Here's my first short story, written just for this blog. I did it in less than two hours, and I have to admit that it sucks. I panicked when I realized the story was going awry, and I tried to crib from a story about miners to save it but, Alas!, even the cribbing couldn't help. OK, I'm going to put this turkey up anyway, because I don't have anything else to put up. Here it is... a short story directed at readers in the animation industry...."THE DIRTY OLD BONY FINGER"
BY AN ANONYMOUS BLOGGER
Getting gray hair sucks but there are a few advantages. One is that you will some day get to play the role of prophetic old gypsy. Young people can't do it, they don't have the gravity for it. I can't wait for the day when I can grab teen-agers by the arm like Marie Ouspenskaya in "The Wolfman" and shake my bony finger at them while predicting doom. Sure, they'll laugh, but there's something creepy about being on the other side of a bony finger, and you can bet they'll lose sleep over it.
My plan is to go to an art school and seek out the computer animation students. I'll dress up in rags and then some dark and drissly night I'll hide myself outside, in some alcove in the architecture. When a suitable victim walks by I'll jump out and grab him by the arm.
"Hey!", the student will say, "Let go!" Of course I don't let go and out comes the bony finger. "Harken to me, young man! That stupid Maya program will never feed your spirit! Give it up! Go to Hollywood and be a full animator in 2-D!""Who ARE you!?", says the student. "Forget who I am!", says I. "You're young and quick! You'll be an excellent inbetweener! First you'll inbetween, then you'll assist, then you'll take on the mantle of a full-blown animator, then you'll direct and maybe go higher yet!" "Let me go!", says the student, worried that he might get a disease if he touches the bony old finger.
"You know nothing of studio life! Let me tell you about it! The greatest studios of them all are in Hollywood! I know them inside-out! I've wandered their halls which are like the paths in a sorcerer's garden. The drawings, they come alive! I've seen funny walks and goofball expressions sparkle under the shine of extender lamps! You've seen it too, in dreams when you were a kid, haven't you?" "Well... I really don't remember," says the student.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T REMEMBER!?", I howl, trying to sound like Marley in the Christmas Carol. The boy cringes. "No other life so tests a man! The mighty problems an animator struggles with every day would make him crazy if he didn't fight and fight again to overcome. Don't be misled by the blackened fingers! Full animators are giants among men! Now go to Hollywood and get a job tomorrow! To heck with Maya!...Huh? What's that? Do you hear anything?" "I don't hear anything." says the confused boy. "I hear it," says I, "It's the studio owner's beautiful daughter!" "Where? Where!? I don't see anybody, "says the boy! "I see her," I say. "You're free to think she's beautiful any time you like...but... you're not free to court her until you've proved yourself! With paper and pencil I mean! WITH PAPER AND PENCIL! Go to Hollywood! Be an inbetweener!"
"But I still don't see anybody," says the boy. "I just can't..." The boy turns, and seeing no one there, realizes he's alone. The raggedy man with bony finger has disappeared!
I, of course, will have creeped to the parking lot and made my getaway in a car. The boy will stand befuddled in the rain. Was the old man and the finger a dream? Does computer animation really suck? Should he give up 3-D and learn to animate? I figure if I do this to two students a night for a week, one of them might actually take my advice.
THE END
20 comments:
Should I feel bad now for being entertained, then?
speaking of dreams and mysterious encounters, I dreamed that I met you at a videogame conference, Uncle Eddie. My girlfriend was hosting some huge event, as she had been labeled the Queen of the Gamers (which is so untrue irl) and introduced us. You recognized my name and I felt super special. You also shook my hand for a very long time, which made me laugh, and you only turned me loose so I could meet somebody else.
I don't recall the boniness of your paw, I'm afraid :)
I think all the old codger hand drawn animators should do this. Fill up every nook and cranny of the architecture outside the halls of 3D learning and one by one confront the young and uninformed with many a boney finger. This would make one helluva EC style Vault Of Horror type comic Eddie.
2d forever. I'm getting scared now as I see and hear a lot of young kids saying 2d sucks. I even came across a kid that says Tom and Jerry cartoons suck period (what????). WB should do the right thing and put Looney Tunes back on the air so people that could appreciate it will grow up and become 2d animators themselves.
I say in with the old, for the old I love is timeless!
Tell it, Preacher.
The best computer animation comes from the same skills applied to 2D. And I have learned this from interacting with 3D animators.
Have you seen the animated short "Technological Threat." You can find it on You Tube. Maybe this story could be adapted to an animated form.
The short 'Technological Threat' was nominated for an Oscar in 1989 and much of the humor in it should be credited to Rich Moore. Today Rich is a bigshot who runs the Burbank Rough Draft studio but he was once a talented kid with gags erupting from his brain along with a very strong color sense. And if some geezer stuck a digit at anyone on the streets of contemporary L.A. we all know it wouldn't be a finger.
Wooooh, I was just visited by Edward BoneyFingers last night. It is a scary sight. He'll rattle you right down to your very core, but his words ring true. You may not wish to believe at first, but deep down in your soul you know he's right for he speaks straight to the child in you where your dreams of being an animator were first born.
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Eddie, its like you are speaking right to my soul. I've been working almost 3 years in 3d animation now. The first two in a small studio where I worked many different areas of animation and most of this past year in a big studio working just as a 3d modeler. And I'm feeling it now that I'm just not getting what I want from it creatively. At a small studio I got to do so many different aspects that I think I got to be creative in a way, but the quality wasn't there. There just wasn't enough time or manpower. In a big studio, you get quality, but little creativity, I'm just a craftsman bringing somebody else's design into the 3d world. Its probably different for the animators, but even then I'm sure its not like what you get in 2d. Where you are inventing on every keyframe. Your's and John's blog are reawakening the child in me where I dreamed of working as an animator on shows like Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Duck Tales and the such, or the Disney movies of the time: Aladdin, Lion King, etc.
I realize now that I should go back and work on relearning those 2d skills. But it is such a long, steep uphill climb at this point. While its not impossible to get there, I think I'd feel lucky to get in as an inbetweener at some point in my career now. Keep preaching to the young ones Eddie, maybe you can save them from my fate. And thanks for reawakening the kid in me.
I went to school and I spent equal parts working in 2-D and 3-D courses. But I didn't spent equal time working on them. I was constantly making 2-D cartoons. Fatter of fact my final project was a 2-D character in a 3-D environment.
Now out in the real world, a freelancer in the Portland, Oregon area, I've only worked in 2-d (even if some of it's drawn into the computer)
So I've been angled into the thing that drives me. Fortunate, I am. But only starting out!
Huzzah! to your story, Mighty Boneyfingers of song and story! Oh, frightful apparition of yore! Of your finger! Your call to the great state of California has not gone unnoticed. It is haunting and sweet, like honey on a maidens... uh... toasted bread? ahem, ALLURING!
I want to come to California, specter of the great Just-Over-There.
Maybe if you looked at my dictionary Phil, you might learn how to spell properly.
That's the most gripping story I've ever read. And oh so true!
OK, OK, (sob) I'll do it... I'll give up my beloved Maya to learn the ways of the 2-D animator! Just leave me alone old man with the bony finger!
Oh, wait, I'm not a student, I've never used Maya or any other 3-D animation program, and everything I know about art I learned from blogs on the internet (which is worse then from the back of cereal boxes). But if you're giving out jobs that allow me to earn money for drawing all day, then sign me up.
When students come into the archive, I make it a point to let them know that the purpose of the collection isn't to be abstract inspiration or entertainment for them. They're also not to just imitate it and use it as a "cop file". They're supposed to incorporate the fundamental techniques and struggle to go beyond what they're looking at. That's how artforms build and grow.
Some of them just smile blankly and nod their head, thinking of all the fun cartoons... Others get the fear of God in their eyes. If they can channel that fear into resolve to work hard, they're the ones that I created the Archive for.
Fear is a powerful motivator. When posed as a challenge and combined with clear examples of what one should be accomplishing, it can work wonders.
See ya
Steve
if you're giving out jobs that allow me to earn money for drawing all day, then sign me up.
No one is going to do that until you put the focused hard work and thought into acquiring the skills of an artist.
The problem with CGI isn't CGI. It's that the schools teach it as a trade instead of an art medium. Teaching a student Maya and expecting them to become a CGI animator is like teaching one to use a xerox machine and expecting them to be a hand drawn animator. Paying $100k to a school to learn a computer program is a complete waste of time and money.
I'm working on a post on Carlo Vinci's student work. It is interesting to compare the schooling he got to become a Terry-Toons animator to the schooling people get today to become a computer animator- or even a hand drawn one for that matter.
See ya
Steve
Scare the likes of me first, Eddie!
Kelly: Thanks! If I'm getting into girls' dreams then I must be doing something right!
Emmett, Anon: "Technological Threat is a really fun film and, you're right, it is on YouTube.
Anon: Good Grief! You had me worried for a minute! I thought you were going to say that you actually left your job because of what I wrote!
John: Holy Cow! Well it certainly was a gripping story, in the sense that it was about gripping people.
Steve: Man, you've put up some great stuff at the ASIFA blog lately! Thanks much!
"A MASTERPIECE!!!" - Kali Fontecchio, Daily Planet
do that here in dubai. pleeeaase!
there are no 2d classes just 3d it's such a waste >_<
in fact i'm taking 3d right now, because my mom won't let me get educated else where until i'm twenty, all i'm learning is how inadecuate it is.
< stephen worth >
i get the fear of god when i look at the drawings in the asifa arcive because mine suck in comparison XD
I'll gladly come to Hollywood to be an inbetweener.
Just the thought of Carlo Vinci's life drawings makes my jaw drop again, Those were mind blowing!
I wish I read this post earlier. Are there still people actually animating with a pencil in Hollywood?
my sister and i completely agree! We're still young'uns. (18 and 16) and we believe 2D animation needs to come back!
3D deserves a swift kick to the pants.
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