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?

Critique Session: Approaching every art student’s fear the right way

Critique- it’s the single word that every artist dreads. It’s putting yourself on the front line for criticism, where the very foundations of something that you made out of love is thrown into the direct line of fire. If someone tells you they look forward to a critiquing session they are a pathological liar. There is nothing more difficult and more rewarding than a critiquing session. More often than not though, the lines between what is an acceptable critique and what is flat out uncalled for are blurred. In fact, there is an unspoken moral code that I find comes with critiquing effectively.

So what is it? How do you avoid causing the inevitable sting and burning pain that comes along with critiquing someone’s artwork?

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?

Telling Yourself You Are an Artist

I’ve been back in school for only four weeks and I’m already pulling all nighters and shedding tears of aggravation into the wee hours of the morning because I can’t seem to draw correctly, understand the finicky program, and am just plain tired and frustrated with myself and everything that I am trying to do.  It’s very easy for me to say that during these past couple of weeks I have been pushed to a near breaking point. In a way, I am incredibly grateful to my professors here at Dodge for pushing us so hard this year. And as I start to slowly creep my way closer to having to create my senior thesis, I am (silently) happy that all of this is happening.  Up until this point, I haven’t been this challenged in any assignment, haven’t been critiqued so horribly that I drive home with tears in my eyes, and haven’t felt so incredibly inferior and terrible at animation and art during my entire time here at college.

Deep down I think that I am just going through a phase, but then one of my classmates snapped this picture of me during our study session at Starbucks and what I saw startled me. I couldn’t even recognize me. How could this stress ball be the same girl who was so excited and enthusiastic and full of good ideas just last year? Stress has already taken over my life, so how do you cope with all of this? How do you cope with the feeling that you are terrible at art? How do you snap out of all of it?