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Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.
- Brad Bird

I didn't realize it until recently, but Brad Bird is actually very, very good.

I don't like the phrase "Get a life" or "You have no life", as it's generally an obnoxious phrase uttered by assholes who aren't even using it in a way that makes any sense at all and are just using it because they can't really think of anything else to insult a person with, but I actually understand what he's getting at here, so it's all good.

Yeah that quote is plastered all over the place in our school. The teachers like it too. There is another one by someone else I can't think of at the moment in the 2D room but I'll get that and post it if anyone else is interested. Matt has probably heard this quote it's something like never give your mind more than you give your hand, and it pertains more to 2D animators, but it can also pertain to art in general. Art should be free of thought, just action. You think about it BEFORE you act basically.

-Neko

That's similar to a quote from one of the original creators of Half-Life...

"Take nothing but classes on how to make games, and you'll copy a great game some day. Take many classes like French, History, Psycology and more for a well rounded education, and you'll create an original game some day."

Wow never thought of it that way. That's pretty deep thanks for sharing that one I like it!

-Neko

I worked alongside Brad for a while back in the early 90's He's phenomenally talented and just a nice nice guy. You won;t find a more motivated, more passionate person about animation out there.

ravaged_warrior wrote:I don't like the phrase "Get a life" or "You have no life", as it's generally an obnoxious phrase uttered by assholes who aren't even using it in a way that makes any sense at all and are just using it because they can't really think of anything else to insult a person with, but I actually understand what he's getting at here, so it's all good.

It's basically a poor man's insult, and yeah, the people that generally tell me to get a life most often. . . Well. . . Lets just say they don't exactly practice what they preach.

The person I heard it more than anyone else from was my brother, especially during the period we signed a one-year lease agreement on an apartment, which was the time he spent an entire year doing nothing but smoking pot and watching Fight Club. When people tell me to "get a life," it translates to me as "stop making me question what I did with mine."

Geez working with Brad Bird must have been a lot of fun! The guy seems like hes carrying a caffeine IV constantly. I hope to work with him one day but we'll see, I'm sure a job at Pixar is a loooooooooooooooong loooooooooooooooong ways off.

-Neko

My current favorite Brad quote is: "What I don't like about CG is that...you can be pretty crappy and come out with fairly presentable stuff, whereas if you're pretty crappy in hand drawn it's announced on frame one."

I think it was Doug Sweetland who referred to Brad as "the football coach from hell." (He was complimenting him of course.) No one will push you beyond your limits like Brad will. Personally I have a huge creative crush on the guy. He reeks of genuineness.

A job at Pixar is going to require much much more than just knowing how to work a 3D animation program. There's acting, anatomy, story, storyboard, drawing skills...you can't just learn a program and expect to get a job because nowadays there are so many people studying computer animation that there's already a glut ( as i said before ) you'll have to stand out above the crowd if you want a job.

yeah I know that's why I said it was a looooooooooong loooooooooooong way off ^_^ it's not possible for me to get a job somewhere like Pixar right after graduating, however I do plan to work as much as I can to get experience to where one day I may have developed the skills to get noticed by Pixar. A few of my instructors have been trying to get on at Pixar for awhile and haven't succeeded and they're all professionals so apparently it is very difficult. I know I probably wouldn't make Pixar, but I think I will do well enough

-Neko

I think that's very true.
It's extremely rare to find something that is absolutely original in every single aspect. In a sense, nowadays, nothing like that is original. It all stems from older and sometimes "less entertaining" sources. Finding something entirely original is always something exceedingly hard to do.