A new friend of mine (Dustin Ryland- get a site so I can link to ya man) sent me some great insights from one of the great ones.

Brad Bird on the duties of an animation director…

• Do we understand the characters?
• Are their motivations believable?
• Do we feel something?
• Can we follow the plot?
• Is anything dragging?
• Do we clearly understand the spatial relationships
when they are important?
• What is the timing of an edit?
• What is the composition of shots?
• When does music come into play? What kind of music is
necessary here?

. . . These things take a tremendous amount of thought
, but for me the bottom line is Storytelling is
Storytelling. And you either get them to feel
something, weather it be feeling, scared or laughing
at something, or feeling sad. Or you don't.

This is from the Incredibles DVD- at least my friends's quick notes.