Mark Simon Books

Mark Simon is celebrating his 20th year in the entertainment industry and has been a professional artist for over 25 years. His background includes directing and producing live action and animation, effects supervision, storyboarding, illustration, cartooning, writing and teaching.

Mr. Simon currently owns two companies located in Orlando, Florida. Animatics & Storyboards, Inc., is a company which provides storyboards, illustrations, cartoons and comic book illustration to the entertainment and print industries. His company is now the largest storyboard supplier in the Southern United States having provided support on over 2,500 productions, ranging from feature films to television series, live action, animation, commercials, industrials, books, magazines, newspapers and more. His clients include Disney, Universal, Viacom, Sony, HBO, Nickelodeon, Steven Speilberg, Fox, USA Networks, ABC, Coke, M&M, AT&T, Yamaha, NASA, The American Cancer Society and many, many others.

His other company is A&S Animation, Inc., an animation consultation, development and production house. They specialize in character animation. A&S Animation, Inc. has produced animated shorts which have won over 40 international awards. They have animated Disney’s iconic character, Tinker Bell, for the hugely successful Disney Cruise Line.

The series of animated shorts, Timmy’s Lessons In Nature, which Mark Simon developed, directed and produced, won Grand Prize in Nickelodeon’s and Animation Magazine’s first-ever Nicktoons Film Festival. The series also spent a year touring North American movie theaters with Spike & Mike, as well as screens abroad, and was sold as an animated series to Dargaud Marina in France. Timmy’s Lessons In Nature plays on G4 and is available on mobile phone systems around the world and more.

Mark recently became vice president of a new service for artists, YourResumeSucks.biz. This is the only custom resume and teleseminar service dedicated to helping artists.

Over the years Mark has had a comic strip, Hollyweird, drew political cartoons, has been an award-winning photo news journalist and paid his way through college by running a small ad agency. While in college he also published a magazine which was distributed through 4 universities.

Mr. Simon is also the author of five entertainment industry texts. Producing Independent 2D Character Animation showcases every step of production of an independent hand-drawn animation. This book features the production of one of our popular Timmy’s Lessons In Nature shorts. The text also contains research necessary for any animator and includes invaluable interviews with industry greats.

His book Storyboards: Motion In Art, is a text used around the world to train storyboard artists and his best-selling Facial Expressions is a photo reference guide for artists. His Art Direction Workbook offers the best exercises available to learn how to work in an production art department. Mark’s latest book is Your Resume Sucks, a new take on making resumes that work.

Each month readers may also see Mr. Simon’s articles in Animation Magazine and on Animation World Network (www.AWN.com). His articles are also seen in Cinefex, Bizjournals and MovieMaker Magazine.

Prior to producing animation, Mr. Simon was an art director in live action film and TV in Los Angeles, CA and Orlando, FL. While in Los Angeles, he designed many feature films, music videos and commercials. He worked with such legends as Roger Corman, the king of B-budget movies, and screen icons Lynn Redgrave and Tony Curtis. He then became one of the first art directors at the new Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, FL in 1989.

He has also done Second Unit directing for Nickelodeon and on Steven Speilberg’s seaQuest DSV as well as working as a Special Effects Supervisor for NBC and Fox networks.

Mr. Simon teaches at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects (DAVE) School located at Universal Studios, and previously at the University of Central Florida. He currently lectures around the world at major conferences, conventions and schools.

The depth of Mark Simon’s background allows him to help productions in many ways. He is more than just an artist. He helps productions function and allows them to be more creative.