Mr. In-Between: My Life in the Middle of the Animation Revolution

What’s changed most in your lifetime? The switch from land lines to cell phones? From snail mail to email? How about the transition from Bugs Bunny to Buzz Lightyear? Those Bugs and Daffy cartoons you loved as a kid look nothing like the PIXAR classics Toy Story or The Incredibles.

Mr. In-Between: My Life in the Middle of the Animation Revolution is the fascinating and hilarious saga of one of animation’s computer graphics pioneers, Bill Kroyer, making his way to Hollywood to end up as a key figure in the technical revolution of animation’s ＂Second Golden Age＂. He provides an artist’s explanation of the fundamental principles of animation, from the basic mechanics of motion to the immersive, artful experience of visualizing and realizing the performance of an imaginary character.

Rather than a scholarly listing of films and filmmakers, the book is instead a captivating first-person journey through what may be the most important transition in the history of the arts--the transformation and renaissance of the animated film in the digital age. An important work for scholars, and an eye-opening and page-turning adventure for any film or cartoon fan, Mr. In-Between is a book that has the ultimate writing credit.

Bill Kroyer was there.

Key Features:

• Explains the step-by-step evolution of the digital tools of computer animation, from the most basic primitive ＂scripted＂ motion to the current application of artificial intelligence
• Describes some of the most remarkable, eccentric, and colorful geniuses who populated the quirky now-vanished subculture of ＂hand-drawn animation＂
• Takes the reader on a world-wide tour of animation studios on four continents, explaining the vast cultural differences, but common artistic devotion, of animators in places as diverse as communist China, Europe, India, and the Philippines
• Recounts fascinating and surprising interactions with world-famous celebrities that worked with the animation industry, including legendary musicians, Oscar-winning actors and the King of the United Kingdom

Bill Kroyer was nominated for an Academy Award for his short film Technological Threat, the first film to combine 2D and CG animated characters. He directed Ferngully, The Last Rainforest, as well as dozens of commercials and animated feature film credit sequences. As Senior Animation Director at Rhythm & Hues studios he directed CG characters in films the grossed over ＄1 billion worldwide. In 2017 he and his wife Susan were the first couple to receive The International Animation Society’s prestigious June Foray award.