Archives for the month of: March, 2005
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Odd Thoughts

March 31, 05 //
28

Odd ToddSome­times strange phrases, thoughts and ques­tions lurk around in my head, to the point where I have to either write them down or tell them to some­one in order to pre­vent myself from for­get­ting them.

At which point I either receive a stiffle of laugh­ter or in most cases the typ­i­cal “roll eyes and shakes head” response. I guess you just have to get my humor, it’s not always off the wall, but it’s cer­tainly not of this world, as peo­ple have told me. It just proves a point that odd peo­ple are either accepted or shrugged off in this soci­ety even­tu­ally hud­dled into var­i­ous clas­si­fi­ca­tions like come­di­ans, “cre­ative types”, odd todds and loonies.

These strange phrases and thoughts that hud­dle in my brain, wait­ing to pounce and dig their fin­gers into an unsus­pect­ing per­son involved in a con­ver­sa­tion with me are dif­fi­cult to shake off. Instead of ignor­ing them I typ­i­cally just blurt them out and see if it might add any­thing to the con­ver­sa­tion. For instance, right now here are a few thoughts I’m having:

I’ve often won­dered if squir­rels have mini laser beams built into their heads?

If I were Super­man what would I pur­chase at Target?

What would I do if I were face-to-face with a sea ser­pent? Make a dash for it? Have a star­ing contest?

If I could make any draw­ing come to life, what would it be?

Shaggy car­pet con­ceals a lot of secrets. Reg­u­lar car­pet isn’t as secre­tive as it’s shaggy cousin.

What do you call two farm­ers on acid? A field trip.

What would Big Bird look like with­out his feath­ers? Also, was Big Bird male or female?

I’d imag­ine that I’m not the only per­son in this world that has these kinds of unusual thoughts, so if you could please share some odd thoughts of your own, or maybe some­one might even pro­vide an answer to your questions.

The State of Animation

March 28, 05 //
12

Oliver and Company [1988]My wife and I were watch­ing the mak­ing of Disney’s Oliver and Com­pany on DVD. Unlike today’s exten­sively (and some­times exhaus­tively) researched “making-of” fea­turettes, you could tell this one was used more so as a mar­ket­ing tool. Halfway through the fea­ture, the announcer men­tions that Dis­ney used “state of the art” com­puter tech­nol­ogy as an aid to tra­di­tional 2-D animation.

The next scene shows an inter­view with Roy E. Dis­ney who seems excited about the adap­ta­tion of com­puter tech­nol­ogy and sug­gests that it’ll be a use­ful tool for future Dis­ney films. Now here’s the kicker — towards the end of the com­puter ani­ma­tion bit the announcer reminds the view­ers that while com­puter ani­ma­tion is a fan­tas­tic tool to aide in 2-D ani­ma­tion, fear not, for it will never replace tra­di­tional animation.

15 years later we’ve seen the imme­di­ate clo­sure of Disney’s Florida Ani­ma­tion Stu­dio in 2004 which “put approx­i­mately 250 ani­ma­tors, tech­ni­cians and other per­son­nel out of work.” — a move that many say ended the era of tra­di­tional ani­ma­tion and the rumor that Dis­ney will redo many of their clas­sic films using CGI (or Com­puter Gen­er­ated Imagery).

Like many I’ve been extremely impressed with Pixar’s films, but also feel a bit sad­dened by the fact that tra­di­tional ani­ma­tion is viewed as some­thing arbi­trary and stone aged. To me there are tra­di­tion­ally ani­mated films that impress me more so than computer-animated movies. Put it this way, to this day I’m still moved and in awe of many 2-D ani­mated films (like The Jun­gle Book and Bambi) and mostly because of the flu­id­ity and beauty that res­onates via a few pen­cil strokes.

The secret to Pixar’s suc­cess, at least from what I’ve gath­ered from watch­ing “making-of” fea­turettes and books, is their abil­ity to dig deep into their sub­ject, into the core of their film and its mes­sage and then flesh it out with CGI, some­thing that is lack­ing in other ani­mated films.

Start learn­ing graphic design in Philadel­phia and look for­ward to cre­at­ing the next famous ani­mated char­ac­ter in movies.

Related: The State of Ani­ma­tion Fea­tures by Michael Heilemann

Oxymorons

March 23, 05 //
17

In George Carlin’s book, Brain Drop­pings, Car­lin lists his favorite oxy­morons, includ­ing but not lim­ited to:

  • Assis­tant Supervisor
  • Orig­i­nal Copy
  • Lim­ited Life­time Guarantee
  • For­ward Lateral
  • Par­tial Cease-Fire
  • Unin­vited Guest
  • Full-time Day Care
  • Busi­ness Ethics

Just in case you didn’t know, accord­ing to Hyper­dic­tionary

Do you have any favorite oxy­morons to share? Leave a com­ment and maybe this will turn into a repos­i­tory of oxy­morons to use in daily conversation.

Curveballs

March 15, 05 //
11

Life is a com­pli­cated and yet beau­ti­ful entan­gle­ment of thorns and roses. Just when you feel com­fort­able sud­denly a mul­ti­tude of paths open up before you and then you’re left decid­ing which is the right one to fol­low. Which one will lead to suc­cess and which one will lead to strug­gle? There is no doubt that life throws us curve­balls and many times it’s when we are least expect­ing it. The key to under­stand­ing life is know­ing whether you are in con­trol of your life or if your life is in con­trol of you.

When curve­balls are thrown at us, no mat­ter the amount or force, the ini­tial reac­tion is one of dis­or­der, an abrupt change in our lifestyle. How does one main­tain a sense of con­trol or sta­bil­ity, or even cheer and moti­va­tion when we feel as if we’re caught in a whirl­wind of dis­il­lu­sion­ment? There is no sim­ple answer or solu­tion but it’s impor­tant to remain focused on your goals and aspi­ra­tions because the light at the end of the tun­nel or the car­rot dan­gling from a string is the only thing that will keep you going.

You might never actu­ally reach a com­fort zone because it’s dif­fi­cult to aser­tain cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, but keep­ing focused on what’s truly impor­tant in your life will not only save your san­ity but keep you on track. In the scope of things, our lives are dri­ven by the belief in our­selves and the sup­port from our fam­ily and friends. A typ­i­cal obsta­cle that stands inbe­tween our goals is our fear of fail­ing. The fear that no mat­ter what we attempt to obtain that we’ll lose grasp of it or never truly receive it. Being con­fi­dent in your­self will elim­i­nate any fear of fail­ure because those who are con­fi­dent real­ize that their fail­ures are also their strengths.

As Bill Cosby once said:

In order to suc­ceed, your desire for suc­cess should be greater than your fear of failure.

When life throws you curve­balls, take our your trusty glove and catch them midair.

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