Archive for the ‘student’ Category

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

Theory: Retro Cartoons Are A Dead End

Retro cartoons are a dead end

Last night at our Animation Resources screening, some of the students from Laguna College of Art and Design asked me what I thought of “retro cartoons”. Everyone assumes that because I know a lot about old cartoons, I must think that old fashioned cartoons are the way to go today. I surprised them by saying that I think retro cartoons are a complete dead end.

Irish cops, candlestick telephones and hobos with all their belongings wrapped in a hankerchief on a stick may have been relevant to audiences sometime in the distant past, but today, they are just empty archetypes- symbols that have no real world connection any more. I love Fleischer’s “Minnie the Moocher” and “Snow White”, but that music has absolutely no relevance to contemporary young people, and the primary reason these cartoons are so much fun today is because the passage of time has obliterated the topical contexts of the gags and just left behind puzzling, surreal non-sequiturs. The Queen’s face turns into frying pans and skeletons sing about 20 dollar gold pieces on their watch chains… These things seem weird and otherworldly to us because people today don’t say phrases like “She was so mad her eyes looked like fried eggs” and we don’t know that if your dead body has a 20 dollar gold piece on the watch chain it means you didn’t leave behind any debts for your heirs. What’s the point of doing a WWII A card gas rationing gag today, or using character designs based on caricatures of celebrities that died half a century ago? References like that just serve to distance the audience from the characters and draw them out of the story being told.

Making retro cartoons is like dressing up in your grandfather’s suit and pretending to be him. You may superficially resemble him, but your grandmother isn’t going to be fooled. But the biggest obstacle by far is competing with golden age artists on a quality level- that is VERY hard, and competing with them on their own playing field is absolutely impossible. The best you can hope to achieve through imitation is “almost as good as the original”.

Characters like Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse were fantastic in their day. Audiences connected with them and the artists creating them were expressing aspects of their own personalities. But “reboots” of NEW Bugs Bunny and NEW Mickey Mouse cartoons don’t connect with contemporary audiences the same way, and the artists making them struggle to psychically channel a character that represented their great-grandfather’s time, not their own. I produced a retro cartoon myself, and I am proud of it, but the things I admire most about it are the NEW ideas the director brought to the classic characters. The elements we were able to recreate from the original cartoons are the least successful things about the cartoons. In retrospect, I think we would have been better off doing an original story using new characters.

Nostalgia for the past isn’t just a problem for fans of classic cartoons from the 30s and 40s. Many students at animation schools think like fans, not like film makers. If you ask a fan what kind of cartoon he or she would make if they could make any film they want, they describe styles that they have seen before… 90s Disney, Anime, the “wacky” TV cartoons they grew up with… But if you ask a film maker what kind of cartoon he or she would like to make, they speak in terms of ideas. Nostalgia is a very strong pull on young artists. The cartoons they grew up with were probably the inspiration for wanting to become an animator in the first place, but the first thing they must do to become a film maker is to leave those things in the past and move forward serving their own creative muse.

Too many animation students come out of college unable to make the leap from thinking like a fan to thinking like an artist. They cling to nostalgia for their childhood favorites and are unable to function in a workplace that isn’t working in that style any more. Racking up $100,000 in student loans to gain an education in how to draw Sonic the Hedgehog or Animaniacs, or to design characters in the style of Fox & the Hound is a good way to go straight from cap and gown to Starbucks apron. Sadly the vast majority of animation school graduates never realize this until they are out of school and discover that they are unemployable. Schools are producing scores of professional animation fans, and very few professional animators. The fault for this lies not just with the schools, but also with the students who won’t let go of style and study fundamentals.

There is a LOT to be learned from old cartoons, but all of the value embedded in old cartoons to today’s animators lies in the TECHNIQUE, not the content. Whenever someone does a retro cartoon, they always end up getting that totally backwards. They emulate gags, situations and characters from the old cartoons and animate them using the same cheap current animation shortcuts. Instead, they should be using totally new and relevant gags, situations and characters and animating them using the techniques and fundamentals of classic animation. If someone finally figures that out and makes a cartoon using that theory, they stand a chance of creating a film that is BETTER than classic cartoons, not just “almost as good”.

THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

Animation Resources has been sharing treasures from the Animation Archive with its members for over a decade. Every other month, our members get access to a downloadable Reference Pack, full of information, inspiration and animation. The RefPacks consist of e-books jam packed with high resolution scans of great art, still framable animated films from around the world, documentaries, podcasts, seminars and MORE! The best part is that all of this material has been selected and curated by our Board of professionals to aid you in your self study. Our goal is to help you be a greater artist. Why wouldn’t you want to be a member of a group like that?

Membership comes in three levels. General Members get access to a bi-monthly Reference Pack as well as a Bonus RefPack from past offerings in the in-between months. We offer a discounted Student Membership for full time students and educators. And if you want to try out being a member, there is a Quarterly Membership that runs for three months.


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month! That’s 560 pages of great high resolution images and nearly an hour of rare animation available to everyone to download for FREE! https://animationresources.org/join-us-sample-reference-pack/

Sample RefPack

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Wednesday, March 6th, 2024

Advice: Business of Art

SONY DSC

I see a lot of people starting out in animation focusing on the business aspects… creating lots of “product”, pitching show ideas to studios, worrying about people who might ask them to work for free on a personal project, posting ads to groups like this to try to get viewers… I’ve seen people who do all these sorts of things for almost a decade, and still aren’t any further along to success as an animated filmmaker than the day they started.

You don’t become successful in animation by having the “right package”. You become successful because you have the “right stuff”. You can sit down and really animate, do layout, design backgrounds… you have skills in constructive drawing, compositional principles, perspective, anatomy and life drawing, color theory, painting techniques…

Specialization aimed at a specific job title is the absolute WORST thing you can do in school. I went to design school to study graphic design. They taught me type speccing, paste up, how to use a linotype machine… A couple of years later the Macintosh came out and everything I learned was obsolete. The only classes that I still use today are the basic ones… Design 101, Color 101, Drawing 101. Going to a trade school to learn art or filmmaking is a good way to be replaced by outsourcing.

If you want to be an artist, LEARN TO BE AN ARTIST FIRST. With a solid foundation in the fundamentals, you can learn any trade quickly on your own time or on the job. You don’t have to pay a school thousands of dollars to make you an unemployable specialist in a field that is now being done in India or China.

Instead of putting sweat equity into a business opportunity, it’s a lot better to put that effort into investing into yourself and your skills. But that takes hard work, humility, experimentation, and a solid plan for self education. Make personal films, but CHALLENGE YOURSELF. Don’t just fill time quotas. That’s the hard way to become successful for sure, but it’s a sure road for advancement. “Playing the game” and “doing business” can go in circles forever and get you nowhere.

Members Appreciation

For the past decade, Animation Resources has been serving artists working in the fields of animation, cartooning and illustration. Our volunteers and members have pulled together to raise the bar for our art form, and it’s time to celebrate… It’s Members Appreciation time again!

During the month of February, Animation Resources expresses our appreciation for to members with a very special Reference Pack, and we invite you to become a member too. For the next 30 days, we will be sharing reasons why you should join us. Our benefits of membership far exceed the cost of our annual dues.

Dollar Days

This year, we are trying something new to encourage new memberships. You can join for a one week trial membership for only A DOLLAR! Yes, you get access to everything our annual members get for seven days for only a buck. (Click here for the details on our Dollar Days.) What are you waiting for?

You can find out what our members get at the Member Appreciation Page. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

Members Appreciation Month

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Wednesday, February 28th, 2024

We might be living through a potential Renaissance. Why aren’t you a part of it?

artistic renaissance

Art is a language. You have to be exposed to it, analyze it, break it down and understand it if you want to create it. The best way to become a better artist is to challenge yourself and surround yourself with good examples and creative people. It takes work and energy. It isn’t necessarily something that you are born with, and it’s not something you can come up with in a vacuum. You have to open your mind up and let the ideas in.

Think about what it was like for artists in the past… Johann Sebastian Bach had to travel two weeks by foot to attend school. The artistic treasures of the world belonged to royalty and the upper classes- the average person had no access to it. Education was something that was reserved for the special few who could afford it, or the ones who could find a rich patron to finance their education.

Flash forward to today. We live in an era that provides tremendous opportunities to artists. The internet brings the entirety of human culture to us with the click of a mouse. We can interact with creative people on social media and learn from them by following their progress and reading their posts. Our work can be instantly distributed to the whole world for free over YouTube or Instagram. Artists can communicate directly with their audience and the audience can feed back to the artist in real time.

We should be living through a golden age of creativity, right? Well, why aren’t we?

artistic renaissance

The problem with modern day artistic culture is that people take it for granted. We’re surrounded by images, music, film, performance, architecture, in dozens of different media- websites, YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, video games, television, cell phones, computers… the list goes on and on. People have become so immersed in art that they don’t value it. Imagine telling Bach that he could sit down at his desk and instantly access the greatest music from the past 400 years. What would that mean to him? Does it mean the same thing to you?

If you’re an animator, cartoonist or illustrator, the internet is awash in great reference material. How much time do you spend exposing yourself to new ways of expressing yourself? How often do you set aside time to break down reference to learn how it works? Which artists’ works have you studied carefully to try to understand and assimilate the things that made them great?

Be honest. How much do you use the internet to become a better artist, and how much do you use it to tweet pictures of your lunch or share kitten memes? The internet is the greatest thing to happen to culture in the whole history of mankind, but how much do we appreciate it and utilize it to move us and our art forward?

There are schools that teach animation and charge a hundred thousand dollars for a degree. There are archives that collect films and artwork, but they’re a thousand miles or more away from you. You might as well be back in the 1700s walking two weeks to school and not having access to art unless you are part of the upper classes.

artistic renaissance

What if you could become a part of a community of artists that is using the internet to create a new way of learning about art? Would you take advantage of that opportunity?

Every day of the week, Animation Resources gives you good, solid reference and inspiration. Every one of those things are reasons why you should be a member of our organization. We’ve told you about our podcasts, e-books and downloadable animated films. Obviously, there are a lot of great perks for being a member. But there’s an even better reason to join…

You should be a member because Animation Resources is the only organization that is using the power of the internet to create a culture of education, sharing and growth for artists involved in this field.

That should be enough, shouldn’t it? It’s just as important for working professionals as it is for students. When learning and growth stops, so does creativity. It’s not just about inventing. It’s also about reinventing yourself. If you stop doing that, don’t be surprised if the art form moves on and you’re left in the dust.

Animation Resources isn’t taking the potential of the internet for granted. And we aren’t charging you a hundred thousand dollars to take advantage of our knowledge base. We want to do a lot more. We want to bring our archive database to you. But we can’t do that unless artists pull together and all pitch in to support the organization that supports them. Lately, I’ve heard several artists say, “I’ll join your group when you have everything up on your site for downloading.” That totally misses the point of what Animation Resources is providing. We can go on tweeting our lunch and sharing kitten memes, or we can harness the power of the internet as a community. Self study and artistic growth is a process, not a destination.

Everyone talks about going back to the “golden age” of animation. Even though we share old animation with our members, Animation Resources doesn’t want to go backwards. We want to use the experience of the past and the technology of the present to create an future that surpasses everything that came before. Isn’t that what you want too? Then why aren’t you a member of our community?

It’s up to you. Don’t take it for granted.

Members Appreciation

For the past decade, Animation Resources has been serving artists working in the fields of animation, cartooning and illustration. Our volunteers and members have pulled together to raise the bar for our art form, and it’s time to celebrate… It’s Members Appreciation time again!

During the month of February, Animation Resources expresses our appreciation for to members with a very special Reference Pack, and we invite you to become a member too. For the next 30 days, we will be sharing reasons why you should join us. Our benefits of membership far exceed the cost of our annual dues.

Dollar Days

This year, we are trying something new to encourage new memberships. You can join for a one week trial membership for only A DOLLAR! Yes, you get access to everything our annual members get for seven days for only a buck. (Click here for the details on our Dollar Days.) What are you waiting for?

You can find out what our members get at the Member Appreciation Page. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

Members Appreciation Month

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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