Acting!

So, yesterday I sent the scene 2 storyboards to a recruiting rep at Disney who I met last April. I said I wanted to re-apply this coming April for their "Talent Development Program" and asked if he could take a look at the boards and see if I was going in the right direction.

He replied pretty quickly and said that the loose drawings and the staging were good and clear. He said I should work on the 'acting', saying that they like to see "strong, specific acting" that would be clear to the animation department further down the pipeline.

This made sense (or at least I think so).

Web series? TV? How do I get this story out there? (a history)

Thanks again for everyone who watched "Kanook" and gave comments. If you haven't seen it, seen the previous post.

I wanted to get out some of my thoughts, ideas, plottings ... so you can tell me if I'm crazy or not ... (warning: long!)

10,000 Hours of Practice

Yesterday, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's book: Outliers: The Story of Success. He hypothesizes that in order to really master something, like a sport or instrument, you need at least 10,000 hours of practice (about 10 years of practicing many hours a day).

Inspire Days! – Notes from my trip to Disney

On April 8th and 9th 2010, I went to Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California for the third annual Inspire Days. I was invited by the director of the Talent Development Program who I met at the Ottawa Film Festival last October.

During those two days, I heard talks by Disney animators, story artists, visual development artists and many others. I showed my story and character design portfolios to many people and took notes on their suggestions. Needless to say, it was very exciting. I'm posting below notes I took on the general creative process of making a film and comments about my portfolio. Enjoy.

Delibrate Practice = Genius

I read this article from the New York Times today and it really hits home a topic that's been on my mind lately. It refers to the following book, which I've read a bit of as well: Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, by Geoff Colvin.

The premise of both the book and the article is that there are no born geniuses, that great composers like Mozart and great performers like Tiger Woods became great because of their ability to spend ridiculous amounts of time practicing and perfecting their craft. What Colvin says in his book is that what really matters is not just practice, but deliberate practice.

For example, the difference in practice and deliberate practice in drawing might be the difference between doodling and spending hours studying human anatomy and drawing the human figure over and over. Colvin differentiates regular practice and deliberate practice by the level of concentration. If you can do it while watching TV, you're not learning that much really, and it's not deliberate practice.

I think it's an interesting concept and I really like it. It implies that anyone can be awesome if they practice hard enough. But Colvin does continue to say that subjecting oneself to many hours a day of deliberate practice is something that not everyone can do. And that's what makes the genius.