And so here i was, thinking, as i often do. What does it REALLY mean to be a good animator. Now before i get bombarded with replies about amazing frame by frame animation at a sleek 24fps with great construction and blah blah, let me explain.
First of all i want to break it down into the types of animators that seem to be floating these parts, atleast the way i see it. There are animators, and there are film makers. Animators main focus tends to be, well, obviously on the animation itself, story, sound, writing, whatever, it all takes second place to the animation. These people as far as i can see tend to be interested in working in working at Cartoon Network or wherever, some want to have there own series there, others just want to do the bits inbetween. Either way they are more then happy to work for the man.
Then there are the film makers, these are the people that use animation as a tool, its merely a means to an end. The animation isnt whats important, but rather the story and characters behind it. These people (David Firth and The Swain being a prime example) seem to be more interested in just making whatever the hell they want, using whatever medium or style they want, to make whatever story they want. They tend to have no interest in getting into commercial animation and are more interested in just doing whatever they have to do to support there film making.
Ofcourse, then there are the subgroups withing these, which once again have further sub groups within them, and it goes on and on. But in essence, this is how i would break things down into the simplest way possible. But the reason i bring it up is for other peoples opinions.
Naturally from here i spun off into thought about people that make flash based entirely around known quantities in order to attain internet and sometimes even offline "success". An obvious example being the Awesome series. Which, Egoraptor claims he didnt intend to get as big as it did, and maybe he didnt, but i couldnt help but wonder what would have happened if he released "Awesome Grocery Shopping" or "Awesome Tire Changing" instead of Metal Gear Awesome all those years ago. Would it have taken off? I highly doubt it, so then what really was the cause for his success? Egoraptor? The film itself? Mr Fulp? Or the game behind it? Had he released his "awesome" dig dug toon first would the series be the juggernaut it is today? Who can say.
The same could be said of any animator that rellies on a known quantity to be noticed.
These are just questions im putting out there, and im interested in hearing peoples thoughts.
Here is a cute baby as thank you.
LAVAGASM
I am not qualified to respond to such a great rant. <3
Gerkinman
It wasnt so much a rant as a bunch of questions, but sure, okay lol.