5 Questions Meme
Feb. 23rd, 2009 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinInherited from Fani:
1. Why do you think going to school for animation is better than getting internship immediately out of high school? (discounting the dubious new animation schools that are mysterious and haven't proven their worth)
There are basic things about animation that you learn at school (or should learn ... CalArts continues to surprise me) that make you much more attractive to employers, even if you're just applying for an internship. A basic knowledge of, say, how to do character rotations, timing charts, label a storyboard, fill out an x-sheet, or even just to get a working knowledge of animation's jargon. Having a school on your resume, especially one whose name they recognize, lets employers know what sort of skills package you probably come with. It's the sort of artillery that can serve you well in the fight for an entry-level position, rather than going into battle completely unarmed as you would straight out of high school. Studios are not schools; it is not worth their time and money* to teach you everything you need to know from scratch. That said, once you get out of school you should take ANY opportunity that presents itself to get work experience, be it an internship, a poorly-paid busy-work grunt job, a PA position, whatever gets you into a studio. That is not the time for pride, that is the time for grovelling and desperation. Once you get on the ladder, you can climb it; the trick is getting on it in the first place. You learn a lot in really low entry-level positions, the lower level of responsibility will give you the chance to stumble and learn, and if you're clever and driven you can work your way up from there, but if you've been through school you've already done stuff more advanced and creative than the grunt work and are more qualified to get back to that position in the professional world.
*even if you've got an unpaid internship, they're paying the people around you for the time they have to take out of their regular work to coach you along
School also forces you to do lots of things you wouldn't otherwise do. Not many studios have life drawing on offer, for example, and having a life drawing class with a teacher is much better than just going through the motions and not being taught how to deconstruct, understand, and use what you see in front of you. You're also forced to learn at least a little bit of all the disciplines, rather than just whatever they feel like giving you in an internship. Each department has something to teach the other, and they all have to work together to get anything done, so the better you can understand what other people are doing, the better a team-player (and thereby employee) you will be. A studio will teach you only what you need to know to get the job done; a school (a good school anyway) will teach you more than that, give you tools to extract more from the studio environment, and motivation to push yourself in other areas outside of work. Besides, if you start as the intern who doesn't know anything, you will always be the intern who doesn't know anything to the people you work with. If you come into the job with an education under your belt you're already a step ahead.
The MOST IMPORTANT thing about school, though, is that you're locked in a room with a bunch of other talented young people. No matter how good your teachers are, you will learn most of what you learn at school from the other students. It's also probably the most creative time in your life; you're not working on someone else's project, and anything goes, ideas-wise, because you're not having to conform to broadcast standards or appeal to a paying audience or anything. Hopefully you learn how to cope with your classmates, too, because it's a collaborative art form, and trying to get artists to work together is a bit like herding cats – the better you are at getting along the more attention you can focus on work and not petty dramas. It's frustrating, it's exhausting, it blows your mind over and over, but it is FUN. (If it's not fun, that's a good sign the job is not for you and gives you a chance to get out while you still can.) Besides, school is an important rite of passage. Once you've started your animation from scratch eight times, gotten used to five hours of sleep every night, had to juggle your layout, animation, and storyboard homework with eight hours of compulsory life drawing a week, and pulled a few all-nighters, not only will you be more confident that you can handle whatever work throws at you, but nothing you have to do in your professional life will ever be as bad. On top of that, you win membership in a tribe: going through such a challenging experience with a group of people is a real bonding experience and you come out not as a class of individuals but a sort of family, and can look out for each other and give each other a hand up. It's your first place to start making connections, a headstart on your network, and this is an industry that runs on networking.
2. Worst Journey in the World, please explain why you are addicted to this series?
I wish I knew for sure, but I have some theories. It's similar to Master and Commander, which I was also obsessed with, in many ways – it's a small group of people faced with challenge after challenge; against nature, against each other, against a largely unseen opposing party. It's got a quest, and friendship, and science, but mostly it's just trying to survive. They're painfully naïve and are in way over their heads, but keep grinding on regardless ... they're so infuriatingly, adorably English. It's got a lot of ... I don't know if there's a term for it, but ... plot strings that connect a point at the beginning with a point at the end, in a satisfying payoff kind of way? This can work either in comedy or tragedy and it seems to make the story really ring, like when a guitar is made just right and even just tapping it with your finger sets off a resonant tone. In this case, of course, it's a tragedy, and SUCH a tragedy, even more so for it being almost entirely self-inflicted. Tragedy is cathartic, and as my icon says, I am a catharsis junkie. It's the sort of story that, if it were a movie cast with good-looking young men, would probably spawn volumes of fanfiction, but since it's locked away in Radioland it never will – but the depth and variety of characters and their dynamics with each other, the sort of things that bring the characters to life in your head and would feed the fanfic crowd, are the things that keep me interested as well.
I think more than anything, though, it was just the right thing at the right time: it was an adventure in the cold with a bunch of characters whose company I enjoyed, at a time when I was lonely and hot and firmly lodged in routine. The most recent bout of obsession can probably be put down to the BBC iPlayer not working on my work computer and I needed something narrative and dramatic to listen to while drawing. I was drawing happy cheering animals, too, so I needed something with a tone that would offset that. And of course it's a really gorgeous production, with fantastic acting and sound and such atmosphere! I can disappear into it much more easily than into an audiobook. Oddly enough though, the first time I listened to it I wasn't overly taken with it – I mean, it was entertaining enough that it got me to listen to the Classic Serial which I don't normally do, but it was only after running out of fresh radio amusements, and deciding to listen to part 2 a second time, that I really fell in love with it. Was that rambly enough? :)
3. What made you go, "I want to do animation for the rest of my life."
I think the responsibility is split between the Redwall series and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've always seen books as movies in my head, and I loved my mental movies of the Redwall books so much that I wanted to get them out of my head and into the real world, and I wanted Hunchback's tone and level of production quality. And while I had known how animation was done for most of my life, and loved the making-of specials as a child, it wasn't until reading The Art of Hunchback that I realized animators started out as ordinary people. I liked to draw! I liked animation! I could become an animator too! Then one of our family friends who did freelance storyboards let me play with his animation paper and disk and I was hooked.
I am being dangerously free-spirited here – question 4 would have caused me to divulge more than I felt comfortable, so I shall answer both optional Question 5s instead.
5a. How do you keep sane in crunch times?
Short answer: BBC radio.
Long answer: I'm usually a pretty low-stress person and am happy as a clam to be holed up in my cube all day no matter how long the 'day' might be. There was only one time I nearly lost it: I was working on a really banal and unrewarding preschool show and it was my first time doing storyboards, at which I am really slow. I was doing them in Flash because that way I could approach them like animation, which I can read and understand; I can't think straight when drawing in boxes across a page as is typical for TV boards. Also if memory serves the production was trying to go paperless. Anyway, I had boarded a sequence, but when it came time to print it out only the first few panels were there, and I had to take a day or so to replace what had been lost. I ended up having to take the board home for the weekend to finish up, but when I tried to load it onto my computer it turned out the file was corrupted, and I had to start from scratch. The board was due Monday so I spent all weekend, late into the night, trying to finish it, but when I got it back to work that file had been corrupted too, so I got a very generous extension to Tuesday morning and spent all Monday and Monday night scribbling through it for the third time. What was worse, to me, than the computer problems and the sheer mountain of work I had to keep redoing, was the fact that even when I reached the point where I couldn't work anymore I couldn't sleep. I was just set on 'GO.' It will be a long time before I forget standing in the kitchen at 2:30 on Monday morning, on the verge of tears, downing a hot milk-and-brandy in a desperate effort to just get some sleep. So yeah, whenever I find myself in a crunch time, I can just look back on that and suddenly whatever I have to cope with doesn't look so bad.
Also I am not freezing to death in Antarctica. That is an important thing to remember.
5b. What's living in LA like?
Of course you ask me this at the nicest time of year, when it's been raining enough that there is actual greenery even in places without sprinklers, and the average daytime temperature is under 25°C, and we're on the brink of jasmine season so the great pink clouds of perfume are beginning their nighttime rambles... Yeah, it's pretty great from about January to May. Otherwise it's hot and boring. The city doesn't work like a city should, the food tastes like mall food, the water is gross, everything's too far away, all my friends live in different parts of the city ... usually this is made up for by the heaven that is work, but I don't know what it'll be like when Frog finishes. It's bound to be better than last year, though, because I know how to get to the more interesting parts of town now and have forgotten what it's like to live someplace actually nice, so what I see around me isn't so bad by contrast. There are lots of interesting things here, and stuff is always happening ... So it's okay I guess. In the spring. If you have a great job, and know where to find the cool stuff, or have a time machine that can take you back to the 20s when the city was AWESOME. Unfortunately I haven't found one of those yet.
If you would like five questions of your own to answer, please comment ... be warned I am in the mood for asking silly questions though. :)
1. Why do you think going to school for animation is better than getting internship immediately out of high school? (discounting the dubious new animation schools that are mysterious and haven't proven their worth)
There are basic things about animation that you learn at school (or should learn ... CalArts continues to surprise me) that make you much more attractive to employers, even if you're just applying for an internship. A basic knowledge of, say, how to do character rotations, timing charts, label a storyboard, fill out an x-sheet, or even just to get a working knowledge of animation's jargon. Having a school on your resume, especially one whose name they recognize, lets employers know what sort of skills package you probably come with. It's the sort of artillery that can serve you well in the fight for an entry-level position, rather than going into battle completely unarmed as you would straight out of high school. Studios are not schools; it is not worth their time and money* to teach you everything you need to know from scratch. That said, once you get out of school you should take ANY opportunity that presents itself to get work experience, be it an internship, a poorly-paid busy-work grunt job, a PA position, whatever gets you into a studio. That is not the time for pride, that is the time for grovelling and desperation. Once you get on the ladder, you can climb it; the trick is getting on it in the first place. You learn a lot in really low entry-level positions, the lower level of responsibility will give you the chance to stumble and learn, and if you're clever and driven you can work your way up from there, but if you've been through school you've already done stuff more advanced and creative than the grunt work and are more qualified to get back to that position in the professional world.
*even if you've got an unpaid internship, they're paying the people around you for the time they have to take out of their regular work to coach you along
School also forces you to do lots of things you wouldn't otherwise do. Not many studios have life drawing on offer, for example, and having a life drawing class with a teacher is much better than just going through the motions and not being taught how to deconstruct, understand, and use what you see in front of you. You're also forced to learn at least a little bit of all the disciplines, rather than just whatever they feel like giving you in an internship. Each department has something to teach the other, and they all have to work together to get anything done, so the better you can understand what other people are doing, the better a team-player (and thereby employee) you will be. A studio will teach you only what you need to know to get the job done; a school (a good school anyway) will teach you more than that, give you tools to extract more from the studio environment, and motivation to push yourself in other areas outside of work. Besides, if you start as the intern who doesn't know anything, you will always be the intern who doesn't know anything to the people you work with. If you come into the job with an education under your belt you're already a step ahead.
The MOST IMPORTANT thing about school, though, is that you're locked in a room with a bunch of other talented young people. No matter how good your teachers are, you will learn most of what you learn at school from the other students. It's also probably the most creative time in your life; you're not working on someone else's project, and anything goes, ideas-wise, because you're not having to conform to broadcast standards or appeal to a paying audience or anything. Hopefully you learn how to cope with your classmates, too, because it's a collaborative art form, and trying to get artists to work together is a bit like herding cats – the better you are at getting along the more attention you can focus on work and not petty dramas. It's frustrating, it's exhausting, it blows your mind over and over, but it is FUN. (If it's not fun, that's a good sign the job is not for you and gives you a chance to get out while you still can.) Besides, school is an important rite of passage. Once you've started your animation from scratch eight times, gotten used to five hours of sleep every night, had to juggle your layout, animation, and storyboard homework with eight hours of compulsory life drawing a week, and pulled a few all-nighters, not only will you be more confident that you can handle whatever work throws at you, but nothing you have to do in your professional life will ever be as bad. On top of that, you win membership in a tribe: going through such a challenging experience with a group of people is a real bonding experience and you come out not as a class of individuals but a sort of family, and can look out for each other and give each other a hand up. It's your first place to start making connections, a headstart on your network, and this is an industry that runs on networking.
2. Worst Journey in the World, please explain why you are addicted to this series?
I wish I knew for sure, but I have some theories. It's similar to Master and Commander, which I was also obsessed with, in many ways – it's a small group of people faced with challenge after challenge; against nature, against each other, against a largely unseen opposing party. It's got a quest, and friendship, and science, but mostly it's just trying to survive. They're painfully naïve and are in way over their heads, but keep grinding on regardless ... they're so infuriatingly, adorably English. It's got a lot of ... I don't know if there's a term for it, but ... plot strings that connect a point at the beginning with a point at the end, in a satisfying payoff kind of way? This can work either in comedy or tragedy and it seems to make the story really ring, like when a guitar is made just right and even just tapping it with your finger sets off a resonant tone. In this case, of course, it's a tragedy, and SUCH a tragedy, even more so for it being almost entirely self-inflicted. Tragedy is cathartic, and as my icon says, I am a catharsis junkie. It's the sort of story that, if it were a movie cast with good-looking young men, would probably spawn volumes of fanfiction, but since it's locked away in Radioland it never will – but the depth and variety of characters and their dynamics with each other, the sort of things that bring the characters to life in your head and would feed the fanfic crowd, are the things that keep me interested as well.
I think more than anything, though, it was just the right thing at the right time: it was an adventure in the cold with a bunch of characters whose company I enjoyed, at a time when I was lonely and hot and firmly lodged in routine. The most recent bout of obsession can probably be put down to the BBC iPlayer not working on my work computer and I needed something narrative and dramatic to listen to while drawing. I was drawing happy cheering animals, too, so I needed something with a tone that would offset that. And of course it's a really gorgeous production, with fantastic acting and sound and such atmosphere! I can disappear into it much more easily than into an audiobook. Oddly enough though, the first time I listened to it I wasn't overly taken with it – I mean, it was entertaining enough that it got me to listen to the Classic Serial which I don't normally do, but it was only after running out of fresh radio amusements, and deciding to listen to part 2 a second time, that I really fell in love with it. Was that rambly enough? :)
3. What made you go, "I want to do animation for the rest of my life."
I think the responsibility is split between the Redwall series and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've always seen books as movies in my head, and I loved my mental movies of the Redwall books so much that I wanted to get them out of my head and into the real world, and I wanted Hunchback's tone and level of production quality. And while I had known how animation was done for most of my life, and loved the making-of specials as a child, it wasn't until reading The Art of Hunchback that I realized animators started out as ordinary people. I liked to draw! I liked animation! I could become an animator too! Then one of our family friends who did freelance storyboards let me play with his animation paper and disk and I was hooked.
I am being dangerously free-spirited here – question 4 would have caused me to divulge more than I felt comfortable, so I shall answer both optional Question 5s instead.
5a. How do you keep sane in crunch times?
Short answer: BBC radio.
Long answer: I'm usually a pretty low-stress person and am happy as a clam to be holed up in my cube all day no matter how long the 'day' might be. There was only one time I nearly lost it: I was working on a really banal and unrewarding preschool show and it was my first time doing storyboards, at which I am really slow. I was doing them in Flash because that way I could approach them like animation, which I can read and understand; I can't think straight when drawing in boxes across a page as is typical for TV boards. Also if memory serves the production was trying to go paperless. Anyway, I had boarded a sequence, but when it came time to print it out only the first few panels were there, and I had to take a day or so to replace what had been lost. I ended up having to take the board home for the weekend to finish up, but when I tried to load it onto my computer it turned out the file was corrupted, and I had to start from scratch. The board was due Monday so I spent all weekend, late into the night, trying to finish it, but when I got it back to work that file had been corrupted too, so I got a very generous extension to Tuesday morning and spent all Monday and Monday night scribbling through it for the third time. What was worse, to me, than the computer problems and the sheer mountain of work I had to keep redoing, was the fact that even when I reached the point where I couldn't work anymore I couldn't sleep. I was just set on 'GO.' It will be a long time before I forget standing in the kitchen at 2:30 on Monday morning, on the verge of tears, downing a hot milk-and-brandy in a desperate effort to just get some sleep. So yeah, whenever I find myself in a crunch time, I can just look back on that and suddenly whatever I have to cope with doesn't look so bad.
Also I am not freezing to death in Antarctica. That is an important thing to remember.
5b. What's living in LA like?
Of course you ask me this at the nicest time of year, when it's been raining enough that there is actual greenery even in places without sprinklers, and the average daytime temperature is under 25°C, and we're on the brink of jasmine season so the great pink clouds of perfume are beginning their nighttime rambles... Yeah, it's pretty great from about January to May. Otherwise it's hot and boring. The city doesn't work like a city should, the food tastes like mall food, the water is gross, everything's too far away, all my friends live in different parts of the city ... usually this is made up for by the heaven that is work, but I don't know what it'll be like when Frog finishes. It's bound to be better than last year, though, because I know how to get to the more interesting parts of town now and have forgotten what it's like to live someplace actually nice, so what I see around me isn't so bad by contrast. There are lots of interesting things here, and stuff is always happening ... So it's okay I guess. In the spring. If you have a great job, and know where to find the cool stuff, or have a time machine that can take you back to the 20s when the city was AWESOME. Unfortunately I haven't found one of those yet.
If you would like five questions of your own to answer, please comment ... be warned I am in the mood for asking silly questions though. :)
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