April 2011 Article - Staying Motivated - Part 1 The question of how to stay motivated comes up so often in discussions among animators that there really is no doubting it anymore: animation, like anything else worth pursuing, is hard work that won't necessarily sustain itself. There are lots of tips out there for how to stay motivated, but I wanted to write a few part series in these articles focusing on a more long-term approach to staying motivated through the very distinct stages of your career. This first part is dedicated to the learning process. A majority of the members here are novice animators or have been animating a while but never professionally. This is the scariest part of the process and the stage in which staying motivated is the biggest challenge. Let's put you on track to succeed. First and foremost, it can be very discouraging to look around and gauge how motivated other people are. My initial piece of advice is to not try to guess how motivated ANYBODY else is. Never. There is a huge selection bias when you do this and it is very discouraging. By this I mean that you are mostly exposing yourself to success stories when you are looking around in the animation field, and not looking among your peers who are struggling as much as you are. Think of this; a normal tip to stay motivated is to watch as much animation as possible, and really soak up the enthusiasm of the industry. That's great and all, but it can really be discouraging when you watch an amazing short film on youtube, and then you see in the credits that the animator is a student who did it all on their own, and is basically Superman. Then thoughts of "why am I not as motivated as everyone else?" come up. The reality is that these people had just as many struggles and wanted to give up at least a few times while they were working. They decided to continue on though. So the bottom line is, feeling a lack of motivation, and feeling discouraged are not symptoms of not being good enough to succeed, they are absolutely a normal part of the learning process. You are normal. So with that knowledge let's do something to boost your confidence and motivation. It is hard to plan for success if you've never tasted success. One of the whackiest things about animation is that we can normally see in our head something MUCH better than we can create for a long time. Consequently, learning animation becomes a task of mitigating failure instead of earning success. After you take on an 11-second club entry with no training, for example, the poorly timed, weakly posed, unappealing animation is sitting there staring you in the face. Why are we setting ourselves up to fail? Why are we assuming that ANYBODY could stay motivated if the best you can hope for is for your animation only to look not AS BAD as your last shot? Failing a little less each time wouldn't keep me going. So here's your first step: Start off by doing some REALLY small, short little animation tests. Things that you know you can finish in just a few day's time. A shot where a character just takes a really deep breath and shakes his head as he exhales, blinks, and looks at the ground is perfect. A shot where a character turns, reacts, and ducks under a swinging wrecking ball is perfect. 24-48 frames MAX. Set out to complete these and don't compromise on quality. Don't stop until the animation on screen is what you see in your head. This may seem like a cheat, but it's not. First of all, the majority of shots in visual effects are between 2 and 3 seconds long. In feature animation it's longer, but not so substantially that you won't ever have 1 or 2 second shots. If you set about doing a really small scene and succeed, you will have a taste of victory and the feeling can only grow from there. Years ago I was part of a forum and we challenged eachother to 24 hour animation showdowns. The subjects were always very simple. One would be "mount" (show a character getting onto a horse, motorcycle, or other vehicle), "arrow hit" (show a character being hit by an arrow), or "reach" (show a character anticipating and reaching for something overhead). Because these were very manageable shots, and we gave ourselves strict frame limits and time limits, I had dozens of small successes in the beginning of my animation studies that made me feel like I was always getting better. And it feels very good that you are always getting a little bit better, rather than always getting a little less WORSE. To all my animators who are feeling discouraged, who can't pick up the mouse and start a shot, or who are feeling a lack of motivation, here is your homework: Create a SUPER simple shot, 48 frames MAX, of a very simple action or gesture. Picking up the phone and putting it to the character's ear, pressing an elevator button. Reaching for the corn flakes. Post it in the forums and enjoy this small victory. These little animations will sustain you, and in part 2 I'll go into how to get deeper motivation for the harder times. Rock on, K