Little Things

Wanted to share some thoughts and words I live by:

Keep it simple. Be aware of your frame limits and execute the idea well from start to finish in that time. Your piece is actually stronger if you can convey the idea with as little as possible.

10,000 hours is about how much time it takes to be able to execute a skill well. Anyone can pick up a skill with the dedication and resources. So practice, practice, practice!

Don’t fall in love with your own work. Stay humble. No matter how good we may get, there’s ALWAYS more to learn and room for improvement. The best continue learning and that’s what makes them so great.

Dream big, but think small. While it’s good to have goals to keep us going, our day to day practice and mindset should revolve around small focuses. You cannot practice making shorts/movies over and over during the week, BUT you can practice small clips over and over. This is how we grow and this is how we narrow down our problem-spots.

Understand concepts and ideas first and software later. Software are tools. You can’t use them well if you don’t understand how to approach the idea. So once you know what you need to do, then worry about the technical of how to make it happen.

Be nice. This industry is WAY too small for any disrespect. Your classmates and mentors are your future co-workers.

Take feedback. Some of the best resources are your peers. If a piece looks weird to someone else, it’s going to look weird to a lot of other someone elses. So take what you can from it to refine your work.

Give feedback. If you can pinpoint issues in someone else’s work, it tunes your eye to also see problems in your own work. Plus, of course, if you help someone else, they’ll probably help you in the future

Observe and enjoy life! Take risks and do everything you can! The more you see and understand about life in general, the easier it is to mimic and exaggerate it in your work. Thing about what makes things happen the way they do and what motivates people to do what they do.

Never regret. everything you’ve done has shaped you to where you are now. If you don’t like where you are, think about what you can do to change from this moment on only.

Surround yourself with people who share your passions. Nothing beats support for what you want to do. And people with heart just FUEL you to indulge in your work and push yourself to grow.

Do it for yourself. I’m sure every artist has a story of someone telling them that he/she should not be doing what they’re doing. They would not be great artists now if they listened.

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

So go for it! If it feels right, you’re doing the right thing.

Stay positive. Animation isn’t for the faint-of-heart. If you love it, it will show and your work will only get better. At that point, it’s only a matter of time until you get where you want to be.

Make time for you. Whatever that thing is that you do, give some time to it. It’s amazing how refreshing just a 20-30 minute break can do for you.

Be an overachiever With anything you’re a part of, give as much to it as you can. You get what you give, and it always seems worth it in the end. Keep pushing– keep learning — keep going, and you’ll only go up and up and up! The best are overachievers by nature.

Know that it’s okay to fail. I heard somewhere (can’t remember), that only 10 percent of what you make will succeed. With that in mind, that means a lot of your work will just be “meh.” BUT, everything you do is something you can learn from and is great practice. If it failed, analyze why and reflect not only on your work, but also yourself. What did you want from it? How did you present it? Sometimes your failures are truly your successes from insights you develop from them.

Make somebody cry. No don’t hurt anyone. That’s bad. I mean create a piece that can pull empathy from the audience. THAT is when you’ve really hit it. Not easy to do, but anyone serious about being an artist should be up for the challenge

Do what you love, and love what you do! Yeah. That.

Alyssa