finished, the reader will sadly be no more prepared to do it successfully than today's "producers" - who simply draw huge salaries and then send the contracts overseas to real producers who do the work for far less money - since the remaining budget precludes the use of American and Canadian animators. Just flipping through the table of contents, one will readily recognize the weight given to non-animation functions. The director, for instance, gets a few pages of mention ... while the legal department gets a whole chapter. The frightening thing about this book is that it may well solidify the tragic mind-set that prevails in animation production today. The fact is, this book is dangerous. Avoid it.
Rating:
Summary: Invaluable Resource... not an insult to artists
Review: This is a truly path cutting, edge of the envelope publication for the industry. Well written, informative, accurate and incredibly well presented with useful graphs, tables, examples, etc. The industry has been begging (or too short-sighted to beg) for such a book. Though the authors obviously have a great appreciation for the most important part of animation, the artists (note the industry in which they've chosen to work, and the wonderful projects which they've help facilitate - IceAge, Land Before Time, Spawn, Aeon Flux!!), this is focused at helping to dispel the great lack of knowledge found in management and executive circles. This book is simply an amazing and critical compilation of knowledge about how animation gets produced. Everyone in the "business" of animation must read it, so that they better understand the world in which they live/work, and any artist working in animation would be better off with a greater understanding and appreciation of this side of the process!
Rating:
Summary: A book for the aspiring animation producer
Review: This is an extremely helpful guide for those interested in learning the production process of an animated television show or film. The book begins with the development phase and describes the steps all the way through post production, also detailing the various people involved in each step and their specific roles. It distinguishes the differences between traditional 2-d vs. 3-d animation, and is also careful to point out differences between television, direct to video, and feature film. Also included in "Producing Animation" are helpful schedules that outline when different departments (such as backgrounds, animation, ink and paint, etc.) are working in relation to the the overall production schedule. The information on budgeting is limited, but overall a great way to start for the aspiring animation producer or production manager.
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