Thanks

Thank you all. Really. C ya in a bit.

Transferrable Skills

... are important.

More Thoughts On Drawing

Structural dependency and structural integrity are what exist in nature.

Thus the only way to draw that imbues such natural order in drawing, is to follow structural order, which has its roots in structural dependency.
Even if the pencil does not follow that order, the brain has to go through such orderly thinking. That is the only way to ensure ACCURACY in one's drawing.

Thus the mastery of drawing involves a clear understanding of structure, that goes into 'structural clarity' (simplified definitions of structure that makes managing structural integrity feasible), and countless passing through of structural order, in thinking.

The final goal of the journey, is to arrive at a drawing that is NATURALLY SOUND.

David Levy's Class Paper

Richard C. Gorey – Kevin H.Y. Shen

Richard was the guy who told a compelling story of the circus on fire. It pinpointed a problem that everyone faces in their life with a specific metaphor. I remember the quote of “It was the how we got in, so I thought that’s how we would get out.” as accounts of survivors from the circus tent on fire. He brought it up as a representation of the logic of some who refuse to quit or make changes to their college education. The way he starts his speech is also cleverly persuasive. I was made to believe at first that he was going to talk about the many things the school is not doing right. It turns out that he first makes the people believe that he is on the same page of how the school doesn’t do its job, but then goes on to say exactly why that’s besides the point, and that how much more important is the work we need to do on our own part.

His presence was special. Because throughout the school I’ve had certain uneasy feelings that surface every now and then. I wasn’t sure of what I was feeling. But he said it in specific words - that it came down to a struggle of making the decision to discontinue something if it doesn’t work out for you. For me it has been a continual struggle. It was a decision between computer science and animation to go into when I graduated high school. I chose animation, and do not regret it now. Back then it was the decision between which field I would probably enjoy working in more. But now I look at things differently, it’s more of how I would be connected to the world more – what field I work in doesn’t matter as much, as long as I don’t hate it, and it supports me. Following that logic, I sometimes thought I might be better off studying physics, engineering, or architecture, if animation is not something that I really love to do. Since before I entered this school I’ve kept other options in mind, it came naturally that I would continually ponder whether to stay studying animation or not throughout these four years.

Whenever I worked on my homework during high school years, I’ve had my headphones on. When I listened to the music, images, sequences of animation come to me. Those sequences felt so closely tied to the music and felt so cool, that I wanted to make it for people to see. That was my most original motive to go to school to make animation. The urge to just make it was great. So I eventually just tried drawing the storyboards, and tried to film frames of my actual drawings with a video camera. I thought that could work out as my short animation, after I film about 1500 drawings or so. Of course it didn’t work out. I didn’t have a realistic sense of how many drawings that was. My dad wanted me to go into computer science. Now I look at it, it makes a lot of sense, for animation, or art in general, is such a life-long continuing process, that if I did these four years of school or not, doesn’t make that much of a difference. Richard also said that learning doesn’t end with school. It’s always an on-going process. The end of this stage may very likely be the start of another stage. Back to talk more about that education decision I had to make. Now I think about it, computer science is sort of like animation, in that we are pursuing phantoms that don’t really exist, phantoms that show up on TV or computer monitors only, phantoms that involve us in the risks of losing direct contact with our surrounding world if we don’t steer ourselves with caution.

So I graduated from high school and came to SVA. My first semester here was a blast. I had Marty, and he let us all do our films. My cousin sent me a music track over the internet. That night, as I was listening to it, I storyboarded my first-semester film, which was entirely based on that track. Then, I worked a lot, to finish the animation. I remember the magic moment of seeing the thing play in sync with the music on the computer. It was very close to what I imagined in my mind, the pacing, and the feel. It was magical how all the sequences that I animated separately actually came to fit together. For a moment there I felt I’ve definitely made the correct decision of choosing animation.

The second semester I made another film. This one I was as enthusiastic in the process of making it. The end result though, was not that great. It was not as evident to me back then. But it did show the first hints of where I was lacking. It later on became to me known examples of how my lack of knowledge about certain things in animation (eg. drawing, staging, continuity, pacing) would block me from making animated films that work. Although I had the rough drive to do something, I might not know how to execute it properly. I might not know when something is wrong. Even when I knew, I might not know how to fix it. But back then there were only hints of uneasy feeling. It was until perhaps two years later, that they became clear pointers to working directions.

Second year I had Matt Sheridan. He forced me to do something more concrete, something less impressionistic. His critiques were that so I started doubting myself as a film-maker. To me that was what I wanted to be, I never really thought about my future careers. I only thought I want to make the actual thing I had in vision. Once I get that done I’ll be happy. So having that struggle to making films was what really started my reflection of why – of why I’m unable to pull off what I want to do. Eventually I overcame the struggle and made two films that year. Only one of them came out good enough. Now I think about it I can face it though, because I know why certain things worked and why certain things didn’t work. I felt I still did work in that year, I didn’t waste my entire time. I felt sort of justified staying in this school. But the exact sureness I had when I made my first film at this school, was gone. It was then, I felt something that was fundamentally important – something that is the core of Richard’s speech, too, that the school isn’t exactly helping me to concretely improve, that I’ll have to sort my directions out and take up the responsibilities to improve myself now – just so I’ll have more sense of where I’m going, and more sureness in getting there. My fantasy in how this school will just teach me all the things I need to know about animation, so I’ll be able to make the stuff I wanted to make, with no problems after four years, at that point, was totally gone. If it didn’t happen after two years, I shouldn’t believe that it would happen magically after another two years. This reminds me of how my dad says that a person doesn’t magically mature mentally as he ages. There are things he needs to go through.

After second year ended, as the summer started, I thought I needed to do certain things to get to that position of being surer of where I was. Drawing was the biggest problem that I felt I had. Rather than just approaching it blindly by drawing all the time whatever was around me, and copying master drawings, I decided to follow a more logical way. The book Andrew Loomis wrote was of great help, for it was a greatly organized source of drawing education. When I went back to Vancouver for the summer, I visited my old drawing instructor and showed him my drawings. He told me two things, one – to draw with less lines and be more decisive, two – learn my anatomy. I decided to attend two or three of his lessons before I left Vancouver. He had me copy anatomy drawings by George Bridgman and Burne Hogarth, and labeling the different muscles at the same time. He also had me draw from photos of athletes in motion. When I was intently drawing from some of the photos, he took out some of his sketchbooks to show me. When looking at his sketchbooks, I noticed one drawing. It was a quick sketch of the same photo I was copying. Funny thing, my drawing had lots of details, and fairly accurately copied down the photo. His drawing was done with a lot fewer lines, but felt a lot more like the photo, and most importantly, his drawing felt like it was in motion, where mine felt rather stiff and static. It was then I made one of my drawing breakthroughs. His drawings showed me how throwing down fewer lines can portray the essence of the action more clearly, than when you get bugged down with all the less important details.

After that I came back to New York, and I attended Stephen Gaffney’s life drawing class. There I first felt the life drawings I did are meaningful, meaningful before I do it, meaningful when I’m doing it, and meaningful when I look at it after it’s done. I didn’t get to that stage back then, and I still haven’t totally reached that stage now. But it was the start of it all. I think that summer I also traveled back to Taiwan. George Bridgman has a logical way of organizing human anatomy with structure and form, so I felt I wanted to copy his drawings. So everyday I would spend about 2-3 hours just copying his drawings. Then I would also draw on the subway, in the zoo, and in the park. I took the Bridgman book with me, so when I got tired of drawing from life, I just sat down to copy Bridgman drawings. So it was 5-6 hours of drawing for me, everyday, for a month. I improved immensely through it. But it was because I was extremely lacking before. Until now I still have a great deal to catch up. I think drawing is something I know I may never get as good as how the best are. It’s because of that I don’t intend to use my entire time to focus on it. This goes back to how Richard says not everyone has to be an animator, that there are many other aspects of animation to find your own strength in and to develop that strength and interest furthermore. How my different methods made a difference in my speed of improvement in drawing, was a clear evidence of how one really needs to know what he was doing in order for the work he does to be effective – that many things have to be reasoned, that going through school without such reasons may be pretty dangerous. During that summer I also picked up the book, “Perspective Made Easy”. I picked it up to read because to my conclusion, perspective is one of the core essences to a successful drawing. It was a time when I wanted to find out finally why certain things weren’t working for me and how to correct them.

I forgot to mention another turning point during my school years. It was Howard Beckerman’s storyboarding class. I think back then I made the mistake of not making things short and simple enough. And also I haven’t really thought about what’s important to show in storyboards to make good continuity for something to show as a film on the screen. One of the things Howard said to me was, “This is not a comic strip. You have to show it for the audience to understand what happened.” Due to these mistakes, I got my storyboards turned down. It was a struggle for me. In fact so much, that I would try to correct one week’s assignment, and in turn hand in the next assignment late. I remember telling my dad about it when he called me. My dad told me, “Whatever you do. Never think the teacher is wrong. You have to look for the mistakes on yourself.” I also told my mom that I’ll try to work hard for another year, then if it doesn’t work out, I’ll quit the school and pursue education in other fields. So after that I tried hard to really listen to what Howard had to say. And eventually two storyboards of mine were approved by him, so I was greatly relieved. It is because I myself went through the thinking of “If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll quit.”, that I would really understand when Richard talks about the same thing.

That summer, that summer of figuring out my directions and doing lots of work on my drawing ability, really had its impact on me. The fact that I was learning so much on my own, deepened my logic that I’ll have to depend a lot more on myself than the school. Funny thing though, it was after I did a lot of work on drawing and perspective by myself, that I came to appreciate a lot more of what the teachers had to teach me after the summer, because I understood it a lot more. One example was, because I found out there’s so much out there to learn from when I drew from life everyday during the summer, that I really understand it when Howard continually urged the students to always draw from real life.

At one of my internships, my supervisors asked me how was SVA. I told them that I felt there are good teachers and bad teachers, but I felt it was more up to myself to make use of the good teachers, and that I can’t really know if that’s good or bad, if that might be a universal thing to every school, because I haven’t gone to other schools for comparison. My supervisors went to universities to study architecture. What they said exactly I forgot, but I think they said that what I said indeed applies to all students, that one would have to take the matter into their own hands to make school work for them. Richard confirmed my belief furthermore with his speech.

Although I believe that much more depends on the student than depends on the school, there’s still a measure towards which a school should match its standards of teaching. Cal Arts happens to be a convenient comparison to SVA as a standard in education quality. A student has to do his own part. The school has to do its part as well. And a good way to tell how the school is doing its job is from the quality of student works it turns out. If the works that come out are very inconsistent in quality each year, then one must wonder how effective the school is doing its part. I believe the school has a great mix of faculty. Why this great mix may not work so well, I believe, is due to the lack of a foundation year – a year of foundation art training that would enable students to understand the more advanced stuff that the teachers are trying to teach. Trying to learn the more advanced stuff without the base building blocks is a journey doomed by fate. There are certain criticisms of how Cal Arts people all draw in the same style, or that they only focus on animation and drawing, and don’t do or know anything else. I believe on that point, certain things depend on what you want to achieve. So I can see how such education may not be suitable for everyone. But hey, being able to draw and animate like some of the students I’ve seen coming out of there, that ability alone frees you from many technical limitations. That freedom alone allows you to explore many things in arts and animation. We all know how much of a role drawing ability plays in storyboarding, staging, and animation. And these people are free to explore these “other” areas after they graduate. After all, learning doesn’t end after the four years of school, right? Thus I don’t see the point of accusing them in being locked into only one thing.

After seeing some of the student films from Cal Arts, I could have made the decision to transfer there instead. But I didn’t, and it was a conscious decision, one made with reason. Someone asked me why I didn’t transfer there, and I told her a story I’ve read when I was in second grade. It was one of Aesop’s fables. It goes like the following.

The frogs want a king, and asked Jupiter for one. So Jupiter gave them a floating block of wood. At first the frogs were excited, but later on felt that it was just a boring block of wood that never responds to anything. So they asked again, and Jupiter gave them another king. I forgot what Jupiter gave them the second time, but it was something worse. So the frogs asked for the third time. I remember that Jupiter got annoyed, and sent a crane as their third king, which ate up all the frogs. The end.

Basically, the morale of the story is that things can always turn out worse, so as long as the present seems good enough, stick with it. And that story made an impression on me, and was part of my reasoning in deciding not to transfer. But of course there are other reasons. The main reason was that I believe that more important were the things I’ll have to work on my own part, than of what the teachers have to teach me. Information nowadays are so abundant and easily accessed, via books and the internet. And useful information goes around the world and is not only limited to certain countries. Under this environment, it is natural to think that it is more of my fault not having learned certain things, than to blame the teachers for not having spoon-fed the information.

On the topic of how much responsibility you and your school hold in your education, it’s important to take an objective viewpoint. And I think Richard has taken a fairly objective one.

Complexity starts with Simplicity

Over the last summer, one of my greatest realizations in drawing was that the overall flow of my pose (in memory drawings) was ignored, and that I have skipped it and moved on to place the many parts of the body in positions. Right then I had the feeling, "Ah, this is why. This is why my drawings looked weird back then, because I haven't even gotten the simplest thing, the biggest overall flow of the pose right in the first place." It was a hard feeling to describe, but an important one to record. Somehow it has something to do with the fact that, with most poses and actions that occur in nature, they have a very simple focus and/or intention - one look at it usually reveals some evident overall big flow and direction, and getting that simple thing is important/hard enough - that one should get that right, before he moves on to complexity. The overall idea of the realization is that, often, when something doesn't work out right, it's because the simpler and more fundamental ideas haven't been grasped yet. At that moment, it is necessary to take a step back, and work on that first.

Short-hands

Short-hands, such as that Disney and comic book artsists use, are not the truth itself.

The initiative behind them, however, are fundamental understandings of the truth.

Thus they can make very good pointers along the search for a good way to approach drawing in general.

Short-hands can be viewed as a double-edge blade. On one hand, they, being able to render certain things with much simpler strokes and structure, means they are the embodiment of certain essence of natural order. On the other hand, because they have often been simplified, looking at them for reference can involve the risk of memorizing flat impressions without further understanding of nature's true form.

Story

If it seems obvious to use references to help growth in drawing, then should we also use references to help writing stories? If so, what references, and in what ways the references are absorbed and interpreted, are some questions to think about.