When the animation started up before years, the industry itself shaped out of lot of hurdles and with the help of true artist who believed in moving artwork would convincing enough to entertaining people. Featured film makers like Walt Disney took it to the next level & till then making animation movies in classical ways much of hard work & involved extra ordinary artistic works.

Today the Animation Industry came a long way with introduction of Digital 2D & CG animation which made many of students to get attracted to do animation as their career. But rather than learning by yourself or with some small institute – Having a Degree in Animation would always give you an edge over thousands of animation students & make your career shine by learning with expert animators.

What Exactly is Included in Degree Courses

Following are the different career paths that are included in a bachelor’s degree in Animation. These are not only limited to movies, gaming & series production but also web & digital content production.

3D Animator/ Character Animation

- You learn to apply laws of human motion, physics and psychology to 2D and 3D objects to create.

- Develop effects for movies, television, computer games and advertising

Web Animator

This is the complete different form of animation  that is made compatible to web & more of not related to feature films or series at all. But if some of you are interested in this kind of web animation here is what you learn in it.

- Design, produce and construct animations for the web

- Determine the best style, technique and software to use in order to bring static images and graphics to life

Desktop Publisher

- Use animation and graphics to enhance text, promotional materials and presentations

- Design and re-format documents, graphics and charts to be printed or displayed in reader-friendly formats

No matter what kind of Animator what you are willing to be, your passion will not be enough to learn so many tools & techniques that evolved every year. Degree in animation would surely be your next step rather than finding your own ways from the dark.

This innovation award is specially created for Indian Animation student from any Animation school from India & the entry id totally free for students.

I have came across this competition quite late, so though it would be great to share with you guys, who have working on any of their Animation film.

This collaboration of Canadian  Arts College for Indian student is for presenting the creativity of Indian students in Animation to the world & also exposing production houses of Canada to Indian industry of Film & Animation.

The team leader of winning film will receive a one week training at Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology (Toronto, Canada). The return ticket valid in economy class for one person will be sponsored by the Seneca College and one week’s accommodation stay and living expenses will be sponsored by Frameboxx.

So a very good opportunity for students who are crating something really great out of their animation films.

Guidelines For Participation in ICSIA Awards:

1. Student must be from Indian Animation Schools only

2. Letter from your Animation school, required as a proof that you are a student.

3. Film must be no less than 2 minutes & should not be more than 4 minutes.

4. Theme for Movie: “Innovation in our life”

5. No Entry Fees

6. Send your entries on DVD with( NTSC or PAL ) with all details written on disc.

7. Last Date of Submission: 15th of February 2011.

You can read complete guidelines & form here in competition section.

The winner will be announced during the “BAF Award Ceremony” at FICCI Frames conference 2011 at Mumbai on March 24.

Click Here to visit the official site of ICSIA Award

So

What is Training for Career in Animation ?

For whom it’s necessary?

What you can expect ?

How you are going to use all this Training Series?

This is for anyone who dreams to be Outstanding Character Animator , Rigger, Modeler ,Vfx Artist, Lighting Artist, Story boarding Artists, Script Writer, Concept Artist , like all those that  Field of Animation includes.

I’m creating this Training series because I care for your dream , your efforts, your time and your money.  See most of the times people pay large sums of money for the education of animation , sometimes even take loans and  after going through that course , school or training program, it turns that wasn’t worth at all , and they didn’t learn any real  skills , which they should have. And then they start to question , try to find the way to make things right or sometimes they settle , they think may be everyone does the same. And lots of  regret about the choice of  that particular course .

And Dont you think  it’s not like Trial and Error that you can invest money into another school?  Right !!  That’s why choosing the right institute, training program , course , mentors is really really Important thing.

You search for Career in Animation and so many institutes , vague information , vague facts , so many courses ,so many promises , accreditations , degrees and diplomas in Animation , we never heard before . And lot’s of uncertainty , doubts. We don’t know where to begin.

And that’s why  here is the Training Series for Career in Animation. I’m not going to make decision for you but I’m here to help you to make the best possible decision for you.  I remember the words from episode of  Supernatural , ” There might be 3-4 choices in your life that will shape your entire life ,and  you need to be the one who makes them for you and no one else”

This Career in Animation Series includes really simple but most important things , what are the crucial things one must know even before joining any training program, what are most important steps one must take before joining any course , how exactly do that , how to create maximum certainty , how  learn any

skills rapidly and what exactly one must search for , how to produce the results?

And it contains so many practical things that you will be using for the rest of  your career in animation. and everything is break down into practical steps.

It has new concepts like how to ask ? how to take notes ? so that one would be able to produce results. So many new tools which are practical and easy to use.

Even being aware of these things will put you above the guys who are working hard and not producing results they deserve to produce.

And there are really small things that make huge difference.

I see the guys , who have good potential , and they are not making efforts to expand their comfort zone, they are either not aware of  incredible resources available around, like books , training programs , mentors , blogs  or they are not making most of  the resource they have got.

And I know you all have the capability and potential of being outstanding , and I don’t want you to settle for the less than you deserve.

I remember , one really outstanding Animator talking (sorry I don’t remember the name ) , and he said , ” You know people talk about how their Location is not appropriate or lack of quality guidance or financial problems and on and on but every year I see guys walking in the awesome studios from corners of the world all the time despite of all the odds!!”

Being a Character Animation Student myself , I’m so much grateful for the incredible guys who have created Outstanding education places and platforms like Animation Mentor , iAnimate , 11 second’s club, Keith Lango VTS .

These places are like paradise for Character Animation Students , these are places which are raising the standards of Animation all over the world.

Ultimate Outcome of this Training Series is

It’s the Training Series  for Career in Animation , Which will have all the Initial infomation and Which will practically help Any beginner , to create his own path , to make best possible  decisions for his career , to give the best practical tools so that he would be able to Renginneer , Model the best and design his own way to reach his dream as fast as possible  despite of  his financial background or location And produce outstanding Results as quickly as possible

To remove his fear of uncertainity , to convince the parents that its gona be alright and  its fun,

To help creating amazing animators, riggers, modeler , Vfx Artists, To help them to scedule their dream

If you are already learning somewhere in any institute , these sessions are really helpful for you too , you will realize what things you must be learning and how you should able to produce outstanding results, what you must be asking your mentors and what is exactly gap between where

you are today and where you want to be and how can you precisely take steps to bridge that gap .

In this program I’m not giving the opportunities or types of jobs available in Animation , I’m going to give you the thinking process that how you should be thinking while making decision and creating a practical way for your dream and what certain elements that you are going need for that and how to use those elements precisely.

You will be able to Test all the things on your own , if  you think something I say doesnt make sense throw it out , keep only you think is useful , don’t buy anything i say, TEST Everything.  And decide from the Results

HOW TO USE THESE TRAINING SESSIONS

1. Use the the index page as a Road Map – Here is the link

2. Go through the sequence as it is and watch the videos of Tony Robbins ,I have included.

3.  Test all the things , I don’t want you to be reading passively

4. For most of the articles to practice you got to come back to them again and again

5. Do the assignments , those have some Purpose and Outcome.

6. Definitely share your views on each sessions .

Most of things I have shared , I have either created or Learned from my coach Tony Robbins  and  Tony has these books , Awaken the Giant within and Unlimited Power  I would recommend  these two books for you , if you find these Training Sessions for  Career in Animation helpful.

He has awesome successful programs like  Personal Power II and Time of your life .

If you have to take control and produce outstanding results in every area of your life , you are going need these and your entire life will be transformed …

Click Here to Go To Index of Career in Animation

How we are going to use the Outcome of Research ?

we are going to use this for Our Ultimate Outcome.

” In order to be an Outstanding Character Animator,

to create(or be part of ) a system and  resources  through which I will be able to learn and improve my animation skills ,

Get quality feedback , learn new Animation skills  and improve consistently  ?”

* same way you can replace Character animator with Modeler , Rigger … and  Animation with Modeling ,Rigging….

For that ULTIMATE OUTCOME

we have these

Four Precise Steps

1. After Research you will end up with skills that one must develop in order to be outstanding Animator(Rigger, modeler, storyboarding artists …)

2. You will find out what are the skills you have and what you have to cultivate, what are the skills you will have to improve.

3. Now You will create precise measurable assignments (basic , intermediate , expert Levels) for each and every skill

or find out resource , training program, school , mentor through which you will able to learn and improve those skills.

Someone will might say ,” there could be more than 100 skills  !!! ”

Then develop 100 assignments or

Ninja assignments which will help you to learn more skills in few assignments.

I feel really terrible when people just copy the assignments of  best schools like AM , character jumping on rods and like that.

Remember the RPM  ,

Assignment has precise OUTCOME and PURPOSE ,

and for that OUTCOME  and PURPOSE , there’s not just one assignments , there could 100 ways to achieve that OUTCOME and PURPOSE.

Always bring the movie ” The karate kid” in front of eyes and remember how he learns karate, through totally Unconventional way

Guy jumping on the rods is just the one way.

Someone said , ” But using that assignment , I’ll learn those , skills , why should I find any other assignment ”

I wonder , How can someone like this can choose to be in creative field ?

Who just can’t be a little creative !!!

USE YOUR  THE TOOLS from ULTIMATE TOOLBOX ,

Questions and RPM

Create web of questions with Precise outcome and you will have so many assignments ,

Use all the TOOLS to their best  and you will have Assignments for Every skill in 3 sections Basic – Intermediate -Expert

You will end up creating your own syllabus.

You can even break it into Semesters , you want

Create deadlines for each .

Have outcome for Semester

Sometimes assignments could be like continuously run for life time like in infinite loop

For example

For drawing skills , one of  your assignment is draw circles of different sizes for 5 minutes , draw vertical – horizontal – diagonal lines for 5 minutes

It’s life time exercise

4.  Create Quality Feedback and Improvement system

Create or be a part of  group , resource , forum , mentor/s so that you will have quality feedback for work  and you will be able improve skills rapidly.

and  measure everything ,  assignments , skill improvements , your speed of doing it.

See whether everything working or not (producing outcomes ), and make changes.

Measure things in week or month.

And Have Precise  Milestone/Standard so that  you will able to know that you have Achieved exactly what you want .

i.e. Having Testing processes and standards

for Testing

is something working or not

Have you improved some skill or not .

like that

Set realistic and precise deadlines

So as I promised ,this is how we break everything down into practical plan for your Ultimate Dream.

Even After Second STEP

you will be able to choose the perfect school or training program or resource that will help YOU TO BRIDGE THE GAP.

When you will be enquiring at schools or anywhere , you will be asking precisely , how exactly they will help you to bridge the gap , cultivate and improve

that specific skills.

USE ACTIONS TOOL IN ULTIMATE TOOLBOX

TAKE MASSIVE ACTIONS

When you do it for the first time these four steps are like installing a system and then you do all these steps in Infinite loop, keep researching , taking notes , finding patterns, expanding identity.

More of like upgrading versions of Softwares for life.

“There is no end . There is no beginning. There is only the passion of Life” – Fedrico Fellini.

Whenever you will be creating some new tools, ways , skills  share it with world. Help others to produce results. Share the exact thinking process,

elements that you have created with world.

So finally time to say Good Bye , throughout this entire program , we joked , laughed together , we shared so much ,about dreams, about skills. I hope we’ve became good friends.

Don’t forget to  invite me for your celebration of  Dream.

Here are final words , a small paragraph I’ve written

Doing Impossible is Fun – Walt Disney

” impossible is following heart ..

impossible is following the vision no one ever had imagined

impossible is to work very hard for the childhood Dream

impossible is to see beyond limitations

impossible is when everyone says it’s never going to happen & you still don’t give up

impossible is when people say you are doing crazy and you feel as if you are born for doing it

and

impossible is Fun ..

Are you ready to do impossible??? “

All the best for your incredible journey …

Mahesh

Here is the Video of  Tony Robbins you must watch 3 Pillars while Achieving Anything

For the next 3 months , how we are going to do Research ?

When I say 3 months , i mean dedicated 6-7 hours for those 3 months around 630 hours.

Obviously we are going to use

Books

Magazines

Podcasts

Blogs

Movies

Works

Makings of

Arts of

as a resource for our Research.

I guess most of  you already do that and this time we have Outcome and Purpose.

When we will be gaining valuable information , it will be coming at rapid pace in large volume.

What do I mean?

I usually scout almost more than 75 blogs and information keeps coming so fast , and already those are filled with valuable information archived over years.

So if  you  don’t use notes , like we learned in How to take Notes sessions , soon you will be overwhelmed and you might just read the information , wondering how amazing is that , end up not using it practically.

Remember “Information without purpose is Useless”

That’s why you are going to index the things like we learned , using those How to take Notes sessions.

For these 3 months of Research ,

You are not going to read about Softwares at all , not books , not videos  nothing about Softwares, knowing which softwares are necessary is enough, initially.

Remember our OUTCOME , we are doing research for specific skills.

There’s huge difference in learning Software and Learning Animation.

what are we going to do now

Stick on wall  your Ultimate Outcome and Purpose for this Research for Career in Animation

Here are some ways to do Research

1.  know your superheroes

See the credit list of your most favorite animated movie ,

For example If you want to be outstanding character designer , then find out the credits of  the movie which you thought had best character designers.

Read , watch, hear about or from those character designers and also about studio their  previous movies.

Through interviews, blogs, making of , …. you know all the resources.

And index , organize and take notes (How to take notes sessions)

You can do for any movies you want , but  on web once you will start you will go deeper and deeper , from one place to another  , and that’s why you need

to know your Outcome

2. Books

Another good way to start , again you will need your How to take notes sessions ,   you will might say I  will have to try assignments in the book ,

It’s not like that ,you are going to come back for that when you will be learning the skills but now you know the Outcome , the thinking process , skills.

Through books you will know about so many things , skills, assignments, another books , movies, outstanding artists, artists, process and so much.

3. Blogs

There are so many incredible awesome professional guys who have blogs.

When you find one Blog , you find many other cool blogs as they have links of the blogs they like.

Whenever you find a Blog ,

READ ENTIRE BLOG FROM FIRST and TAKE NOTES.

You take notes like we learned in How to take notes Sessions from 2-3 blogs and believe me your Research is Complete.

After that you will have some questions or something .

USE YOUR ULTIMATE TOOLBOX

And your  HOW TO ASK STEPS?

for the help from those guys.

4. Schools

Find out the best schools on  the PLANET

Find out what’s their ULTIMATE OUTCOME for students?

what skills they improve? how ?

what things they teach ?

how they teach ?

What they expect from students?

Their Student works?

How they work?

How they get feedback?

What they do consistently to improve their student’s skills?

You will learn so many things , that what things OUTSTANDING SCHOOLS , teach their students that Software Teaching Schools don’t.

Ask professionals , read, listen , watch  , do whatever it takes to achieve your final outcome of the research .

As long as you are using all the Training in this Career in Animation , chances are you will be getting your outcomes rapidly.

Try to find out beliefs , identity ,thinking process , ways , skills.

Sometimes you will see contradicting beliefs from two different legendary guys.

Like One will say i never do X because ________

other will say  I always do X because ________

Do anyone or combine .

There’s no need to be get confused , remember we talked its art but we going to see it like science. So many ways, different variables but they produce the outcome , and we know outcome is everything .

Let’s say , after 3 months , our Research for Career in Animation got complicated. We achieved every outcome , we decided initially

So we have done our research , gained and organized that information in structured manner.

how we are going to use this Research for Career in Animation.?

Let’s go to the Final stage : Bridging the Gap

If you want be outstanding animator, rigger, modeler, story boarding artist, lighting artist , concept artist, story writer  …….. , you have got to study  Outstanding animators, riggers, modelers, story boarding artists.

You have got to study what makes them best , what are the skills they have mastered over the years , how they have mastered over the years, how they think, how they talk , how they communicate , how they dream ,how they exactly approach the work (shot ,designing character) , what’s their thinking process , why ? and as many as parameters that made them outstanding.

Some of you might go , that’s just one impossible thing and it could take years .

It won’t . I’m going to break it down with Precision, RPM and Questions , with our Ultimate Toolbox.

One of the most important thing  I learned from my coach , that if you want to be anything , study it , make it research. If you want to be wealthy , study wealth,

if you want be healthy study health , if you want be outstanding animator , study outstanding animation, what  makes outstanding animator

if you want to make best movie , study best movies  , if you want to create appealing character , study appealing characters, what makes appealing character…

I think you all got the point

And that’s why we are doing the Research for Career in Animation.

It’s our “P” Purpose in RPM for our project ” Research for Career in Animation”

So what’s is Result or Precise outcome that we are after ..

Do you remember the Identity session,

First  We must have to define precisely  where we are now  and What we have to be precisely.

So there is gap between where we are now and where we want to be , and we have to bridge that gap.

What do I mean ?

I mean, if you have to be an outstanding character animator, what are the skills that Outstanding Character Animator has, what are the things , parameters, beliefs, workflows, thinking process , approach , habits ,they do consistently which make them outstanding.

And what are the skills you already have and you don’t .  How you will develop those skills and improve those to the outstanding standard.
Same way you have to be an Outstanding modeler or Outstanding rigger …

All these process could take place for years , and can I tell you the secret , it will be until  end of our life. Because we always want be at the new level , we are consistently stretching and setting new standards.

And you will be using this all training series and Research for the career in animation for endless loop.

But let’s start with your first loop .

We must be able to measure it , right ?

So depending on your “time capital”, you can invest any time capital  for this project of  Research for  Career in Animation.

I would recommend ,  before joining any school , course , any program . Do this Research for at least 3 months seriously , its minimum.

What’s Our Precise Outcome

To find out precisely what are the skills an Outstanding animators have , what are the things Outstanding Animators do consistently , what questions  outstanding animators ask consistently , what are the most important beliefs  Outstanding animators have , how they approach work , what habits they have cultivated over the years , what are precise elements best animation has , what  are most important concepts one must learn to implement in the work , to find out patterns , recognize the patterns in Outstanding animation and in Outstanding animators, what are the precise ways one can develop those skills

And you can add whatever you want to add in it or improve it  ..

same way if you want to be modeler , rigger , … you can modify that outcome

So finally we have arrived at the Final stage , for which we are preparing through all these articles .

We learned that we are going to learn Thinking process and we are going to take notes in organized manner and finally make our unique

practical way of implementing that information . We learned in order to know something actually works or not TESTING is really important.

We learned Information without purpose is useless and if we know something but we are not doing  it, it’s only because we haven’t truly understand it , and we have

to take step so that we actually understand that how to use it .
And we learned the Ultimate TOOL BOX , which had these amazing tools , and we are going to use them every area we want to perform excellent consistently,  We learned

how to ask , so that we always get what we want . We learned the importance of precision and defining what we exactly  want is really important.

This is our Ultimate Toolbox,

You want to do anything ,open this Toolbox

Direct animation short

Planning animation

Creating new character

Come up with new story

Write the story

Take notes

Write a book

Model a character

Create a documentary

Create a new product

Research for Career in Animation

Virtually Anything you want to create , achieve you are going to need this Ultimate Toolbox

Before starting the Research for Career in animation ,

First of all I want to Congratulate you that you have earned this Toolbox and you are not from those guys , who just talk and  don’t do anything, you are achiever , you have gone through all this training , and going to use all these stuff to its best. And it tells how much you are actually committed to your dream , your passion and how much adaptive person you are. And I have immense respect for you and I’m really privileged to be able share some things with passionate person like you.

In this article , I’m going to show you how you can breakdown all the things in ONE PRACTICAL WAY.

See all these will be helpful even when you will be doing Research for Career in Animation

I loved computer programs from like from  7-th class , One cool thing about computer programs is we can make them do anything, but they need to know

EXACT PROCESS , Step by step , precise instructions and ALL THE POSSIBILITIES that may occur and HOW TO HANDLE them.

If we take care of that as we all know they perform awesome consistently and also there are some programs , like created by search engines like Google, called spiders which crawl websites , they are even smarter , they learn and improve themselves after every crawling , they find patterns, recognize patterns , and they adapt new things. and Work more efficiently than last time.

How does all this relates to taking notes for animation ?

Ignore the computer programs , just read the 2 sentences in BOLD .

That’s your OUTCOME while taking NOTES OF ANYTHING.

to know

EXACT PROCESS (Thinking Process),

Step by step , precise instructions and ALL THE POSIBILTIES that may occur

and

HOW TO HANDLE them.

Finding the patterns , recognizing the patterns , adapting new things, finding the important parameters that make things work.

and Improving it consistently,

creating our own unique way .

If you have to learn to draw , and  I coach you exact thinking process ,

What should be your thinking process before drawing

while drawing

and

after drawing

What are the elements in any awesome drawing ?

what are the things that make drawing make look awesome ?

What one must never ever do while drawing?

What one must do while drawing?

How does all the elements come together to form impressive drawing?

How does they relate to each other ? how does they affect each other ?

that how to think about drawing anything , what to think when you  have to draw anything from life ?

what should be your first question , what you must be noticing first , what’s the second , what’s after that ,

how you should think while drawing, what should you be picturing in mind while drawing?

Finally breaking down all the things  in one unified way of practical steps

Like first – second- third -fourth-…….-twenty first …

Imagine , I coach you these things or say you read book and you take notes of these things ,

wont you be able to draw impressively.?

I bet you will !!

Let’s say you are going to read a book about Directing Animation Short .

Here are  The Six Steps for Taking Notes

First thing

READ ANY BOOK WITH OUTCOME AND PURPOSE , WRITE  BOTH DOWN

Don’t ever read any book without any precise outcome in mind.

let’s say Your outcome -after this book I will be able Direct any Animation Short

Now break it down even more precisely . Using Precision , Questions tools (You can define anyway you want to define the Outcome and Purpose)

to know

EXACT PROCESS (Thinking Process),  while directing animation short

Step by step , precise instructions and ALL THE POSIBILTIES that may occur

and

HOW TO HANDLE them.

Finding the patterns , recognizing the patterns , adapting new things, finding the important parameters that make things work.

and Improving it consistently,

creating my own unique way .

Second thing

Do not read that book alone , have at least one or two books about directing , and also go on web find out as many articles, blogs you can find about

Directing animation short

Why more books and articles ??

Your outcome is not read one book or fifty books about directing animation short ,

Your outcome is you have to FIND ONE WAY no matter what animation short you have to direct. Chances are really less that one book is going to do that.

Third Thing

Get new Notebook

You might say , “Wait , wait , I already have One for Directing !”

That’s for Indexing , structuring Valuable information (i Will tell you how to use that too)

but here YOU ARE WORKING ON PROJECT  that you are in search of  Finding ONE UNIFIED WAY for Directing Animation Short

New project – New notebook.

Forth Thing

Start reading one by one , take down notes

Of  important things like you usually do

Write down the elements , statements ,

Is author teaching thinking process?

Write down the questions author tell you to ask while directing ?

And so on ..

Take notes from all the books , articles .

Fifth Thing

lets say you took a month  for reading all and taking down the notes (it all depends on your speed sometimes you need only 2-3 days)
AND you have

1. One project book that has notes of all books and articles

2. you have Notebook that has Indexed valuable Information about directing

(its optional if you have maintained the Indexed book over months or years or days )

Now close the door , have peaceful environment .

Look at all the notes , Indexed valuable information

Find out the most important elements , parameters while directing anything .

Most of times books have similar topics covered but in different styles

All we are looking for patterns in all those notes.

Ask questions. Use your Question tool as much as you can

What is the first thing one must do even before directing the short ?

What is second .. ..

Find patterns , clues in those notes.

Combine different ways to make your own ..

Imagine you have Animation Short to direct , what must be your steps?

Go through all those notes again and again ,

You have to find the thinking process that what one must be thinking while directing

And thinking process is asking -answering  QUESTIONS

consistently write down, on paper the important words,

It will take may be 4-5 consistent hours , just keep focusing on OUTCOME

ONE UNIFIED WAY

THINKING PROCESS

IMPORTANT ELEMENTS

PRECISE STEPS

After 4-5 hours of  thinking and writing ,

You will be able to combine all the notes come up with ONE UNIFIED WAY

Think as if you have to give this precise commands, step to Computer and he will be able to do it

like what are the Steps

Even Before directing

Thinking process (Questions )

What are the elements

While Directing the short

Thinking process (in terms of Questions )

What are the elements

Sixth Thing

Test it !

Test the way , test small direct a small scene or shot .

You will learn many things , what works , what doesn’t ,you will learn how you can improve your way , what should be included.

And now even if  in future you read another book about directing , you will have to just see what’s different and what can produce even more good result

and  is there something you should add in your UNIFIED WAY.

So these are SIX STEPS for making your OWN UNIFIED WAY.

It’s like boiling down all the things to ONE in your own way.

And throughout our entire animation career you will be able to improve it , adapt new things and add in your unified way.

And  WHAT IF you have only  one book or one training program ?

Then

Go through same steps

And

Ask this  Question

Okay , I learned this much. And Now  when I will be boil all these things , the chapters , concepts to one final thing and what would be the

One Unified way of directing the short , using all these concepts?

What would be first thing I will have to do ?

What would be Next ?

What would be the one after that and so on …

what are the important areas that i will have to focus on?

and how I’m going to do that

What are the steps for that ?

So on…

Your most questions should be – what I should (must )be thinking , what I should picturing , how I should be looking , what I should be listening , what I should be feeling,

Unified way is STEP BY STEP Thinking Process. You may have 70-80 steps or sometimes 10-20

(AND again ITS NOT LIKE TUTORIAL STEPS , it’s THINKING PROCESS in terms of  Questions)

When you will be actually practically using  this thinking process again and again. After few times , you won’t have to go in notebook to see what’s next , it will become your THINKING PROCESS ,like an instinct.

After years of practice , you will say it’s actually ART not science !

So this concludes our How to Take notes session

Our Ultimate Outcome of the notes is not to keep them as valuable information , but to actually use it to produce amazing results.

I mean that produce results must be the Outcome of any Notes, you remember RPM , we have got to know Outcome and Purpose of everything.

I was reading Getting Everything New , amazing book by Jay Abraham ,  the book has this example,

Before Henry Ford would hire anyone for an important position, he would have

lunch with them.  If the potential employee would salt the food before tasting it, Mr. Ford

would not hire the person.  The reason?  Salting the food before tasting it indicated the

person would implement a plan before testing it – ergo, no job.

Test everything !!!

In order to know something really works or not , you’ve got to TEST it , even though its written by legend , if you didn’t test it how you are going to produce results.

Don’t go blindly. It’s not they could be wrong , but how will we know that we actually can do that.

Before applying something to large scale , large time period.

Test on small scale and then go further. Always test everything.

I have to  tell you TWO most important distinctions

FIRST

You know that saying , “if someone is dying of hunger and you give him fish , he will live for few days but if you teach him how to catch a fish , he will never be hungry for rest of his life “

Best coach in the world tells you exactly how to catch the fish.

BEST COACH TELLS YOU THE THINKING PROCESS OF HOW TO DO SOMETHING, while bad teachers tell you HOW TO DO SOMETHING.

What’s the difference ? There’s huge difference.

For example ,

If  I can create impressive hats , you came to me for learning and  I  taught you how to create “the” Hat .  You loved it  but YOU CAN CREATE ONLY that particular hat ,

Not any hat that you wish to make or you will be asked to make.

Because I didn’t tell you my thinking process that what I was thinking and what one must be thinking creating any hat.

And it happens most of times in poor training programs , books , workshops , lectures, they fail to teach the THINKING PROCESS.

It’s not that they do it purposely but let’s say most of them DON’T KNOW THAT to teach the thinking process and not what to do?

The best coach in the world , John Wooden , he coached the thinking process to his team  such that  no matter who is up against them  ,they will be able to give the outstanding performance each and whole as team.

I  tell you the example we all can relate to ,  I  was watching an old Video lecture of  Master Glen Kean , perhaps it was for Cal art’s students.

In that  he’s talking about the scene from the movie Beauty and the Beast,

And when he’s talking , he is telling almost all of his thinking process from planning to finally animating shot  And not only that but he also tells what could have been fixed to make the shot look even more impressive.

That’s amazing!!! I learned so many things about animating shot in that two hours than  I could have possibly learned in 4-5 books.

Only because he coached thinking process , as an artist and animator how one should be thinking , even in real life.

If you ever had best coach who made you produce outstanding results in particular area , you definitely can back me up on this that he coached you the thinking process , that how to think about anything in that area.

SECOND IMPORTANT DISTINCTION

” If someone is producing outstanding results consistently , its not an accident , consciously or unconsciously , they are consistently doing certain things right”

This I learned from coach Tony.

I mean there are certain things , that make look Drawing impressive , there  are certain things you do right , it makes animation look good and certain things you do wrong the animation looks terrible.

Most often those are really simple and small things but make huge difference.

Just knowing the concept of Line of action , my drawings had improved amazingly.

Sometimes people who are producing results don’t know themselves either. Once we had guest lecture of amazing artist, his age may be more than 60 , and he was painting from may be 40 years or so , he’d shown his paintings , those were amazing ,  the colors and shapes , and ideas were awesome in each painting.

For one painting , someone asked that , you have used cool colors in this one,  The artist had no idea what is the “cool color”, it was his instinct , he have developed along these years , color schemes , shapes , ideas , staging , everything was awesome.

He was doing all the things right and he didn’t know consciously.

Now before taking notes ,  if you  want you may adopt one of my beliefs.

Look at everything as its Science , even though its art.

It may be weird , and it’s not true , but its true for me .

When people talk about art , they say ,”it’s just comes from WITHIN “, there’s no chance you can replicate immediately , you will have to go through may be years of experience and trial and error for that to be an instinct or from within.

But when you see something as a science , there are certain rules , certain parameters, certain steps , certain order and that  you have to get right in order to produce result.

Let’s say if its art , it has thousand or even more variables but we can always try to find out as much as variables we can.

It’s that simple ,

If you can’t see it , if you can’t measure it , you can’t manage it and you can’t improve it.

And it’s your choice to  how to look at something.

Anyway

Success leaves clues and we have got to find those, use them using our notes.

How ?

That is an excellent question!

Let’s see …

Now I’m going  to tell How to take notes , in a way that it will help produce amazing results consistently.

First of all you might be thinking , why should I listen to this guy , I’ve my own way taking notes. May be you have the best way for taking notes and using  them immediately in practical.

I think here might be  chance you will find something that will be new and useful , combine with your own way or if  you think there’s nothing useful throw it out ..

I’ve done this way of taking notes like from childhood and improved the way until now , and I was one of the best students , not outstanding, and had best grades, not outstanding 

(in 10th 86.40 % and in 12th 89.50% , true story that’s how I got to engineering and distinction on degree ) lame bragging , I know

You will might say , ” Yeah , big deal , I’ve maintained my 99 percentile , entire life even without taking notes”

Then I  guess , you definitely know what to do , skip over to next article.

Anyway so for rest you ,

See Our Ultimate Outcome of the notes is not to keep them as valuable information , but to actually use it to produce amazing results.

So first RULE we never will store Random Information , we will Sort and store the information in Meaningful way.

We are going to be Organized in our way

Exactly like Dictionary.

Why is that ?

Good question! I’m glad you asked !

If we are reading book or undergoing through any video coaching , it’s definitely going to be Organized , chapters , sessions but  when you will be

watching ,reading video interview

Reading articles

listening Animation Podcasts and watching movie and many more ways of  gaining information.

Chances are really less on web , that someone will write organized series of some topics on animation blogs

It’s going to be random valuable information.  And if we don’t sort it in Meaningful way chances are it will get lost in other notes.

So depending upon your interest have at least 4-5 notebooks/binders

Like I told before , I have 5 notebooks

1)  Story , Character design  , drawing Ideas, References

2)  Story Writing Concepts

3)   Animation Lessons

4)   Directing – Cinematography Notes

5)   Planning Projects ,  Feedback and improvements

you can have separate Notebook just for “Walks” too.

Now second step  is INDEXING ,

Like dictionary , you are going to make parts in notebook

For example in my Animation lessons

I have

workflow

animation principles

eyes

acting

timing

weight

planning animation

walk

…..

Almost  Like tagging

These indexes are definitely not in  meaningful order

Why ?

Because when i was learning i didn’t know all the things , whenever I was learning from blogs , podcasts , books  I made a part , left some pages for one index and like that

Same way you can have your NOTEBOOKS And tags if you are aiming to be awesome Modeler , rigger …

You can do this Indexing easily when you are doing in any computer software.

So whenever you are reading any interview , article ,book, listening podcast ..

You see something awesome about Planning Animation , you take that write in that section of Planning Animation , if you learn something about Posing the character , and hey it’s not indexed in your notebook before let’s add it and leave some pages for it

Initially it will look like ,

you have written 2 lines for timing , and have left 4-5 pages blank , same in all sections  but when slowly when you will start gaining more and more information and learn more  , the pages will be filled , you will have more and more indexes and you probably need new notebook .

Suppose you have left 2 page for EYES and someday you completed pages , so just create another Index Eyes_01 and leave some pages,  01 means you have 1 set before this about Eyes

Slowly after a year or may be in six months ,

You will have this valuable information , from different legendary guys. Almost like a book

Think after 5-6 years.

But  I said Our Most important outcome is to use this stuff Practically ,

I’m heading towards it , patience …