And It Begins…

So tonight was my first class at Animation Mentor, and it was great to meet Anthony Wong, my Class I mentor. He’s a great guy with an obvious love of animation. My classmates all seem motivated and excited by animation, and it’s a charge.

One of my more understated goals in this pursuit is to get really excited about animation again. I’m not saying that I’ve become so cynical about the career that I don’t love it anymore, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I still wonder at the fact that they pay me to do this. But it’s been a long run of less than satisfying projects, of compromising and racing through the work with sub-par rigs or having to make up for the lack of studio resources… It can be hard to have real FUN animating under those conditions, and that’s what I’m really excited about. Just being surrounded by so many eager and curious artists reminds me of why I got into this business, and it really is inspiring. I’m looking forward to the conversations deconstructing the elements of animation, and letting my inner animation geek out to play with like-minded people.

And I’m suprising myself with how excited I am about getting back to the basics. I’ve never been one for dealing with the baby steps. Back in my drumming days, I had a book full of rudiments I was supposed to practice. Rolls, flams, ruffs, para-diddles…they’re the building blocks of drumming, and I usually skipped that part, preferring to play rhythms instead. Of course it showed in my mediocre stick speed and accuracy. And when it came to homework, well, let’s say I didn’t waste too much time on it. Now I finally have a chance to correct that in my animation, and more than anything else, prove to myself that I can go through the process of building my skills from the ground up. Being self-taught, there’s constantly the feeling that every time I get a job, it’s just that I managed to fool another studio into believing I know what I’m doing. Once I’ve been through the crucible of the program, and been hopefully cast into better shape, I hope to be rid of that feeling for good.

So this is the first post of what I intend to be a diary of my experiences with Animation Mentor. It’s purpose is mostly to help me organize my thoughts, and help me keep focused on my goals, but if there’s anything in here that can help someone else along the way, that would be sweet, sweet icing on the this cake. I’m still not sure that the front page of my portfolio site is the place for this, so it might move at some point in the future to somewhere less obtrusive, but that is a thought that will have to wait for less hectic times.

In the words of Terran elder Dane: “It has begun.”

And I’m very excited to see where this goes.