Acknowledgments

First and foremost we both want to thank our family members for their continued support and encouragement. Neither of us would be where we are today without each other, Jack, Seth, and our grandmother/mother Miriam Lurie.

We have wanted to write this book for a long time, and are very thankful to the people at Focal Press, especially Valerie Geary, our acquisitions editor, Emily McCloskey, our project manager, and Siân Findlay, our production editor. They remained impressively calm, no matter how vehemently we stated our opinions. We also owe our gratitude to our technical editor, Lou Lesko, for making sure that we’re telling you accurate and useful information.

We are especially grateful to many of our friends and colleagues who graciously donated images, and we hope this is a book that they’ll be proud to have a role in creating. Major thanks to: Lindsay Adler, Art Becker, Clay Blackmore, Peter Burian, John Paul Caponigro, Jeremy Lasky, Margaret Livingstone, Charlotte Lowrie, Arthur Morris, Mallory Morrison, Freeman Patterson, Kirk Paulsen, Patty Raydo, John Ricard, Robert Silvers, Steve Simon, Daniel Simons, Nevada Wier, and Art Wolfe!

Josh: I also owe my thanks to my friends and co-workers at Pixar, including Jeremy Lasky, Patrick Lin, Matt Silas, Adam Habib, Mark Shirra, and Trish Carney. All of you are always inspiring and just plain fun to talk to, even if some of you still prefer film. I owe special thanks to Ralph Hill for his input, which helped make the book better. To my friend Michelle Safer, thank you again for providing moral support and motivation. And of course, how could I not thank my high school English teacher, Claudia Skerlong, for teaching me to write well. A little birdie told me that when she heard I was writing a fifth book, her reply was, “Yeah, right, and I’m going to go dig a hole to China.”

Ellen: I’m so fortunate to meet so many people along the way, at workshops, at talks, in life, who are inspiring. There’s no way to mention everyone by name but each one of you has a role in whatever I create and I am grateful to you. I do want to specifically thank a few people who are always there for me, including Art Becker, Peter Burian, Dee Cunningham, George Lepp, Charlotte Lowrie, Michael Lustbader, Kirk Paulsen, and Patty Raydo. Thanks as well to Cliff Oliver who also played a role in ensuring that I can still “See It!” I also want to thank Josh—if anyone had told me when you were a teenager that down the road we’d be co-authoring books together, I’d have thought they were nuts. Now I just know that I’m a very, very lucky mom!