8 Critical Life Lessons No One Tells you in Film & Art School

It’s somewhere we have all been, or are about to face. Art school is long over and your hunt for your first big gig has officially started. It’s scary, its aggressive, and sometimes, it is just too much to handle. The struggle for all of us 20-somethings trying to find our niche in the working world, no matter what your area is, is challenging. For artists however, especially for those wanting to get into the entertainment industry, the struggle is too real.

You aren’t alone, my fellow 20 something. I’m going through it too. While we can’t change our circumstances, there are things that we can take away from this process and leave advice for one another as well as for those about to graduate. There are some very, very big things our schools didn’t prepare us for that I’ve started to learn from those I’ve met in the industry. As tough as it is to face some of them, I think it’s time to take a good hard look at them and learn from them. (Read on)

Why a background in everything BUT art actually makes you the better artist

Going to a liberal arts college was one of the greatest decisions I have ever made for expanding my artistic abilities. Now I know many artists might disagree with me on this. How can going to a school and not studying art help you find a job in the animation and games industry?

It is a question that I have continually asked myself for the past four years as I finished my college degree, and the one that I know many other students in my field have asked themselves. After spending a long time reflecting on my personal experiences and strange background that got me into the world of animation and gaming, as well as learning from my friends who attended to strong art schools, I really have one opinion:

No, going to an arts school doesn’t make you more prepared or better than liberal arts college students, or those artists that are self taught.

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I’m Graduating, with an Interest in…Everything?!

If you asked me four years ago what I would be doing on this day at this very moment, I would have told you that I would be taking my senior portraits in my over-sized cap and gown, degree in hand, ready to take on the advertising world with my super awesome graphic design poster making skills. Boy was I wrong about that life goal.

As I finish designs for my very last undergraduate course on the week before graduation, I am reminded just how quickly my dreams and life goals have changed in the course of the two years since I decided to drop everything I knew and switch my major to animation at the film school.  I’m never really one for coming up with deep, insightful, life-changing advice, but my mind has begun racing with all of the uncertainty and hopes that new college graduates face. While most strangers spend their energy inquiring what I am going to do after graduation, I spend just as much time telling them the truth.

Like most college graduates, I have no idea what I will be doing tomorrow. What I do know is that I want to do absolutely everything…and that is the problem.

“Pantomime”, my CG animated thesis film, is complete. Now what?

Standing Out with Your Style

Ever since freshmen year at college, I have been wrestling with my drawings and myself. As weird as it really is, my biggest struggle hasn’t necessarily been creating art (though sometimes that is the hardest thing for me to do), it has been trying to grasp the idea of finding what my artistic style is.

Since day one of art classes I have taken during my time here, professors have been pressing us to figure out our own unique style. The emphasis, according to one professor I have had, should be on discovering the way you draw and the way you create. “It separates you from everyone else and you need to find it now to really hone in on it by the time you graduate. The goal is to have someone who barely knows you say, “Oh, yes. So and so drew that.” Think of it like how we know a Glen Keane drawing and an Eric Goldberg drawing. You must be that unique in order to succeed.”

For the longest time, I have struggled with this concept of defining my art style. And it wasn’t until last week when I had a sudden epiphany did I truly understand what my professors were trying to tell me. Though, despite all of this, I once again have more questions than answers.

 

In college we are told to be unique art students, with our own unique art style. But for those in animation, how can we truly be unique in a project that requires us to conform and draw like everyone else? How can we have our own unique style when we are told to duplicate?

A Degree in Animation is a Degree in Absolutely Everything

To be honest, when I first found out about the Digital Arts program at my university, I thought it might have been just all fun and games in a really laid back industry. After all, how could the entertainment industry truly be difficult? All you are doing is making things that make people happy! In some respects, I was right; animation is indeed fun. Though, for the most part, I was dead wrong.

I find that when I tell people I am in school studying animation they have one of two reactions; either they react like my Fantasyland attractions trainers at work last week with a shocked and excited look and start yelling out a thousand questions about animation with a, “Wow! Oh wow! How cool! You can draw then? Do you want to work at the studios??” or they react like most people at my school when they see me wandering around on main campus with my animation table. They think it’s useless and pointless and the easy way out (and I’ve been blatantly been told by a random girl I should major in something ‘practical’ like business).

Last week famous Disney producer, Don Hahn (who produced such films like Beauty and the Beast, Who Framed Rogger Rabbit?, and The Lion King) came to our school to speak. He brought up an interesting point that I can’t really stop thinking about. He said that animation, in its entirety, is the highest form of art. It’s the culmination of every aspect of being human.

What makes the Classics, classic?

I was called a high school drop out whose only real job would amount to pushing strollers, I’ve evacuated Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin at least four times a week, I got into four light saber fights with young jedis with my guest control wandand somehow lost every time, I taught a young Pirate how to conduct the fireworks, I was forced into a guest’s family picture just because I had their same last name and it made their day, I took a scared little girl who was too afraid to ride the rollercoaster and made her an honorary Cast Member for a day and taught her how to group people onto numbers  (which she did a far greater job than me), I danced (rather poorly) to all the parts of Fantasmic! for three weeks straight even though guests laughed at me, I gave the answer to “Where is the closest restroom?” and “What time are the 9:30 fireworks?” at least a hundred times, and I gave a little Cinderella and her family new hope when I unknowingly gave the newly diagnosed cancer stricken girl a glass slipper while she was waiting in line only to be given the biggest hug of my life from her grateful mom, and I went home and cried because I felt that for once I was in the right place at the right time.

Needless to say, it was a crazy six months and a tiring summer at Disneyland, but I love my new job more than anything. And these past sixth months have been life changing and eye opening for me. I not only learned how to deal with people from all walks of life, or what I learned about myself, but I also  learned a lot more about Walt Disney and the company, the magic, and legacy he left behind.

Artists: The world’s greatest export

When I was a junior in high school, I wasn’t afraid of the future. I wasn’t surprised that I was nearly half way done with my required four years of “secondary education”, nor was I sad to be almost done with the whirlwind drama that was high school. In fact, during that in-between summer I was excited, anxious even, to finally get to leave that school and move on into my higher education at a college. It’s funny how things change. Now here I am, sitting in an apartment on an empty college campus on what is summer vacation for most students, and fearing the fact that I am now a junior. I am desperately trying to grasp the idea that I am exactly half way through college. I feel like I’m not ready for what comes after graduation; the job search, the probable rejections, and the race to make a living. And I still fear that I don’t know enough to even be considered a junior. It’s terrifying.

For me, this summer is going to be all about change. I have a new job at the happiest place on earth that I work nearly every day of the week, I’m meeting new people, I’m challenging my patience and improving my interpersonal skills, and I’m finding myself alone for the first time in my life. Though, despite all of these exciting changes and new experiences, I am still here in limbo. I know that in the next three months, while I may be having the time of my life, I am growing closer and closer to the reality that I am nearly done with schooling. And with that comes the reality of what majoring in Digital Arts truly means.

Design, Story, and Animation: The Walt Disney Archive Series

I suppose to the kind employees at my local Barnes and Noble, I might be a creepy loner with nothing better to do during the middle of the week except wander around the cases of books that I can never afford on my meager college budget. It is sad but true, but while nearly everyone else parties it up on the weekend at my school, I often find myself in my dorm room in front of a blank sketch book and tearing myself apart when I can’t think of what to draw. It’s at that point that I always find myself behind the wheel of my car and driving down the long stretch of road to our beautiful bookstore. And in all honesty, this happens nearly every other week.

You see, I am having a secret affair in the back of the bookstore. It’s with the Film and Television section. It is here that I will sit on the ground and marvel at the creativity and the sheer passion of the artists whose work grace the pages of the art and visual development books for all of our favorite films. And it was in this location that I discovered the series of art books that have inspired and changed my life in ways I didn’t think possible.

Creating the magic, one storyboard panel at a time.

There is always a battle going on in every field of study of who has the most important job. Like in any field, the film and entertainment industry is no exception. For the longest time, I really thought the only people that were part of a film were the actors (if they looked good) and the director (if there were pictures of them behind the camera). As time has gone on however, I have learned that this is not the case. There are hundreds of individuals who are part of the film making process, be it craft services, 1^st AD, Casting Director, Gaffer, Key Grip or the Best Boy. They are the unseen heroes that help make the films, television shows, shorts, and commercials that we have come to know and love a reality. I really want to help shed some light into one such position that I have found most intriguing yet is hardly ever mentioned in the production of animated and live action films. A job which merges my two greatest loves, art and story.

Its a job that lies within the heart of the film, where both a passion for art and an immense love for storytelling collide. Meet the storyboard artist; an individual with a job so important that he has the ability to make or break a film.

Inspiration takes hold during a visit to Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Was there ever a moment in your life when you felt so many happy feelings that you wanted to literally wanted to tell the world how you were feeling? Where you were so joyously overwhelmed that your eyes began to water and you didn’t care that over a hundred people saw you cry? If you were to tell me yes, I would have called you a liar. But I can’t say that anymore…that was me this past week when I literally saw and experienced my dream firsthand. It is easy to say that it was the most inspiring, heart stopping, incredible ten hours of my life.  And for the first time, I know that I will never be the same again. I am writing this from a brand new perspective and a renewed mindset. Yet, what could have been so life changing that could make me feel like such a different person?

Well, because on Thursday, May 31^st I went to the one place in the world I want to be part of more than anything, Walt Disney Animation Studios.