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A Novel
by Kayla Rae WhitakerA funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood.
She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of a party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous pass, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.
Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel's difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. When the only other partner Sharon has ever truly known—her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy—reappears, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.
Very few novels can handle multiple themes with the seamless grace that moves beyond a plodding and studied dexterity. That The Animators does so with ease is even more commendable given that this brilliant book is a debut...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
In The Animators, best friends Sharon and Mel spend hours hunched over their artwork that will form the basis of an animated movie. "I know a day of work has been really good when I have to look up from the board and recall who I am and what I'm doing," Sharon says. That "board" that she refers to is one of a series of images that together make up whatever project the duo happen to be working on.
Storyboarding is the first element in the production of a whole range of projects – from animated movies to television commercials and even software programs. It is a series of rough sketches that are presented in sequence to indicate storyline and forward movement. In animated movies such as Sharon and Mel's Nashville Combat, ...
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