Fraser McLean came into our college to give a talk about animation, his career and a life-long lesson that he learnt about life in general. He is definitely a special 'corporate media whore' as he referred to himself to, but he has no choice given that he entered the film industry in 1987 when the capitalist cultural pressure is prominent. As a child he is always keen to watch theatrical shows, and having a journalist dad that put forth his kid's interest, is how McLean comes about to become a cultured man - and therefore he did not watch as much Disney cartoons. I am impressed at McLean because he is a leftist since his early age.
McLean, who started his career as a layout artist by painting shadows in a minute portion of Who Framed Roger the Rabbit, told us that animation is about the soul and spirit. These two important factors shows the essence of characters and hence bring them to life. His appreciation towards animation starts off from his childhood hobby to watch theatrical performance. He explained the importance of this understanding in the job of layout artists because they are the one who plan out the mis-en-scene; background, how characters move around the scenes, cinematography, multilevel camera and others. Design is all the things that is not accident.
I am fascinated by all these insights that McLean shared with us. One advice that sticks in my mind is that commercial work pays the bills and for the more personal projects that is more experimental and artistic. I feel that he is definitely right about this, and his advice is that we should prioritise creativity over reliance to technology and money. In other words, how do take ourselves out from the capitalistic lifestyle in work environment and make stuffs that we really want to make.
Some other advices:
- Understand the structure of the industry
- Be interested in many kind of art other than just animation
- Observing classical paintings can help us understand how shades and volumes work (He is a Vermeer fan! :-D)
- 'Make friends with lawyers' (they might save your asses)
- Be nice to people. It will benefit you when working long hours collaboratively.
No comments:
Post a Comment