I was talking on skype last night with one of the animators on TNK in the UK who I've been becoming quite good friends with lately. Great guy, super funny in his own pommy self deprecating kind of way which reminds me of myself in an egotistic kind of way.
Anyway, we were talking about animation in general... and how it's a 'discipline', in that you can't really do it properly while doing anything else (listening to music, podcasts, talking, eating, thinking about other stuff)... You need to do it with your whole self. And that is hard because it's actually really terrible to do. It's tedious, heart wrenching, emotional stuff that even after doing a few minutes of gives me a funny feeling in my gut. But for some reason I keep doing it. It must be rewarding in some way. And it is, I know it is. But exactly where the reward is I'm still unsure.
So what's the difference between the animator who gives his or her life to the craft/discipline of it, and he/she who doesn't? I don't actually know! Less reward? You hate it even more? Doing it for the wrong reasons? I'm just totally unsure. Speaking of being unsure, there seems to be VERY few animators who actually know what they're doing. I take myself as one of these people. We kind of swing our animation swords around in the darkness, perhaps make a few lucky frames of half decent animation here or there, but still have no idea how or why it worked out the way it did. And I kind of take this as most animators. You see people's reels, and you see their swimmy, shitty, floaty-ass character movements... then a flash... a moment of pure genius, either acting or timing and space or something! Something jumps out, then it fades back into obscurity. Why are there so few people who seem to have the eye for this? I use the term 'eye' flippantly, too. Because there is more to it than just being able to see stuff and know what to do, surely.
The other part of it being a discipline for me, is this dualism of personalities that seems to happen whenever I animate.
For instance I'll do 45 minutes of 'animation', playing music or with emails/facebook open... then say to myself 'Well done!!! You got so much done. Go and eat an ice-cream and play xbox for the rest of the day, you deserve it. You can sit back down to animate later tonight, you won't be tired and just want to sleep, be a normal person! Go and socialize... you're still single? Go out more!!'
Then the other part of me is saying '45 minutes, right that's a shit start... Don't you dare stand up and do something else. You don't get to be the best by doing nothing all day! You know what you need to do to get better... SO JUST DO IT!'
Then there's this third part of me, saying 'Guys! Stop fighting.. just be fucking normal for once please?'
It's all very exhausting. Even now, as I type this blog entry, I'm thinking I shouldn't be doing this. I should be animating. I should be working on furthering my skills. With this, video games loose all appeal they once had. I find it hard to 'have fun' playing them anymore as they're close to the ultimate leisure activity (second from sleeping), because you're not achieving anything when you're playing a game. Apart from relaxing a bit, maybe getting some kind of intangible in game rewards. It just feels so wasteful.
Alright, time to go self loath, feel good about myself, practice or not practice or something.
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