Ian's Rambles - Cliché

Between other distractions and posts I’m going to work my way through some of my major Big No No’s for student short films and then will put up an index post that links to them all when I get to the end.

We have already looked at wether a student film needs to be long, now I want to talk about the evil of the cliché.

Flikr image By Lil Erna

I’ll tell you about the worst thing you can ever say to your animation teacher, “Yeah I know it’s a cliché, but I’m kinda doing a caricature of a cliché, kinda plying with it and putting my own spin on it.” It this kind of talk that’s likely to make steam start pouring from my ears, or I might just excuse myself quietly in the middle of the conversation, calmly leave the room, stick my head in the nearest hole and scream my lungs out.

Here is the thing, I know this may be hard to believe, but teachers aren’t all idiots (some maybe, but not all). If we assert that your film is cliché then that’s because it is, not because the subtle nuances of you extremely clever and subtle concept have eluded us. In case you hadn’t noticed we have seen a few film is our day and we get it.

The sad truth is that the student is often just trying to divert attention away from the fact that they couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort to come up with something original. There I go sounding cynical again, I suppose it going to be hard to avoid when I’m writing about stuff I DON’T want to see in your films.

So what’s the big deal? If you want to make a cliché then what business is it of ours? We are just here to show you how it works, and what you do with it is your business, right?

You see the problem is that we care. We care about you as a person and we care about your future. Lets be honest, we also care that you are going to wander out in to the world and apply for jobs with that cliché on your show reel and tell them how wonderful your teachers were for letting you make it. You see I can tell you from having sat on the opposite side of the job interview table that if you’re going to go out and apply for jobs with a cliché idea on your reel you may as well stamp “I have no imagination” on your forehead before you go.

I’m going to do my best to back up all of these posts with opinions and advice from other (perhaps more respected) folk. I cant imagine finding a more respected point of view than that of the great Ward Kimble, in this amazing letter he wrote to present day animator Will Finn back in the 70s.

My Favourite quote, “Curiosity is the key word. See everything! Do everything! Find out what makes everything tick. How does it work? What motivated this---What motivated that. Learn from others, BUT DON'T COPY THEM! Try to retain your individualism while learning the basic rules. Don't be dogmatic because you're going to change your mind about what you like and what you dislike hundreds of times before you're thirty!”

Here is another one from the Temple Of The Seven Golden Camels blog, run by veteran storyboard artist Mark Kennedy. He has a two part post entitled Advice for Students on his Blog that is all gold (part 1, part 2).

I like, “Relying on a cliché can be comforting because you're building on something that's a known quantity. It can be easy to rationalize as well. After all, you say you want to show off your skills as an animator - not as a character designer - so why not just draw characters that are only slight variations on what we've all seen before? Why waste timing searching around for a fresh design when you really want to spend your time focusing on animating? Well, because re-using an old design will inevitably cause you to fall into the same expressions and acting patterns as whoever animated it the first time - it's unavoidable. You won't be able to divorce your mind from the performance you've already associated with that design. You won't invent a new personality because that would be impossible - your mind already perceives that design as having a personality assigned to it. Any audience that sees it will have a hard time forgetting the personality they already know and accepting whatever new character you're trying to sell. It's an uphill battle and it's pointless.”

I don’t have a link for this one, but it’s a quote from a guy named Randy Cook from Weta Digital, “Study acting, keep your eyes open and learn from life, not from movies. And, above all, try to bring something of yourself to your work. You, after all, are unique”

Here from Nick Park founder of Aardman Animation in the last line of this interview, "So, my advice to young animators? Tell a good story, for heaven's sake"

Here in the comments section of this post from Stephen G of Pixar, "Great Animation Always Has Original Ideas. "

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. Here is a question for you. If the animation or film idea you are so keen to copy had been a copy of something or a cliché when it was made, would you love it as much as you do? If there is a piece of work you love to bits, that is burnt into your mind, chances are you had never seen anything like it before. That aspect is what you should be trying to replicate, the ability come up with something totally new and engaging.

Sounds scary I know, but don’t worry, we are in this together. Better to go down in a blaze of glory than to prove how mediocre you are by copying someone else’s idea.