I have a lot of respect for Ze Frank, and I adored his year-long project, The Show. So many people have said things similar to this, but it’s always a good thing to hear again. In summary: if you want to make stuff, make stuff. It’s the only way you’ll get past the point of making things to the point of having made stuff. Then you get to make more stuff. So go make stuff!
Thoughts on the Creative Career (by zefrankenfriends)
Incredible advice by a man I’ve long admired.
(via zyrenskistudios)
One of my favourite pieces by Roger Ebert is his “Great Movies” appreciation of Spirited Away (read it in full here). At the end of the piece he details an encounter he had with Hayao Miyazaki himself, where Miyazaki defines one of the key differences between the work of Studio Ghibli and mainstream American animation. I can see his words relating to comics as well, and these words are well-worth reading for any creative and parent.
Here is the excerpt from Ebert’s piece:
I was so fortunate to meet Miyazaki at the 2002 Toronto film festival. I told him I love the “gratuitous motion” in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or sigh, or gaze at a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.
“We have a word for that in Japanese,” he said. “It’s called ‘ma.’ Emptiness. It’s there intentionally.” He clapped his hands three or four times. “The time in between my clapping is ‘ma.’ If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness.”
I think that helps explain why Miyazaki’s films are more absorbing than the frantic action in a lot of American animation. “The people who make the movies are scared of silence” he said, “so they want to paper and plaster it over,” he said. “They’re worried that the audience will get bored. But just because it’s 80 percent intense all the time doesn’t mean the kids are going to bless you with their concentration. What really matters is the underlying emotions—that you never let go of those.
“What my friends and I have been trying to do since the 1970’s is to try and quiet things down a little bit; don’t just bombard them with noise and distraction. And to follow the path of children’s emotions and feelings as we make a film. If you stay true to joy and astonishment and empathy you don’t have to have violence and you don’t have to have action. They’ll follow you. This is our principle.”
He said he has been amused to see a lot of animation in live-action superhero movies. “In a way, live action is becoming part of that whole soup called animation. Animation has become a word that encompasses so much, and my animation is just a little tiny dot over in the corner. It’s plenty for me.”
It’s plenty for me, too.Yes
Yes.
(via ktshy)
Four good life lessons I learned at Pixar that I was thinking about this am:
1/4. Story is king. Don’t just give it lip service but mean it.
2/4: It’s ok to be wrong. Be wrong often and be willing to change your mind fast. You tell a lot of the wrong stories to get the right one.
3/4: Don’t hesitate to throw away work and re-do it, especially if it lets you tell a better story.
4/4: Kind people who collaborate on a team, with a clear leader, tell better stories than unkind mini-dictators who think they know it all.
(via explore-blog)
The feeling that we’ll never be “good enough” isn’t something to remove, my dear grey-faced pudding-pop, it’s the cold, hard, and universal truth that pushes us forward whether we’re amateurs or masters of our crafts.
If I feel I’m good enough at any point in my life, I’ll be both a massive disappointment to the tiny angel-winged/shoulder-mounted version of me, and have effectively cheated myself of exploring my own human capacity. Like many problems that people face, how you use the struggle will determine its effect on you. It’s shockingly easy to let the abstract fear of never amounting to anything cripple you into a sobbing, fetal-position-assuming, ball of angst and pouting, but (though more difficult) turning that fear on its head and using it as the glorious fire under your ass to keep moving… well it keeps you alive and willing to attempt to make that life worthwhile.
I get embarrassingly giddy when I see artists 40-50 years older than myself and their work has evolved exponentially over the course of their lives, continues to do so, and that even near the end, they feel their work still won’t be good enough after their dying breath. You can see that as a morbid and depressing thought, sure, OR you can see it as a delightful and life-affirming reminder that most people are never happy with who they are and what they’re capable of — but we get to spend our lifetime improving our skills and subsequently — ourselves.
(via explore-blog)
(nabbed from James Sturm’s article on www.cartoonstudies.org)
Chuck Forsman and Melissa Mendes were kind enough to return to WRJ last week as visiting artists. They talked about their comics, Oily Comics, and life after CCS. During the Q&A a student asked what advice they…
