I'm not dead D: but things have been insane for me, guys. So... I've started my senior year at SCAD this past week, and uh... oh my god.
"Have mercy on me! I've only been back for a week!"
See, I'm in a particularly crazy situation with my scheduling that pretty much means that I'm doing studio classes for... the rest of the year. Three at a time. Which pretty much means that I'm going to kiss sleep good bye until I graduate. Also, I still have to work.
:(
But I'm not here to make excuses for my inactivity, damn it, I'm here to talk about something with you! So, with that, I want to quickly share with you guys what I consider the good, the bad, and the ugly in animation this week.
The Good:
Skip to 1:57 for the juicy stuff. Article via Cartoon Brew
I don't usually pay too much mind to CG, but Genndy Tartakovsky does it so gooooooooood (go see Hotel Transylvania). And if they stick to this feel for the actual feature, than I am 1000% on board. My favorite part about this test is that Genndy directed the "modernizing" in such a way that is so faithful to the Fleischer Popeye shorts, like... I was speechless. Note to everybody who wants to modernize another classic property: "modernizing" does not mean stuff an hour and a half with modern pop culture references and... dubstep, I guess? I don't know. Either way, take notes from this, all. I'm excited to see where this goes. Also, Popeye translates surprisingly well in CG. Creepily well...
The Bad
Noooooooooooooooooo! Why!? Article via Cartoon Brew
Aaaand we've taken a step back, CG. This is exactly why I don't pay attention to it - this kind of bull( )t happens when I look. For those of you guys that don't know, Mexican animation house Anima Estudios released what I like to call "a step forward" in 2011: a 2D animated Top Cat movie called... Top Cat. The movie. ...
It wasn't the most beautiful animation ever made by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, I concede (from experience) that there's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done with Flash puppet-style animation, but just look at this.
Oye. Also, some of the character design choices made in this movie
just make me uncomfortable.
Despite that, though, any studio that's willing to re-venture into 2D is okay by my book. And than, they just... gave up? ... why? Anima Estudios, you've disappointed me. I'm going to give this one, and the studio, a pass.
The Ugly
Hands down, this:
Not real. Yet. Unfortunately.
I dabble into Disney World news every now and again, mostly in my inability to afford to be able to go down there myself so I feel the need to make up for that by gawking on the internet. In doing my dreaming, the internet (in typical fashion) turned my dreams into a nightmare when it started talk about Disney looking to shove Frozen in my face every turn I take in the parks (I despise Frozen, but more about that later). A summer event? Okay, that's cool. I can't go in the summer anyway.
Oh, what's that? You want to shut down a 30 year old ride that celebrates the mythos and heritage of a legendary culture in the name of permanently shoving Frozen in my face some more? ... okay. sure. I see. Well, at least it's just a crappy internet rumor.
What's that, Disney? It's not?
You know. But no big deal, you know. Just sayin'.
Aside from spitting on anything that had to do with Walt Disney's vision for Epcot, and the more personal issue that I have with Disney's need to shove Anna, Elsa and Olaf in my face constantly, I believe that this is just bad foresight strategically in the parks. Think about it - how long have even the biggest fads on the internet stayed popular? And I don't mean in the way that they're still being used today... I mean as in, how long has a fad been actually, legitimately popular? To say two years is a stretch, for the most part.
A note to Disney - I don't know if you'll believe me or not... but Frozen is still an internet fad. And not much else. And, thank goodness, it's starting to go on the decline. So, before you decide that the appropriate reaction to an internet fad is to stomp all over Walt Disney's ideals for his very last dream - and by extension, his grave - to try to make a few more bucks off of Frozen, consider stepping back and thinking about it. Just, do that much.
This doesn't have to be a lesson you need to learn the hard way.
So uh... I work retail. You know, the classier alternative to the ever-dreaded standard college job. You know the one I'm talking about.
Pictured: the collective smile of "if this picture leaks on the internet
and my friends and family see this, I will find out where you live and
kill you in your sleep." Also, Ronald McDonald.
I have the particular pleasure of working in an office supply store, and not a particularly cheap one, either. Given my store's proximity to one of the many low-income districts around town, the variety of, er... clientele... can get very interesting. Some times obnoxious, some times insightful, some times delightful, but 100% of the time, no one day is the same as the next.
We are at the tail end of our back to school season, which is a relief, because things finally calm the hell down a little bit after the notebook and backpack aisles stop looking like the Tasmanian Devil was going back and forth around them all day. Here in Savannah, though, we as an office supply store have to face one final storm before the back to school season comes to a close.
That's right, boys and girls
We have to face the swarm. Of SCAD bees.
Buzz buzz. We're here for your furniture.
Being a SCAD-ling myself, I fancy myself to be in a unique position where I can actually try to make a couple of new friends, perhaps people who I can talk to during our college duration about how the SCAD bus is pretty much the worst thing ever and share my work with, forming what could be lifelong friendships and professional contacts with like-minded artists. It never works, but I digress.
Yeeeeah. I'm that kid in most social settings.
But my inability to make friends is not what I'm discussing today. I want to discuss the one sure thing that comes with every SCAD student's package, the one unseen, thankless element that all students come to Savannah and quickly forget about: the SCAD Moms and Dads. They, to most students, are the providers of all their financial needs - everything from their tuition to the socks they're going to not put on 3 weeks into the quarter because they're already about to miss the bus for their 8 AM class. Well, as the new year starts and new students the world around flock down to Savannah to begin school, the parents more often than not are right behind them, and with good sense, decide that maybe four years of sitting on a miserable wooden stool might not be the most comfortable living situation.
So it's off to the store we go!
Now, here comes a most valuable lesson I think most people can, and probably should have already learned, especially when it comes to going to the store. Occasionally, we as the store I work at will cycle different sales throughout the store to try to get rid of stock, or to create the illusion that the customer is actually saving money so they can justify coming back and paying full price for the rest of our crap later on.
"5% off!? Willikers, what a bargain! I've bested
this corporate capitalist money trap yet!"
It just so happened that we have been running a particularly good special on our office chairs, as luck would have it... for most people. And herein lies the problem: most customers I've ever interacted with expect the product to always be there, when they want it. Being an office supply store, this is perfectly understandable for some items, such as pencils and notebooks. And most times we are accommodating with the demand for stock of those. Chairs are not so easily accessible, especially chairs with special discounts on them.
It's one hour before we close, and the demand for chairs has been nonstop for that entire afternoon. Naturally, stock is running low, and to all of the customers' amazement, still nobody has come to repair the magical everlasting vending machine of items in the ever-hallowed "back" of the store.
A pesky annoyance for us all.
Keeping cool in the face of a mob of angry customers who just drove all the way from California to see that their kid's every living need is taken care of is a difficult thing to do, but in the world of office supply retail, you learn to cope. Still, it leaves me to puzzle this one vexing question: has nobody told these SCAD moms and dads that - to coin a phrase - "The Early Bird Gets the Worm?" Now, I understand that this is one of those ironic phrases, but surely it has some meaning outside of the implications of the natural food chain. Perhaps, for example, that you can't expect a chair that was $30 since the time the store opened at 8 in the morning to still be available to you 30 minutes before the store closes? Also, I promise you as a store associate that I'm not taking a stab at you when I say "We are not allowed to sell the display." Please don't look at me like I just kicked your puppy Olympic soccer-style.
Somehow there's a shortage of photos depicting people
kicking puppies on the Internet. Or perhaps, like most people,
I don't want to actually see that - much less caption it here.
What's wrong with the world, anyway?
I promise, I just work at the store, and I'm going to the same school your kid is on Monday. I'm not trying to sleight you in any way.
((P.S. This is a post I began working on last night upon coming home from work, but I got tired and didn't finish until I woke up this morning. Forgive.))
So I want to finally make good on one of the promises I made when I had started this here blog and discuss something that I, along with most of the rest of the world, cherish very much, both as a major part of our childhoods and a significant game-changer in the film/theme park industries and the way we look at different cultures. I, of course, am referring to the one and only -
Of course.
Ha. I'm just kidding. (did i scare you?)
I am talking about the Walt Disney company... or for the sake of keeping things simple, Disney.
When you wish upon a star, we raise ticket prices to our parks again. Good luck.
The Disney brand has been the source of many, many great things since its inception in the mid-1920's. And if you are a child of the 90's, like me, you'll remember that Disney has treated you especially well with its offerings to us. We, their audience, were the backbone on which Disney found success, particularly in film (the Disney Renaissance) and, the focus of today's conversation, television. Yes, friends, we were treated to none other than the Disney Afternoon.
Witness it's majesty.
Some of what most consider Disney's greatest works of television animation were spawned from this series. We had the privilege of growing up watching shows such as Ducktales, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, and The Adventures of the Gummi Bears. And than later they gave us Schnookums and Meat and the Mighty Ducks cartoon... but there's a reason why nobody remembers those shows.
It's because nobody wants to remember these shows.
But there's one show that was a particular gem in my childhood... this is probably one of my absolute favorite cartoons of the Disney Afternoon line-up, matching neck-and-neck with Darkwing Duck and the classic Disney cartoons. In case you didn't quite catch the title of this blog, I am referring to the unfortunately short-lived Bonkers.
No no no waaaaaait, don't click out of this, just hear me out, guys.
A lot of people are quick to immediately spit on this cartoon. Why? Well... perhaps a little background information will help shed a little light on the subject. The main reason people, even back in the day, gaffed at Bonkers was because "omg it's just a knockoff of Roger Rabbit." Ladies and gentlemen, that is actually very much on purpose. Touchstone Pictures, and by ownership, Disney, was riding the success that Roger had brought to them since its 1987 release well into the 90's. Disney was also at the forefront of syndicated animated programming with their wildly successful Ducktales and Gummi Bears (as I had mentioned before). Can you guess where this is going?
"Let's make a deal."
Now, Disney and Steven Spielberg (producer of the Roger Rabbit movie) were seeing eye-to-eye on home video releases, merchandising and theme park tie-ins with the film. So, it would only makes sense that the next step would be to add the titular character to the already wildly-successful Disney Afternoon line-up... right? Well, the mouse-house was all on board, but somewhere down the line, Spielberg got cold feet and pulled the licensing right out from under Disney's golden yellow shoes.
This might be speculation on my part, but there was probably at least some pre-production going on for the Roger Rabbit TV series... at least, enough that Disney was not willing to just trash it. So, some clever (or not-so-clever, depending on who you ask) writing later, and we have... well, Bonkers.
Okay, we now understand that Bonkers is Roger Rabbit in a bobcat suit on purpose... so what else was wrong?
Well, I'll be the first to say that Bonkers in and of itself was not a series without fault. And the faults are painful to watch, more often than not. First, the human characters. Oye. Most people who are still loyal to Bonkers will tell you that there were two "sagas" of Bonkers: the Lucky saga, and the Miranda saga, named respectively after both of the human cops that Bonkers was partnered with. As a child, Lucky was painful to watch. As an adult, Lucky is still painful to watch. Why? Because he's an exact duplicate of Eddie Valiant. Who needs to cut back on the donuts for a little while.
I really did try to avoid making the fat joke, but this is literally
the only distinguishing point Lucky has going for him.
But, while he's a duplicate, he's kind of... a lot worse? Like, you know when you go to make a copy of something and the copier is almost out of toner and you watch in horror as your copy comes out faded and illegible? Well, this is Lucky. Remember in Roger when Eddie spells out his motivation for hating toons (I apologize, there just isn't a good video with that scene online anymore)? Well, when the writers were building Lucky, they decided to take all of that motivation away. The best that we know from watching the show is that Lucky is a cop that hates toons because he hates toons. And by a wacky, entirely unpredictable (sarcasm underplayed) turn of events, he gets the only thing he's ever wanted in life - a promotion - but having to be partnered with a toon cop in return. That's all that Lucky is. Fascinating. Miranda, the Chief, and the "Sarge" that Bonkers works with are actually more tolerable as human characters, but not by way too much (Actually, "Sarge" is pretty hilarious to watch).
What's worse: the toon side characters are not that much more entertaining. As an example, let's talk about Fallapart Rabbit, the main side character during the Lucky saga. Fallapart exists pretty much for the same reason that Barney Rubble exists in The Flintstones: to serve as a foil for Bonker's shenanigans. But worse, because Barney was a strong character by himself. This serves to prove my point about most of the toon characters in the Bonkers series: they exist strictly for Bonkers to bounce off of, and than to go away once they're done being useful. That's not good writing for a show. Any show, live action or animated. And it's certainly not good Disney writing, even by it's lowest television standards.
Long story short, I can understand why people are quick to look down upon Bonkers. So, in the end, Bonkers is a complete disaster that is not even worth defending. Oh well. Right?
What is the first thing I can say is working so well with this show? Well, Bonkers himself, for starters. For starters, anybody who is getting ready to shoot out, "Bonkers is just Roger Rabbit in a bobcat suit!" like I totally did early just to prove a point, needs to re-watch the show and really study the title character. He's wacky and cartoonish to the nth degree just like Roger, but as a character, he's completely different. They handle situations completely different, for starters. As much as we love Roger, it's hard to argue that when he gets in a fix, he essentially has to wait for Eddie to pull him out of it. That is the nature of Roger's character: he hilariously stumbles his way into a situation, panics and has to wait for the cavalry to arrive. Don't believe me? Watch all three of the shorts, right now. In fact, I'll give you links: Tummy Trouble, Trail Mix-Up, Roller Coaster Rabbit. What do all three of the shorts have in common? I'll tell you: none of them end with any meaningful resolution. They just stop filming for Trail Mix-Up and Roller Coaster Rabbit, and while they manage to "cure" Baby Herman in Tummy Trouble, Roger finds his way into another experience, panics, and "That's All, Folks!" As much as Roger tries, he never triumphs as the hero, but places himself as the hapless protagonist.
That's not the case with Bonkers. More often than not, Bonkers is the one that ends up saving the day in the show, especially during the Lucky saga... mostly because Lucky is pretty much the worst cop in existence, real or fiction. Honestly, a lot of the situations Lucky and Bonkers find themselves in is because Lucky doesn't take Bonkers seriously when she shit hits the fan, because of his inexplicable disdain for toons. So it's up to Bonkers to save the day. Perhaps one of the most telling examples is the episode titled "You Ought to be in Toons." (The link is only for the third part of the episode, but this has everything I need to illustrate my point) Aside from the actually really funny Michael Eisner jokes, this episode is telling of Lucky's unwillingness to listen to Bonkers, when Bonkers is telling him to pull his shit together because he's wrong. The basic premise is that Mickey Mouse is kidnapped on the day he's supposed to sign a big contract with another cartoon studio, Bonkers finds him in a dog kennel sitting in the basement of his mansion, and has to stop a gross, rat-looking dude from impersonating Mickey. This episode, for some reason, lives in an alternate dimension where everybody but Bonkers is incapable of distinguishing Mickey Mouse's persona from a painfully bad imposter. Anyway, it takes until the last 5 minutes of the episode for Bonkers to get the obvious point across that the Mickey Lucky thinks he found is a sham, and Bonkers finds the solution that ultimately saves the day.
In conclusion, Bonkers as a show had and continues to have a lot of potential, perhaps just because Bonkers as a character stands out as a strong, independent, and inspired character. All similarities to Roger Rabbit as a concept are 100% intentional - adversely, any ties between the two title characters are, for the most part, unfounded. I truly believe that Bonkers can be made better: he needs to be given a much better supporting cast, for starters, and if we much give him an Eddie Valient-esque human sidekick, he needs to be just as strong of a character as Bonkers is, not a cheap Dollar Tree knockoff character.
For as anyone who's ever bought a bargain bin tablet should know,
cheaper does not necessarily mean better.
Also, if a Bonkers remake were to ever happen, for one I'd kill to be a part of that, and for another, Disney has a fantastic array of amazing characters they can easily use as story points. Take advantage, guys.
That's it for this post, guys! If you haven't already, please Like the Matt's Musings Facebook page. I'll be setting up a Twitter and perhaps a Tumblr soon. Thanks to all of you awesome people who have already Liked my page! :D
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If you've read all of my posts up till this point, you might guess that I have a deeply-rooted passion for animation. Perhaps you might have deduced that I aim to make a career out of animation, if you are so clever. So, as I heard from a great leader I had the pleasure to be under while I was in the Army, "Professionals read professional things." As such, I try to keep my thumb on what's going on in the animation industry - for better or, usually, for much much worse.
This is usually what I end up doing when I
read about that dark, confusing place.
I mentioned in my SCAD retrospective post that I've pretty much came to the conclusion that if I'm going to make animation a career in a fashion that won't make me hate my life 25 hours a day, I'm going to have to go independent. Why? Well, a lot of reasons, but one of the main, telling reasons for my conclusion comes... well, I'll let you listen for yourself. I credit this Cartoon Brew article as where I had originally found this video.
5:28 - 5:54
For the uninitiated, the talented woman speaking in this video is Lauren Faust of Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, most recently My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and nearest and dearest to my heart, Cats Don't Dance fame. Here, she is making a point about the pitching practice that the mainstream television studios are, and probably have been, using. If you missed it, I will quote: "(studios) will really like the stories and really like the characters, but than tell me, 'We don't want shows for girls.' They were attributing the poor performance of the shows to the gender of the target audience instead of the quality of the shows." Hm... maybe this is why most people in their 20's and up will say "Cartoons were better when I was a kid."
Pictured: The creative process studios use to churn out animation.
If you read the original argument, the debate it fires up is the uphill battle for girl-centric animation. To be perfectly honest, I am representing Team Switzerland in that particular fight, because I believe that if you have a good story with good characters, it shouldn't matter if it's girl-centric or boy-centric. Now I know what you're thinking - "But Matt, why than are you inserting your thoughts on this video?" That's a very good question, boys and girls.
The quote I referenced brings up a highly frustrating fact of life if you are a person who wants to bring your animated ideas to the big, small, or mobile screen: you have to march into a big, gray room and throw yourself, and your concept, at the mercy of a board of executives who are less interested in filling their timeslots with entertaining animation that brings something for every viewer to enjoy, and more interested in selling product or filling a demographic need. I don't remember exactly where or when I read this, but I actually read that one of the big studios actually brings in a representative from the merchandise department who can shoot down an idea because it won't sell enough T-shirts or stuffed animals or whatever the hell else.
0:24 - Couldn't have put it better myself, Yogurt.
To sum up my frustrations, what we have here is what's supposed to be an inherently creative industry, full of suits who are more interested in making a buck and satisfying either demographics or advertisers... maybe both... than actually making good, quality animated entertainment. I think that this is part of the reason that many famous figures within the industry have taken to IndieGoGo and Kickstarter with their ideas. After all, on the Internet there aren't any suits standing between them and the people who actually want to see creative work. And personally, I don't want to work myself up the ranks in a studio where I'd be involved with a bunch of films that nobody really wants to make just to have my ideas shot down because they don't match the piece of pie they want to fill their charts with. I don't have the time, money, or patience to do that.
That's about the jist of this post, though, without beating the dead horse for too long. I think I might make this into a "series" of sorts, speaking my mind about the ups and downs of the animation industry in my perspective. Definitely feel free to comment on what you think, I'd love to get some conversation going about this, and I think for the next post, I'll discuss a movement in animation that I'm looking forward to seeing progress, titled "Hullabaloo." Until than! :>
I have a couple of things on my mind tonight, so without further ado, I just want to jump straight into the gunk.
First, I want to talk about something that's been near and dear to my heart since I was about 15 years old. If you are reading this in the future, or have never stepped foot into an arcade anywhere between 2002 and 2012, you'll probably have no idea what I'm talking about.
Does this stainless steel sweatbox look familiar to you?
Of course, I'm talking about Dance Dance Revolution, or as it is colloquially referred to, DDR. If memory serves, DDR was introduced in Japan (of course) in about the mid to late 90's. It was the perfect culmination of fast-paced music that's easy on the ears... sometimes..., a "dancing" mechanic for people who have the rhythm and dancing prowess of a potted plant (me), and the thrill of "This is a video game, not exercise! Hell yeah!" It was such a huge hit in Japan that, sure enough, it was imported right here in the US of A, and going to the arcade has never been cooler. Or more healthy.
Running tracks, however, took the biggest hit for this. They were quickly
converted to airport runways as the demand for Euro dance music with cardio skyrocketed.
I was introduced to DDR when I was a freshman in high school... more specifically, I was introduced to the PS1 version, when (in my humble opinion) publisher Konami had any kind of interest in publishing quality dance simulation games for home consoles in the United States. It's pretty safe to say that I fell in love almost instantly... I grabbed my own copy of the game as soon as my limited teenage funds would allow (mine was the Xbox classic "DDR Ultramix") and I spent just about every night destroying the $10 dance pad the game featured improving my dance skills.
Before long, my dance skills were so on point, I was
ready to hit the club. Alas, my age prohibited me from doing so.
But the home versions are not what's on my mind tonight. I want to focus on the money-gobbling arcade machines that many of us were more than happy to feed and / or crowd around.
I had the unusual privilege of living right down the street from one of the only 2 arcades in the one-horse town of Augusta, Georgia... at the time it was called Funsville (when it was actually fun, in an ironic twist of fate, before its name changed). Funsville had something quite unique that, even back at the height of DDR's popularity in the US, I have not witnessed elsewhere: it had not one, not two, but three machines freaking side-by-side, each giving the opportunity for 2-player dance-offs. That's right, those financial genius tycoons at Funsville gave 6 people the opportunity to play at the same time.
"Ha ha ha, I can just smell the money... and
the outrageous amount of body odor... rolling in!"
Needless to say, this is where I spent a lot of my summer days. And living in humid, humid ass Georgia, I would brave 100+ degrees walking for about a half hour to the arcade, where I would proceed to play about $5 to $20 worth of change I manage to scrape together on DDR, than taking my tired, weak, sweaty body right back into the sun on the way home. Honestly, looking back, it's a small miracle I didn't die a lot of those days.
Truly, those were the good old days. Than, around 2007, something terrifying happened. And it wasn't just the previously-named Funsville that saw this disaster.
I went to arcades across different states (being in the Army helped this a lot), and I noticed that either DDR machines just began to break down... I'm talking arrows sticking or just not working, screens dimming, you name it... or machines just removing the machines altogether. Just recently, I went inside the movie theater right down the street from me to apply for a job and one of the last machines I've been lucky enough to play on in town was taken away. This leads me to wonder... what happened?
I can only speculate... one of my theories is that people just got sick of playing on dilapidated machines and the money started running dry, so rather than trying to repair the machines, they just had them taken out altogether. Maybe it just cost too much money to maintain the machines.
Alternative theory - arcade goers got sick of that one centralized
area that generally smelled of a gross high school locker room.
Whatever the case, DDR machines have all but vanished in most places, at least in the US. Personally, I find this fact a little bit disheartening. All jokes aside, DDR was a highly unique dance game that, for awhile, managed to bring a lot of people together, helped a lot of people lose weight and get into shape, and wowed players and spectators alike. For me, personally, DDR beings back a lot of great memories, and I for one am going to miss the almost seizure-inducing strobe lights, the deafening volume of some of the greatest songs I've ever heard, and the feeling of both pride and noodley-legs at once.
... well, I can at least kind of recreate the experience, as I happen to have in my living room a nearly-indestructible steel DDR pad, a dedicated laptop with Stepmania installed, and the internet to access pretty much all of the songs that my happy feet have the desire to acquire.
Living in an apartment complex, however, slightly stunts
my experience.
I recognize, though, that not many people have the pleasure.
That's it for tonight though, guys... tune in tomorrow, I have another thought I want to share with you that I'm not going to bog you down with here. Until than! :>
So, I know most people will probably never see this or care, but if you do have any thoughts about what I’m going to say, feel free to share.
For those of you who don’t know me, I served in the military for 6 years to help me get to the next step of pursuing my dream - working for a big cartoon studio, making a name for myself on TV and pitching an amazing animated feature that I will one day hopefully take home an Oscar for. You might say that I had stars in my eyes on my first days of school at SCAD (or, the Savannah College of Art and Design, for the uninitiated). I had big goals, definitely, but I knew where I wanted to go and how I wanted to get there.
Almost immediately, on my first quarter, I was exposed to the good, the bad, and the ugly about SCAD. I had three classes (a full-term at SCAD), and each professor was completely different from the other. The good - My Drawing I professor was amazing and really cared about challenging people who had drawing skill and mentored the people who were falling behind. This is the standard that I have come to expect all of my SCAD professors to try to meet, which thus far I’ve had mixed results with. The bad - My Western Art I professor, I am convinced, did not give a fuck about his job or what he was teaching. He was not engaging, and he made learning the course load a chore. I haven’t had way too many professors like this after that, but the fact that SCAD hires professors that are obviously entirely flippant about their job is alarming, to say the very least. The ugly - Design I. Oh my fucking god. This particular professor made class unnecessarily difficult, and it seemed to make him happy (?). He contradicted his own instructions at every turn, he made sure the entire class knew when one of his students did something he didn’t like, and this old boy made no bones about picking favorites. Long story short… this class made my very first quarter of SCAD a disappointing experience (as I said on the class review), and this professor still holds the title of the worst instructor of any class I’ve ever had in my entire life.
Don’t worry, guys, this is not going to be a detailed listing of my experience of all of my classes. I wanted to give you guys my first taste of what SCAD was like to set the tone for the rest of this post.
In the past 5 quarters since my Fall 2012 class, I’ve had one other professor who has demonstrated the same amount of concern for his students to understand the course, and actually learn / improve on their skills as my Drawing I professor: that would be my Intro to 2D professor. I learned an immense amount from his class, and I look forward to having his mentorship for the remainder of my time at SCAD. I’m happy to say that my worst experience has stayed with my Design I professor, though there was one other class that came close… that came from my Design II class. I learned a hard lesson about some SCAD classes after my Design II quarter, one that I hopefully should never have to experience again: if you don’t have the money to get the top-quality supplies you need immediately on hand (and by this, I mean your Pell grant or any other aid money you’re getting had better not have a glitch affecting when it hits your bank account), you will either fail, or come dangerously close, and no amount of trying to explain this to your professor will save you. I digress, though… through it all, I’m just happy to have made it through, even if sometimes it was by the skin of my teeth.
Being an animation major, though, the most useful and pertinent lessons I’ve learned through my SCAD experience have been through my major curriculum. Among those lessons have been the fact that I have no skill in 3D modeling or animation, and the farther I stay away from Maya, the better. Dead serious. There will be no 3D work in my demo reel, it’s all terrible. I knew from the beginning that I wanted my focus to be on 2D animation, and going through (most recently) Intro to 3D Animation reaffirmed this.
In spades.
On a more serious note, though, I feel that all of my animation classes up to this point have given me a fair grasp as to how things move and how to make appealing and believable characters on screen, and this is probably among the more important lessons you’ll ever learn if you want to pursue animation as a career. It’s not an exaggeration when I say that you learn from the best at SCAD, most of them being veterans from Disney and Dreamworks. I cannot lie when I say, and express concern, that a few of the professors have no problem flaunting this fact in a way that does not drive a useful point home and only serves to intimidate or just show ass. Regardless, though, they know their stuff, and when they are teaching, you’ve got to pay attention, because you will learn from them.
The most important lesson, and I think the one that has completely altered the direction I’m going to take my career, was recently learned during the past spring quarter. Conversation about the notion of 2D animation being dead and 3D animation becoming the primary vehicle that moves the studio filled the halls of Montgomery Hall for a short while, and it wasn’t long before it reached the classroom. (this is where what I said about coming to SCAD as a starry-eyed dreamer shooting for a career at a major studio comes in) Among the uncomfortable, disturbing revelations was the doubt that 2D animation would have any major precedence in features or TV for the foreseeable future. The most optimistic prediction that came out of these conversations was a possibility of full revival in about 50 or 60 years. I had a feeling before hand, but I knew for a fact right then and there that the industry and I were going in two different directions. Accompanied by the fact that I had attended last year’s SCAD career fair where I got to talk to one studio but spent most of the time calming myself down before I had a claustrophobic panic attack, knowing that only a handful of the people who were around me would even be considered for a job, along with seeing that my style of animation / drawing doesn’t fit the mold of what was popular and in demand, I realized that any notion of pursuing studio work will be a waste of time, talent, and money.
In a nutshell, I realized that if I’m to have any meaningful work, I will have to venture forth as an independent animator, which is a scary notion… one certainly brand new to me, not until recently having been worried that I don’t have that “thing” the major studios are looking for… mastery of Maya… the cool, popular Adventure Time / Regular Show / Steven Universe / Gravity Falls look and storytelling… I don’t know what exactly it is, but I know that I don’t have that “thing.” I’m both okay with this, and a little annoyed about it at the same time. I’m a mixed bag of feelings about the direction of the animation industry. Oh, and about winning an Oscar… ha ha ha, they have have that bullshit until someone who gives a fuck about animation will come in and judge work. Do your homework if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
In summary… I don’t know if anything will change this year while I’m working on my thesis film. I do know that I’ve met a lot of awesome people that I will hopefully keep as friends and contacts for the rest of my career / life. I’ve met a lot of amazing artists, and I received mentoring from the best, most talented professionals in the world. As of now, though… all of the plans I thought I had together when I came fresh out of the Army to SCAD have been derailed because of all that I’ve learned. I’ve become a bit jaded to the notion of industry work before I even got in… and it’s a little bit of a frightening notion.
I still have my senior year to go, though. Who knows? some bit opportunity might come to me (doubtful). We’ll see. I’ll just do my best and try to figure out the best plan for me from there. See you on the other side!
So, uh, yeah. Happy day for finding your way here!
I'm so happy to see you. See?
My name is Matt, and this first post is a little bit about me. Be warned, I'm exceedingly bad at introducing myself.
I like to think about myself as a mixed bag of things. First, I'm an Army veteran - I served for 6 years as a Multimedia illustrator... fancy talk for a Graphic Designer (heh heh). I completed a deployment in Iraq in 2009, nothing exciting - I promise.
Pretty much this most of the time.
I separated from the Army in 2012 and started pursuing my dream career: animation. I started as a sophomore at the Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD for short. I've learned a bunch about art, drawing, animation, and most importantly, the direction I want to take my career. I've made a bunch of amazing friends and connections along the way, as well!
I'm not going to sit here and say my life is perfect, and this is far from any kind of full autobiography, but I'll let you guys learn about me more as I continue posting here! :D
What kind of things will you see on my blog?
My blog will be about a lot of things - I'll post crap about the things that happen in my life that I feel like sharing with you guys. I'll post about animation things I think are awesome. I'll post about Disney-related things. I'll post random crap I think is funny. Art. Pizzazz. Things. Stuff.
There, I made a start.
I hope you'll stick with me for this little journey!
