Opportunities in Animation and Cartooning Careers by Terence J. Sacks

In the past week, I almost finished the book Opportunities in Animation and Cartooning Careers by Terence J. Sacks. The main topics written about in this book are the careers that are available in animation and cartooning, and the ways that you can start reaching your goal of becoming an animator. A great addition to this book are the interviews conducted with animation directors, video editors, cartoonists, professors from colleges, and many more. Through the interviews, the directors and editors explain the steps they took to have a career in animation or cartooning and how that career is turning out now. Although the majority of the book revolves around careers in animation, the author also includes tips on how to create cartoons and how to write the story. A quote that stood out to me was "You've got to be completely honest. As one cartoonist put it, cartooning is your own point of view-it's personal and reflects your opinion" (Sacks 76).

This quote amazes me because until I read this book, I believed that certain animations were created to fit the audience's liking, not what the animator wanted to create. I thought that more animations or cartoons would be sold if the readers read what they wanted to read, not something that they disliked or completely disagreed with. Now that I think about it, I guess it does make sense to write the animators point of view. There are many cartoons in the newspapers and magazines that have political views of the animators but represented in a humorous way.