Last week, I attended a couple of lectures by Mr. Steve Hickner, a man who's been making his way through the animation business for over 30 years. On Friday evening, he chronicled his journey through the industry, and on Saturday he talked about his redos for senior thesis storyboards. I actually learned quite a bit from both presentations, even though he wasn't specifically speaking to someone in my major.
It's hard to know exactly how to break into any industry, but Mr. Hickner seemed to have the answer: take advantage of every single opportunity, from crappy offices to chance meetings. A lot of his advice was practical: if you're going to go see a specific director or other influential individual speak, verse yourself in their work so you can create a proper dialogue. If you want someone's time, ask for a tiny amount of time (they'd be a jerk to say no), then ask a question that'll take way longer than that to finish. The one thing I wasn't sure of, however, was how to know what kind of a question to ask. Sure, "something that'll take longer than two minutes to answer" is a good start, but what does that entail? Asking for an anecdote? I'm a direct person when it comes to questions, it takes me a short time to answer them and I try to get to the point, so I understand the sentiment but not the content.
What I appreciated most on Saturday was seeing the way storyboarding is done professionally. My idea of story boarding was Glen Keane-style sketches, but when Mr. Hickner got behind the wheel, it was fascinating to see how he got into the seniors' work. He had an inclination towards animal side kicks that I noticed, and it made sense, knowing how Dreamworks worked. He liked to play up gags, and definitely pushed composition as far as he could go while still keeping to his own set of rules. Seeing how much work went into it was crazy too--I'd done keys before, but story boarding is much more intensive! At some points he was practically animating the action.
Those presentations were a nice breath of fresh air. Back to Maya!
No comments:
Post a Comment