Why Animation?

Since I remeber I've been quite an indecisive person regarding my future. I just couldn't manage to answer satisfactorily the question: “What will you do for a living?”. I guess most of people don't know it when they're younger, or even when they're older, but I was at that age when we feel some pressure on that subject. So yes, I made some bad choices, went through some wrong paths and also was uncertain. Until one day I decided to grab a book I had at home, untouched, and read the intro. Awkwardly enough, those phew paragraphs made me as certain of something as I imagined anyone could ever be. I wanted to be an Animator. The book was The Illusion of Life, and it says:

“(...)For some presumptuous reason, man feels the need to create something of his own that appears to be living, that has an inner strenght, a vitality, a separate identity – something that speaks out with authority – a creating that gives the illusion of life.
Twenty-five thousand years ago, in the caves of southwestern Europe, Cro-Magnon man made astounding drawings of the animals he hunted. His representation are not only accurate and beautifully drawn, but many seem to have an inner life combined with a suggestion of movement. Since that time, we have been inundated with artists' attempts to shape something in clay or stone or paint that has a life of its own.
Certain artists have achieved marvelous results: sculptures that are bursting with energy, paintings that speak with strong inner forces, carvings and drawings and prints that have captured a living moment in time. But none can do more than suggest what happened just before, or what will happen after that particular moment has passed. Yet, through all the centuries, artists continued to search for a medium of expression that would permit them to capture that elusive spark of life, and in the late 1800s new inventions seemed at last to make this possible. Along with improvements in the motion picture camera and the development of a roll film capable of surviving the harsh mechanisms for projecting its images, a new art form was born: animation. By making sequential drawings of a continuing action and projecting their photographs onto a screen at a constant rate, an artist now could create all of the movement and inner life he was capable of.
An artist could represent the actual figure, if he chose, meticulously capturing its movements and actions. Or he could caricature it, satirize it, ridicule it. And he was not limited to mere actions; he could show emotions, feelings, even innermost fears. He could give reality to the dreams of the visionary. He could create a character on the screen that not only appeared to be living but thinking and making decisions all by himself. Most of all, to everyone's surprise, this new art of animation had the power to make the audience actually feel the emotions of a cartoon figure.
What an amazing art form!(...) But rewarding as animation is, it is also extremely difficult. Still, once an artist sees his drawings come to life on the screen, he will never again be quite satisfied with any other type of expression.”

Since that day I've been living and breathing animation. It is all that Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston told me it was going to be. It's pure imagination that comes out of your head and is shown to the world in a screen.
For being such a difficult, back-aching, patience and concentration requirer craft, only those who truly love this art form remains doing it. That is why the passion is so important. And that makes the animation world even more wonderful (and competitive of course).

For once I have my future planed, filled with hopes and specific dreams, objectives and more dreams. For once I work and study and research without noticing the hours goind by. I found my craft. My art. My passion. And in the words of F. Thomas and O. Johnston, what an amazing one!

And who else better to talk about this than this guy? This is why animation is wonderful, not only because of the things he says, but because of people like him, the passion that everyone who works in this art form share with each other and show in their work. Where else in the world can you find such group of people who are all so completely happy to do what they do.





There are men who struggle one day, and are good.
There are others who struggle for a year, and are better.
There are who struggle many years and are very good.
And then there are those who struggle their whole life. Those are the indispensables.

I want to be one indispensable. And I'm certainly willing to work for it.