It’s week 3 of Animation Mentor, and this week we’re learning to animate a bouncing ball. I think my bouncing ball will be so good that Pixar will want to license it for a new short film called “The Bouncing of the Ball” or something. Anyway, it’s going well; the workload isn’t overwhelming yet though I still wish I could get my sleep schedule in order so I could get my animation studying time into some kind of structured groove. Here’s my assignment from last week:
The assignment was merely to observe other people’s poses and then pose the given 3D character. That took long enough; I can’t wait to see how long it will take to actually animate something that complex … *gulp*
In other news, I just finished reading a good book called The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong
by David Shenk. It basically argues against the classic notion that “genius” is just some innate quality that we’re either born with or without, most of us without. What we call “genius” is actually a set of skills that are highly developed over a long period of time, formed by constant practice and dedication. With enormous amounts of dedication, just about anyone can become a “genius” in any area they desire. The thing is, not many of us are willing to really dedicate that much time and effort to one area of study (and sometimes we can’t anyway, because of the demands of work, school, or family life). But realizing that just about anybody has the ability to become a genius in just about anything (though certainly not everything at the same time) is something few people seem to realize (though if you read through my blog here, you should see that I have long held this notion, as have others, so it’s not really an innovative idea, but it’s still a good book).
Some things mentioned in the book that I though were interesting:
Prodigies:
Firstly, there are plenty of prodigies who grow up to do nothing special, and plenty of successful adults (like Einstein) who weren’t prodigies. The qualities needed to be considered a “prodigy” and to be considered an adult “genius” are simply different. So if you weren’t a prodigy, relax, you can still do great things. And if you were a prodigy, you’re a loser now! Ha ha! See what it feels like!
No, what I mean is, if you were a prodigy, you can’t just rely on whatever made you a prodigy to help you compete in the adult world; you have to retain that constant drive to learn and practice and get better still, and this time without your parents and teachers praising how good you are to family and friends on the phone.
I watched this video on YouTube some time ago. A 6 year old girl plays an original composition on the piano. Take note of what Ellen says at around 4:35. She asks “How do you come up with this stuff?” And the girl says “It just comes out!” And Ellen says “Well, it doesn’t just come or it would come out of all of us if it did. You’re very very special.” Oh, Ellen. You’re so funny. See? This is what a lot of people really think! Actually, Ellen, you could compose and play like that if you just practice for a few years. It’s really not that amazing. That you think you can’t anyway, however, won’t help anyone at all. But Ellen is right; it doesn’t just “come out,” it’s practiced and worked towards.
How to be a Genius:
Chapter 7 includes some tips on how to become a genius; that is, how to work yourself to the bone to become good at something. The tips are very good (though easier said than done). The first tip is to find your motivation. Obviously it’s much easier to do something if you want to do it. Secondly, be your own toughest critic and identify your limitations and ignore them. Practice that will help you improve is not just doing the same thing over and over. You have to try to do something you cannot yet do. You have to constantly be finding areas you can improve in. You must delay gratification and resist contentedness. You might get to a point where people start praising you for your work, but you can’t be content with that. (Is praise your motivation, you shallow fool?!) You have to keep pushing yourself; never be happy with your work. I mean, you can be proud of what you’ve achieved, certainly, but the point at which you can’t find anything to improve on is the point at which you’ll stop improving (and become a big dummy). That said, you must also beware the dark side (bitterness and blame). You don’t have to psychologically mess yourself up by constantly thinking you’ll never be good enough, for whatever reason. When you push yourself, you must do it for the desire of getting better, not out of self-contempt. Finally, try to have heroes and find mentors. They will inspire you and teach you their secret ways. (And, no, I can’t be your mentor, sorry to disappoint…)
Being a genius shouldn’t be the reward. Becoming a genius should be a reward in and of itself. You must learn to love the process, as it never truly ends.
Also, school is stupid and doesn’t help at all. Just thought I’d put that in there.
And all that said, you might be perfectly content with not being considered a genius. Nothing wrong with that. Lazy bum.
But … how does one practice effectively?
I’m still not really quite sure, the book doesn’t go into a whole lot of detail on this point. I shall have to do some further reading and research, I suppose. I guess some of it depends on what exactly you want to learn. And I suspect it has to do with what I mentioned earlier: finding some certain thing you are not yet capable of doing and figuring out how to do it. Give yourself little goals and then work to achieve them, and when you do, give yourself more goals. So I guess the trick is to find little goals that will actually aid you in your larger quest. For example, if you’re learning to play the piano, and you give yourself the goal of playing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” even faster, that might not be as helpful of a goal as trying to play it with more accurate tempo or something. Or in learning to draw: If you wish to draw dragons that can only be seen in your mind, redrawing family photos from reference might not be as much help as studying anatomy and learning to recreate bodies in positions you do not have reference to work from. For arts like writing and composing, the art is so much more subjective that coming up with goals might be harder. Having a goal of simply “getting more praise from more people” just seems a bit stupid. Areas like that are, I think, more tricky. I could go into my thoughts about them, but I think that topic is worthy of another entire blog post, and I don’t really feel like getting all into it now.
Overall
Overall, I recommend the book, especially if you don’t already agree with its message, because you need to understand how wrong and foolish you are! I only deduct a few points because the author misinterprets an Ayn Rand quote, and gives too much unwarranted credit to Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, the “stupid old foolish scientist” as he’s known in these parts.
Happy reading! (Or happy non-reading, to all you non-genius folks…)
– Well, actually, I got the first edition, but the second edition is what’s on Amazon now. This book was in Animation Mentor’s “recommended books” section, and just flipping through it it looks like it will have some helpful tips.
– I’m not really sure exactly what this is about (besides animated “acting” of course) but it looked interesting.
– Someone mentioned this book in the comments of this blog. I forgot to look for Mamet’s book on directing though. Anyway, this book is very short. So I got it. Looks interesting. It’s just on story writing in general, I think, so could be interesting since I’ve always got screenplay and novel ideas floating around in my head.
– This is definitely just a scan-through book with lots of pictures in which animators make a few points about the creation of some of their short animations.
– This was also recommended by Animation Mentor. It’s obviously about cinematography. It looks like its full of great and interesting film-making stuff. I’d like to read it cover to cover, though I don’t think I’ll have time, especially since I need to focus on actual animation. But it looks like it will definitely be interesting to at least flip through.
– Here’s another one I’d like to read cover to cover if I had more time, which I don’t, so I’ll just flip through it. It’s just about how to use Maya. I think I’ve got an OK handle on the animation side of things, at least the basics of it, but modeling, lighting, rendering, etc. are all still kind of beyond me. Though I don’t necessarily need to learn those things for Animation Mentor, I still think they’d be useful.
. Overall, it was very good, and could change the way parents (and people in general) think about child development and (what I’m interested in) education.
by Philip Zimbardo about Zimbardo’s famous 
. It’s got some fascinating chapters on emergent properties and genetic algorithms. Really makes me want to start doing some programming again. And if you like the classic book 
, this book should please you as the author was heavily influenced by the book, seeking out Hofstadter to study under after reading it. (It’s been about 10 years since I read GEB; I need to reread it.) The book is just a wee boring at certain parts, especially in the beginning, but I suppose such chapters can be skipped, as some of them just give an overview of stuff you might already know. The book can also be a bit confusing at times, but overall, since it’s not very mathematically in-depth and only 300 pages, it’s great for more casual (yet fascinating) reading. I’ve still got a few more chapters to go, but it’s a great book.
the other day from Amazon.com. I played through the prologue and it looks like it will be a really fun sequel. Too bad I won’t really have any time to play it.
… yeah, it’s based on a video game, so I guess I’m a dork. But it was a very easy read, and helps kinda flesh out some of the back story to the game (which I thought was great), so I enjoyed it, whether you like it or not, and maybe I’ll read more, haha!