Phil Willis

Where are you most creative?

Are you most comfortable sitting at a desk, in the office or studio?

Or are you more likely to come up with great ideas in the park? At the cafe? At the beach?

There seems to be plenty of anecdotal evidence that a change of location can do a lot to stimulate creativity.

In a recent article on The 99 Percent blog, Mark McGuinness said a similar thing:

In my office there are two chairs: my swivel office chair in front of the desk; and the comfy armchair by the window, flanked by my bookshelf and the stereo. No prizes for guessing which one sees the most use … But the thing is, the time I spend in the armchair is usually some of the most creative and productive time in my whole week. – Mark McGuinness

A change really is as good as a holiday.

Seth Godin believes the space matters as well.

Pay attention to where you have your brainstorming meetings. Don’t have them in the same conference room where you chew people out over missed quarterly earnings – Seth Godin

Makes sense, but is it just an excuse to flee the confines of your tiny office and head to the open spaces?

It turns out, it’s not a myth.

In one of the standard design textbooks, Universal Principles of Design, the authors talk about the “Cathedral Effect”.

Environments with noticeably different ceiling heights prompt the brain to work in different ways.

Test subjects in rooms with high ceilings were quicker to solve freedom-related anagrams (like “liberation”) than people in rooms with low ceilings.

When asked to discuss specific work projects, the teams in large spaces spent more time looking at broad, sweeping ideas, while the teams in small spaces focused on the specific details of their work.

What about your workspace?

Where do you go to come up with ideas?

Could be that a change of scenery is just what you need.

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Great! You’ve got a brilliant idea.

You’re excited about it and you can’t stop thinking about how awesome this concept could be.

Maybe if you’re extremely fortunate, you have a host of thoughts buzzing around your head.

But if you’re like most people, you don’t do the next five things that separate the truly productive, creative people from the rest of the dreamers.

Here’s five steps to get those ideas out of your head to make room for the next batch.

1. Flesh out your idea

A thought is not a thing.

Drawings, scripts, sketches, documents, photographs, music and movies – now those are things.

It’s critical that you turn your thought into a thing in the shortest amount of time.

You can’t bottle up inspiration. You can’t put it in a ziplock, toss it in the freezer, and fish it out later. It’s instantly perishable if you don’t eat it while it’s fresh. – Jason Fried, Getting Real

It’s about transforming the abstract into an artifact.

Once your idea has a physical form you can show it to someone. Which brings us to number 2.

2. Find feedback

There’s only one way to find out if what you have is good. You have to ask someone.

Select your audience carefully. Preferably one or more people who are supportive, but also likely to tell you the truth and give constructive feedback.

So not your Mom. And not your boss.

I’d start with other artists, or trusted friends.

Take into account the different backgrounds of the reviewers. For some people, a rough sketch is all they need to “get it”. Others might need to see an animatic, or hear a soundtrack with scratch dialog, or see a test render before they really understand what you’re trying to communicate.

Remember they’re critiquing your work – not you.

3. Finish it

I can guarantee this is the step most people don’t do.

If you have the time and energy to complete the entire project – good for you! But I’ll let you in on a secret …

You don’t have to finish the whole thing.

But you must finish at least one phase of it.

As an example, if you have an idea for an animated short film, develop it to the point where the script is finished.

If you’re doing visual development, or character design – don’t just do one setting or one character. Finish them all.

If you’ve taken the trouble to do 80% of the storyboards, you might as well finish the rest off, because then you have a completed unit of work.

You’ll feel better. Your brain says you’re done for that portion.

Time to move on to the last two steps.

4. File it

Put your documents, drawings, scripts, soundtracks and designs away where you can easily find them again.

Don’t repeat the same mistake I made.

I once had to scan in and retype not one, but two short film scripts because I’d lost the original files.

You never know when you’re going to need what you’ve created.

5. Forget about it

By this stage, you have one or more completed artifacts that represents your idea and you’ve had some feedback and you know where to find the materials in the future.

Congratulations! Now forget about it.

If you’ve got the energy, passion, time and resources, then by all means continue until you run out of puff, but after that: just stop and move on.

There are two psychological tricks going on here:

Firstly, your brain is now free of the finished project and can now start work dreaming up the next big idea.

Secondly, at some point in the future an opportunity may arise where you can reuse your idea.

They say that luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. Here’s what that looks like:

• You meet someone at a party who is looking for ideas.
• You stumble across a film festival seeking submissions.
• A friend wants a concept so they can practise using some new software.

Bingo.

If you’ve already got a handful of fleshed-out, finished ideas with feedback, all filed away ready to go you are in great shape.

All the best.

Looking forward to seeing you turn your ideas into something concrete.

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You’re thinking about entering an animation in a short film festival. The deadline is looming. Here’s the question:

Is it better to:

• a) meet the deadline and submit a less-than-stellar film, or
• b) protect your reputation as an artist and not submit?

Have a think about it before reading on.

If you’ve been an artist for any length of time, chances are you’ve done both at different times.

Maybe you entered a festival, met the deadline, but been unhappy with the work. Or maybe you just missed the schedule altogether, rather than submit what you considered to be a sub-par animation.

But here’s the thing:

A 3-star completed project is always worth more than a 5-star idea that didn’t get completed.

Bu don’t take my word for it. Here are some other people who feel the same way:

Pixar films don’t get finished, they just get released – John Lasseter

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. – Derek Sivers

Anyone can write one blog post, take one photo, or create one drawing. The hard part is doing it once a week for four years, and that is exactly how you get better at what you are doing. – Nick “Vegas” Campbell

Seth Godin‘s defining mantra at the moment is to “ship it”.

Don’t wait for perfect.

Just finish it, ship it and get on with the next project.

That’s not to say you should intentionally put out crummy work. But getting into the habit of delivering the goods moves you into the realm of the true artist – not just someone who talks about it.

Tick tock. Time is ticking away. When’s your next deadline?

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Do you want to make this year the best ever for your animation career?

Here are the seven most important things you can do right now to accelerate your animation.

Do your best work

It doesn’t matter if you’re animating at school, at work or at home on personal projects – but practising with the intention of doing your best work is the fastest way to get better.

George Leonard’s brilliant book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment says it’s not enough to practise. You must practise with the intent of perfecting your craft – regardless of the outcome.

Stock up your library

There are a few books that should be on every animator’s bookshelf.

For animation technique you simple can’t go past these three classics:

• The Illusion of Life – For the longest time, this was considered the only book on animation technique. It still stands as a classic, if for no other reason that it defined what we now call the 12 principles of animation. If you’re going to take advice – you might as well hear it directly from two of Disney’s nine old men.
• The Animator’s Survival Kit – If you want to be an animator and you don’t own this book: buy it immediately. If you own the book and haven’t worked through the examples: do it immediately. There is no better, more practical book than this one.
• Character Animation Crash Course – Even though Eric Goldberg’s book has an emphasis on hand-drawn animation, the principles are the same for 3D. This book is a great companion to the Richard Williams classic, with very little overlap and a similar practical how-to style.

For other career advice on getting into the animation industry, I can highly recommend David B Levy’s three excellent books.

Start with Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive if you’re early in your development.

Then move on to Animation Development: From Pitch to Production and Directing Animation once you’re ready to take the plunge into directing your own shorts.

And for funny, heart-felt advice on how to stay sane in an artistic career, grab a copy of Hugh MacLeod’s brilliant and highly opinionated manifesto: Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity.

Update your reel

Your reel is a living document, and if you still have a demo reel that hasn’t changed in a year – you need to address that as a matter of priority.

As a start: Why not focus on adding one thing, and removing one thing.

Progressively culling your worst animation and adding more awesome shots is a must if you want to keep moving forward.

Meet some new people

It’s a simple fact that jobs get offered to people that studios already know. Especially in an industry as small as ours.

Take the opportunity to expand your circle of friends: go to an industry night, volunteer at a film festival, attend a guest lecture or a panel session.

The more people that know you, the easier you are to hire.

Connect with people in your network

Haven’t given your animation school buddy a call in a while? Jump on the phone, email, skype, facebook – whatever.

There is nothing worse than someone who only reaches out to contacts when they want something.

Don’t be that guy.

Keep in touch. Ask about their work and their personal projects. Offer your help. You know – be a friend.

That way when you do need a favor, you’re not cold-calling random people in your network hoping they remember you sufficiently to help you find work.

Revamp your website

Ahh … you have a website, right?

If not, then don’t put it off. Setting up a personal website is something you can do in the next few weeks that will greatly increase your exposure and improve your ability to advance your animation career.

You can start with a free service like Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress. Or if you’d prefer to have your own domain name, grab it before it gets taken and create your own site to host your reel.

Personally – I use PowWeb because they’re cheap, reliable and have great customer service, but there are tons of great web hosts to choose from.

And if you haven’t updated your site in a while, spend an hour adding some new information about you and your work.

Animate

Yes really. (Did you think I was going to miss that one out?)

Make a film. Enter a competition. Experiment with a new medium.

Unless you’re working in your absolute dream job, chances are you have some ideas and techniques you’d like to try out, but can’t do in your regular work.

Adding to your set of skills is not just valuable – it’s marketable. And it will give you a chance to work through some of the many exercises in Richard Williams’ book The Animator’s Survival Kit.

Best of luck! Looking forward to what you come up with this year.

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