Tag: animation tips

Joining Things

Paul Klee was a phenomenally skilled traditional draftsman who morphed his love of nature with the rich imaginations of his heart. His work is both playful yet mature, both real yet abstract all at the same time.

“You adapt yourself, Paul Klee said, to the contents of the paintbox. Adapting yourself to the contents of the paintbox, he said, is more important than nature and its study. The painter, in other words, does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.” — Annie Dillard

Great things happen when we join things: people to people, people to nature, and ideas to materials. This is what makes our humanity and its innovativeness. It’s also what makes art and how we arrive at synergy; the combinatory effect being greater than the sum of the parts. To make great art we need to join things together in ways both unique and personal. We see one idea and join it with another to arrive at something entirely new.

Here are some quick thoughts about the what and how of putting different things together:

  • Develop a workflow that allows you to comfortably flow between seeing the big picture and working the details. A painter does this when after applying a series of brush strokes, he periodically steps back to see the whole composition.
  • Work on both quality and quantity. Do not test drive one version of an idea but many versions. Make not one painting but ten (and maybe one will be good). Only by multiplying quality of attention by quantity of effort can art be elevated to the next level.
  • In posing, look hard to see both line and form. Line is primarily on the outside; it divides the positive space against the negative (background) space. Form is the shape of what’s inside, its mass, and gives depth and substance.
  • Make sure your compositions — whether an individual layout, or a choreography of movement — have both places of busyness (action) and areas to breathe (silence). This is paramount for creating good contrast and texture. Remember things don’t read without contrast or change.
  • Work both straights and curves into your poses/designs. There’s no formula in terms of a ratio of how much of each but an instinct can be developed. Look to the works of masters to get a better feel for it.
  • Put big things against small things. Creating visual hierarchies of “status” in a composition creates interest and harmony. It also strengthens storytelling.
  • Make sure there are elements in your work that indicate some sort of depth by placing items that are closer/larger against that which is smaller/farther. Sometimes, altering the depth of focus is helpful to create this when adding more physical elements is neither possible or desirable.
  • Join elements of different stylistic choices. Eg. It looks like Klimt but carries the vibrancy of Van Gogh.
  • Join together ideas that seem disparate. Eg. it’s a horror story but one about family values.
  • Find darkness or tragedy in something funny or sweet. Surprise the audience again, not with more information but the quality of information.
  • Consider using a wider camera on an acting shot. Let the characters action say something rich and emotional without depending on facial acting or lip sync. Alternatively, generate action with a series of closeups. For reference, see the final the climax in Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
  • Consider breaking the rules like using a series of jump cuts during a quiet or intimate action. This idea was successfully employed in Steven Soderberg’s movie Out of Sight.
  • Experiment approaching your work like an artist you admire who works very differently from you. Not only will you expand your knowledge/skills but you’ll develop techniques uniquely your own when you combine YOU to THEIR methods.
  • Work with people with ideas different from your own. Find out what can come out of such a challenge or the conflicts that may arise. Then work together as team once you discover new possibilities.
  • If you always fight your fear with boldness, then consider giving into the unknown and see where that takes you. If you tend to always give in to the situation, do the opposite; charge head with vigor and defiance.
  • Sometimes, just let the materials guide you. At other times, let your feelings push those materials around. Work with things like you would in a dance of togetherness, each of you taking turns.

This, of course, is by no means a comprehensive list of options but what you’ll find by exploring and joining things, is that it’s very nice to discover — especially as you age — that you can still surprise yourself. Such a happening is what’s both uniquely and beautifully human. And, in a time of accelerated domination of technology over human activity, nothing could be more relevant.

Seeing the whole

The little seen photography of Stanley Kubrick before his famous filmmaking career. Kubrick was always an excellent photographer and his way of seeing the whole was a key foundation to the compositional beauty and gravity of his movies.

“…if one would solve the everyday problems of existence, whatever they may be, one must first see the wider issues and then come to the detail. After all, the great painter, the great poet is one who sees the whole — who sees all the heavens, the blue skies, the radiant sunset, the tree, the fleeting bird—all at one glance…then he begins to paint, to write, to sculpt; he works it out in detail. — Krishnamurti

Seeing the big picture seems so difficult. Why is that?

I suspect it’s the dominance of our approach to life, which is becoming ever more mechanical and detailed oriented. We are so left-brain dominant. We seem prone to turn our attention to small, busy abstractions. We automatically think they’re somehow more real, more informative and thus far more important than anything else in comparison. Furthermore, details, even triavialities, have a certain urgency about them, make it doubly hard to turn away. Unfortunately, this gets us into tremendous trouble. This is especially so when we use our pin-point acuity at the wrong time.

Timing is everything. We must know when to think and when to do.

Like a bird that’s going about its daily activities, we need to see big and see small. Most prey animals do both at the same time; they keep one eye out for predators (the big picture environment) while it keeps the other eye fixed on the worm in the ground (the small detail). Unfortunately, we humans are unable to operate under this kind of arrangement. Like most predators, our eyes aim stereoscopically to target our prey. Our goals are specific and thus the details before us are both demanding for accuracy and urgency (our target might escape!). And driven by our desire/greed (i.e. getting the worm), we psychologically forget the larger game.

“I make my work emerge naturally… with no apparent effort but thought out at length and worked out from within.” — Joan Miro

The artist does this when he gets so obsessed with the minutiae of specificity — challenging technicalities that reveal themselves in the strain of the moment — that he messes up the main idea. He’s so caught in the busyness of doing and fixing that he doesn’t even realize that the reason he’s struggly so mightily (later on) is because he’s built his work on a bad foundation. He twists and turns, changing this detail and that, even altering the original core essence of his work. Even professionals fall prey to this terrible habit. It’s easy to forget but skill alone is not enough to ensure success.

We must work always from big picture to small, from the ground up and from the inside out.

When we mess with our workflow — the proper procedural approach to creation — we mess up the work. It’s inevitable. Big studios do this; beginning/advancing production on a project before ironing out story issues or even questioning whether they actually have a good idea in the first place. The individual animator does this; fixing and polishing his shot that has terrible acting and design choices. In both cases, they are working to finish something that’s actually never really even begun. Afterall, re-adjusting and polishing garbage can never transform it from being what it is, garbage!

“Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Stop when you realize things are going in the wrong direction.

Too many people, not just artists, just continue onwards despite knowing that they’re going the wrong way. It’s sad but true; habits are hard to break. Call it pride, call it stupidity, but this is almost default behaviour with most people. We repeat the same actions expecting different results. How can this not drive us to bitterness and mad dissappointment?

The solution is simple even if it is hard. (Hint: if it’s too easy and convenient, it’s probably wrong)

The long approach is almost always the right approach. It’s also the simplest. Always spend adequate time to think, explore and plan. Then do the work. Work in order. Review and adjust accordingly, each time checking if you’re on track with the grand design of things. I often remind my own students: First compose the music, then play the music. Design the building before you build it. Learn to see how you actually think and work.

“Consciousness illuminates itself by paying attention to it.” — Albert Camus