The Gift of Mentorship: Giving Us Building Blocks to Learn
"Let's figure out how it works then fix it." This is my first memory of a mentor. It was a simple exchange – a family friend showed me how to solve a problem. He didn't tell me how to fix it, but did provide me with much needed information so that I could be successful.
The art critic Leo Tolstoy noted, "We ask of the artist, what have you seen that I have never seen?" Artists create, and anything can be created with the right building blocks. Mentors provide us with building blocks and guide us in the creation of something new. They also offer us the opportunity to reduce the number of mistakes we might make. At times they let us learn the hard way – that being our decision.
A mentor is a trusted person we go to for guidance.
The author John Ruskin said, "The art of pictorial composition is the art of arranging all parts of the picture in a pleasing manner." A mentor provides insight, allowing us to make the arrangement.
Two mentors who instantly come to mind are Jim Macaulay and Louis Krawagna. Jim was first a structural engineer and then became an animator/filmmaker. The Croatian animator Zlatco Grgic said of Jim: "He is the only man I know who can make a feature film on his own." Jim is well into his 80s, constantly learning and lives to share what he learns. When he showed me how to do something, he explained why, asked me to learn by copying and then explore by reorganizing what I had just learned. As Jim gave his little demonstration about character and motion, it became clear that I had to start with the question: why? Why does something move – because the answer dictates how it will move. This is the reason for planning.
Jim drew with pinpoint accuracy and absolute detail when necessary, but insisted that simplified drawing must come first. He knew that mastering fundamentals let us see the inner essence of what is to be drawn or animated.
Louis is a master artist. At Sheridan College, I enjoyed animating and loved watercolor painting, but was barely exposed to foundation skills at school. It was at Nelvana, working with Louis as a background illustrator, that I fully understood the absolute of planning. Watercolor is the most difficult medium to use. Mistakes are often impossible to correct, and I learned that the hard way. Starting over is not fun.
One day I stood behind Louis and watched as he stared at a sheet of watercolor paper with a layout drawing on it. Cigarette ashes fell on the paper and he brushed them aside as he did sandwich crumbs. Close to 20 minutes passed, and I realized that he was creating the final image in his mind, making all of the color and lighting decisions. I said, "You know what it will look like before you start." He smiled.
I was away from work for a few days and Louis had to do some finishing touches to a large, detailed background of mine – it had to go to camera. When I returned, I thanked him and mentioned that I would not put it in my portfolio. He laughed, told me to look closely at what he had done and asked if I would be able to replicate it.
"Yes," I said.
"Then don't be silly, it's yours," Louis said.
Mentors put us first.
The transition to computer animating at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was quite difficult. My experience was 2D, computer animation was fairly new, animation methodology or workflow hadn't yet developed, and software was not user-friendly. A friend and I were given a tutorial book, and once a week a senior animator dropped in to show us how they moved things in the computer – nothing about animation, just how to move things. While we sat in a dark room struggling to understand technology, I sensed we were being watched. A smile, atop a gangly body, kept appearing and disappearing, nodding if there was eye contact. He was like a squirrel trying to retrieve acorns buried at opposite sides of the yard at the same time. Finally, Shawn Kelly introduced himself as an intern and asked if we could talk about animation. We did, and now we're stuck with him. He agreed to put the computer to sleep, take up a grease pencil and plan – not animate, plan. All I could suggest to him was 'decide why it is moving then you will know how it moves.' When a shot is properly planned, it's pretty much animated.
When mentors put us first, give us what we need for success, and wait patiently if we decide to learn the hard the way, we can't ask for more.
Master the fundamentals – there is nothing else
