Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532153
12 KEYFRAME F R A M E X F R A M E It sounds like the plot of a rom-com: A successful animator, living the dream on the West Coast, suddenly packs up his life and moves across the country for love. As if his life was scripted, Chris Perry traded in storyboards and pixelated dreams for a chance at a new beginning—and ended up on a path that would expand his talents to include teaching, writing, and filmmaking. " When I [moved] to the East Coast, the only way I could continue doing creative work in film and animation was to do it myself," Perry explains of the era before remote jobs. "I embarked on making short films and in that process did a 20- year self-study where I learned about writing and directing in the context of short works." Perry's nascent animation career started in 1994 as a Programmer and then Technical Director at L.A.'s Rhythm & Hues Studios. He later moved to Pixar, working on titles like A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Toy Story 2. Then, after moving to Massachusetts in 1998, he made a career pivot to higher education and began teaching Media Arts and Science at Hampshire College. He quickly found the existing screenwriting material to be lacking. "Books written for other academics tend to be dry, thick, and dull," says Perry. "There was plenty of literature about three-act structures and outlining your pilot script, but MAKING A SCENE TEACHING INSPIRED WRITER CHRIS PERRY TO PEN A BOOK ABOUT THE ART OF WELL-SCRIPTED SCENES. above: Perry speaking at the VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy. "You don't really know something until you've taught it because [teaching] forces you to boil down what might just be instinctive in your mind."