More from the Pulpit!

From the very beginning I have pondered to what extent I should use this Blog for editorializing, my fear has always been that if I preach too much then students just won't keep coming back. It kind of fits into a weird place between official tafe stuff and my own thing. Its definitely not something I get paid for, but is something that I started to benefit our students. What’s an opinionated animation teacher to do.

Anyway I definately don't think I could get away with much of this kind of thing, but maybe just for my own sanity I can slip in an opinion every now and then. I seem to be kind of breaking the blog up into sections, we have "Blog of the Week" and now "From the Pulpit". I will try to keep these informative and not just self indulgent.

You didn't have to look to hard today to see that I was having a frustrating day in the trenches. You can ask any of the SBIT friends that I have worked with (most of em) and they will tell you that I'm no different in a professional context, I wear my heart on my sleeve, its a mixed blessing.

So now that the dust has settled and I'm feeling a bit more composed I thought I might try to summarize my thoughts. More than half of my time today involved me going back over procedural aspects that I had already covered several times in class (mainly with first year students). Good students, intelligent students who are progressing and developing as artist and have up until now demonstrated a strong willingness to learn have been throwing out the systems we have practiced during the year in order to try something that they think will be quicker and easier. There is no point in finding a quicker way to do something if it means the quality suffers and the only reason I show students particular methods or procedures in the first place is in order to help them achieve a higher quality of work.

In a conversation late in the day with second year student Sam I was reminded of a word that Andi Sparks (head of the Griffith Anim course) used when speaking at a film screening we (and a few other students) attended. She described the industry approach to animation as arbitrary which is in the dictionary as....

Depending on individual discretion (as of a judge) and not fixed by standards, rules, or law

In the case of an animation studio that Judge would be the person who signs the checks, and that person will expect the work to be done according to the system that they have in place or they will get someone else who will in your place. It is that simple and that blunt, there are no explanations given as to why (although there are often good reasons that young students aren’t likely to have a grasp of yet), it is just the way it is.

SOOOOOOO! The next time you are considering the easy way out, or are just too lazy consider, or ask about the procedure to do something before you leap in, imagine yourself on your first day of work at a new studio. Would you rather be well practiced in the systems they are applying or do you want to look like a hack. You may find yourself kicked back out the door before you know what hit you. The procedure is important, I choose the procedures I teach in class because I believe they will help you get better at animating and are industry relevant. Is this really the place for teenaged rebellion or slackness? Get a funny haircut, yell at me, glue yourself to your playstation when your not animating, put a nappy on your head and sing 1950's show tunes all day, I've don't my fair share of rebelling in my day and here is a picture to prove it. But I love animation (always have) and I'm afraid I expect the same of you, which means WE should be hungry for this information. How do they do it? Can we do it that way? Isn’t this why your studying in the first place?

This is me and an old friend Ida at the pub, its not haloween I used to look like that every day. In fact I looked something like this the day I was promoted as one of the youngest team leaders in the history of Disney Australia (an angry young man, but getting into a learning about animation like there was no tomorrow)

Some people try to get me to see things more from the students point of view, “they are young, they don’t know what they want out of life yet, they don’t have the experience to see the value in these things,” etc. These things are sometimes true, and I know it can be intimidating having me (or anyone) paw over you work picking out problems with the way you have done it (as is evidenced by the way some of you try so hard to avoid it). But they don’t change the equation you face at the end of the course; you are more likely to succeed if you have come to terms with these procedural issues (that is the correct way to approach the work). So even if I am setting myself up for failure by trying, I intend to keep plugging away in the hope that I may get through to some of you. Hence this post…. Till next time.