A personal self-reflection, if I may.
My previous post was a much needed but unfortunate vent after a traumatic incident about a fortnight ago. I would much rather put it behind me but the lasting consequences will possibly always remain. I feel that again, I need to talk about some personal ideas and try and analyse what kind of artist I really am, and why I do what I do. This is not so much a vent as much as just me wanting to get some of my thoughts down.
I must confess that I have a great disdain for the ‘story is king’ dogma that seems to be the dominant school of thought in corporate animation right now. It’s debated whether or not Walt Disney or John Lasseter coined the mantra, but either way I have many problems with it. If it were Disney who said this, it would be particularly ironic, given that some of his best features were only very loosely held with a simple narrative or didn’t have a linear, traditional narrative at all. Pinocchio, much like the stories it was based on, was episodic in form, Fantasia was an all out art film, and Bambi was visual poetry; a symphony based loosely on a novel with a simple plot that would be unheard of today.
For me, the most enjoyable animated works are made by people making them purely for the love of doing so, with themselves as the target audience. There’s a contemporary obssession these days with ‘target’ audiences, how successful or profitable a film will be, who it’s being made for and why. One of the biggest things I admired about Richard Williams is that much of what he did was purely for the love of the art, purely because it made him happy, and that he was staunchy anti-capitalist. The Thief and the Cobbler wasn’t a film made with any ‘audience’ in mind, it wasn’t a film that was going to be pigeonholed in that way. It genuinely feels like a film made by and for the people who were making it for their own enjoyment. There’s so much more happiness and sincerity to be found in those kinds of works than films that are trying to fit a mould and please others.
And these are the kinds of films I want to make. I remember a visiting lecturer asking, no, telling me that I have to consider who my final film will be made for. My only answer was that it would be made for me, and whoever else wishes to see it, regardless of their age, race or background. I don’t think it was the answer somebody who was running a storytelling workshop wanted to hear. But I merely told the truth. One would think that in a world that values honesty, we wouldn’t be so angry at the people who were honest.
I work on an almost entirely intuitive level. If I think of something that could be animated, or wish to animate it, I don’t think about who it’s for, or how exploitable it is. I use my own judgement and feelings to guide me. I’m a self-conscious person on the outside. In the real world, outside my practice, I suffer from severe anxiety and constantly worry about how others percieve me. I’m one of these people that is deeply concerned with what other people think of me as a person, and no amount of ‘you shouldn’t care what others think of you’ stickers and internet memes will fix that. I please others at my own expense, bending over backwards trying to accomodate people.
Animation gives me an escape from that. It’s a chance to be what I what, do as I please without caring about what others think or want. If I want to draw a thousand pictures of a deer I saw on the way to London, I’ll do it. If I want to animate three hours of Tack being cute and doing things then so be it. That’s just my form of communication and self expression. It’s not there to please anyone else, it’s not there to make money, it’s not there for people like John Lasseter to pick apart. I’m not making things that others want to see, I’m making things that I want to see, purely because I can pour all of my emotions and dedication into them without being tethered.
So maybe I’m the anti-Pixar. The anti-digital. The anti-postmodern. The anti-contemporary. The anti-story. Anyone reading this might consider me pretentious for even saying so, but my love for my work outweighs the love to please others right now.
Are my ideas profitable? Most likely not. One of my ideas for a full on feature is just a Fantasia-esque piece with a soundtrack entirely by Glenn Miller. Of course, few people my age know Glenn Miller or listen to his music. That’s not my concern. I don’t think there’s even really a story for it, it’s just loosely connected vignettes with songs that flow from one to the other. I don’t care if it doesn’t make a penny. It’s just something I want to make.
Being the only person in my class that still animates on paper, with cels, entirely in the old way does sometimes make me feel like an outcast, I won’t lie. I don’t expect that most others like my work very much, or they most likely consider me a kook. An eccentric. A ‘boomer.’ But despite caring deeply about how others see me, that’s maybe the one thing that no longer concerns me, and the one thing that I won’t change about myself. Traditional, truly traditional animation techniques are something that I hold a deep interest in. It’s a world that I want to be part of, despite being born too late. And that being said, why should I change that just to fit in and pander to others? Maybe if the rest of the animation world sees me as an eccentric, as Caroline Leaf described me, then I’ll take that monicker with pride, going against the world.
I’ll leave this here.