So Abhishek is asking a question
Is formal art education and drawing
knowledge important and if I can't draw
then is it, is that a disadvantage?
This is a very interesting question
that we face, it keeps coming back and
keeps doing the rounds again 'n again
Let's get something very clear
When you say that when you're not
good at drawing.... good for what?
Are you entering your drawing in a
drawing competition?
Ask yourself this question
Are you entering a drawing
that has to be hung in a museum?
The point it you're making a drawing
to convey an idea
Does the drawing convey the idea?
You can make a stick figure
and convey the pose,
and convey the action,
the emotion....
Please do not mistake or get confused that
I cannot draw like Vincent Van Gogh,
I cannot draw like Rembrant,
therefore I can't visualise,
therefore I can't make a storyboard.
I don't have any formal training
in drawing. But...
Every time I sit with a client,
or everytime I've sat with a client,
there's always been paper and pencil.
When the client talks to you,
you draw a little frame on the paper & you
say ok! 'Is this what you're looking at?'
You draw a rough sketch
it looks nothing like a character, but
is it conveying the idea?
Is the message getting across? So
Please differentiate and learn to
differentiate the purpose of your drawing
if it is to get your idea across,
if it is to communicate,
Is it communicating?
Then you don't need shading in it,
you don't need light direction in it,
you don't need proper anatomy in it.
All that is secondary.
But Yes!
If you're drawing to show off your drawing
skills, definitely.
Then obviously in a drawing competition,
you don't expect to win the first prize
by drawing a stick figure, right?
Does formal education in drawing help?
YES!. Let's lay this to rest.
Does it help? And how does it help?
Well it helps because
you struggle that much less
to create an illustration
that can convey an idea.
Can you learn how to draw? ....Definitely.
It's a skill that you can pick up,
Recently our dear friend
& very senior person from the industry.
He conducted a lot of sessions on
fundamentals of drawing
for artists who can't draw.
It was a fantastic opportunity,
I attended all the sessions that he did,
So much to learn in terms of
figure drawing.
Again the question is...
Are you drawing
to showcase your drawing skills?
or are you drawing to communicate an idea?
or to get the message across?
If you can get the message across,
it's good enough,
the drawing is good enough for you.
I see one question over here which says
Yes, definitely there is, developing a
portfolio for storyboarding.
1. Lot of storyboards your can find if you
research online
and you should definitely study,
that how have these storyboards been done
How has the storyboard artist approached
the subject?
What is the story that he's
trying to convey?
And has that story been conveyed
clearly enough for you?
Alongwith that
take a look at a lot of.. there are
there are scripts, there are resources
that you can get online on scripts
try to
visualise those scripts yourself
You can get screenplays which are
even better, because screenplays have
a lot of descriptions in terms of
time of day,
in terms of action,
in terms of performances.
That can be a very good start for you to
get an idea on how
a board can be put into play.
It's very important that you find,
again like I said; A good MENTOR.
Walk though your network,
find out people from the industry
who can critique your work.
Tell them that this is the board or
this is the story you've been developing
or the ideation, visualisation you've been
developing, not necessary
that you tell them what the story is.
Just show them the board and ask them
can you make out what I'm trying to say?
Can you figure this out?
Do not show this to family members.
Don't show it to your
girlfriends & boyfriends,
brothers & sisters,
& your mothers & fathers.
Because you're always going to get
a very emotionally strung-up review.
What you need to do is to show it to
people who understand the craft
You need to discuss it with people
who are good at the craft,
get critiqued from them.
I see a lot of students putting stuff upon
Facebook and social media and then 1
guy will put up something and 10 others
are going to say 'brilliant stuff'
When you know, when you're looking at it
It's not even worth discussing.
So, this mutual admiration society needs
to be moderated a bit.
If you want to get critiqued
want advice, want feedback?
Take it from those who know the craft.
Get good animation directors to see your
performance and take critique from them.
From good modelors, show them your work
& take critique from them.
Most artists are more than happy to
give you some advice and some feedback
on the work you are showing.
Storyboarding you can practice a lot,
you can show stuff.
Make your own small stories and
send out the boards for critiquing
to see whether,
what you have done is that
understandable for someone.
Who doesn't even know your story.
Sir, we have one more question,
This is on management, like
whenever we see these big projects happen
One of the questions
also from one of our viewers,
How do you manage the art?
or it might be as simple as a storyboard
or maybe a small animation clip?
Obviously the starting point is your
script your story that you have.
And one thing that I can definitely
tell you which helps is
is descriptive writing.
In terms of
actually describing what you are seeing,
and you write that down on paper
it becomes that much easy then to
translate that into a drawing,
into an illustration. And.....
Sat Sri Akal to you too Sachin,
fantastic to have you here.
Visual story telling is something that I
also enjoy teaching.
It covers a lot of ground
from an idea to conceptualisation
to visualising the story.
I look at storytelling as what?
Storytelling's connecting with an audience
When you can
draw the audience in
to the story that you're telling them,
is when I personally feel that
the storyteller has succeeded with me.
When I watch a film,
if I am able to get into the film,
if the storyteller is able to draw me in
to such an extent that I'm actually part
and parcel of what is happening,
then I've really got an immersive
experience with the story.
I feel connected to the story
I can relate to it.
Students come up and say, we've
got an idea, but we don't know how to
convert it to a story.
There is this concept, but we really
don't know how to develop
this concept into a full fledged story.
We can definitely conduct
sessions on STORYTELLING.
For those who are interested in
some very basic fundamentals of
digital computer graphics,
we can do sessions on that.
We can do a session on
basics of design management.
Which will cover a lot of things like
personal Time Management,
Workflow Management
how do you manage your Projects,
how do you ensure you get
things done on time,
Variety of things, things like
Communication,
things people
are not talking about, like....
Negotiation.
Who's teaching the art of negotiation
in schools?
And a lot of students
are going to go out there
whether it's negotiating for your
salary package or it's negotiating
with a vendor to do the job for you,
There is an art behind it.
Talking to clients.
Front-ending jobs with clients,
to make them understand
what you can do, what they want
whether the 2 of you are on the same page.
Lot of these are subjects are topics,
like I said in the beginning
this is not a technical session
precisely for this reason.
Nobody is talking about these aspects.
I want to slowly drive attention towards
these kind of areas.
Let's talk about storytelling,
let's talk about story development,
let's talk about visual descriptions.
How do we take an idea and convert it into
a story? How do we take it to storyboard?
Whole lot of things can be talked about.
and then
where-ever specific technical requirements
come into play
things that are important to understand
we can definitely address those issues.
Decision making is one very big area,
that nobody talks about.
I would love to see students
pay attention to what exactly
is decision making because that's what
you're doing day in day out when you're
working in a professional environment.
So there is a method to decision making,
which has far reaching consequences
Your schools, colleges, institutes are the
best place for you to make mistakes.
Because real life....
is very unforgiving
when it comes to mistakes.
So, if there is a CTRL+Z,
that UNDO button exists while you are in
your institute.
So make the most of it.
There's this lovely gentleman
by the name of Sir Ken Robinson,
he says a very beautiful thing...
"If you're not prepared to be wrong,
you're never going to come up
with anything original".
This is a mantra you must take on
as a life mantra. That....
Unless and until you are prepared to fail,
at the most what's going to happen?
You're going to fail - right?
Our intent is not to fail.
Nobody intends to do any project
with a viewpoint of saying,
I want to make sure it fails.
Everybody wants the project
to be the best one
But the point is, you will come across
things in life where you will fail.
How do you handle those failures?
How do you turn them into
opportunities to learn?
What have you learnt from them?
That's your learning
I see institutes, yours included...
Our students have made films
I find that a lot of the films lack
BASIC CONNECT.
Basic storytelling technique.
They lack basic conceptualisation
and ideation of what exactly
a story should be.
It's not about the execution.
A lot of you may have seen
some years ago there was this
stick figure animation that somebody had
done in Flash, where this character keeps
playing with the interface of the
Flash software.
It can be as simple as that.
It's engaging,
It's something that hooks you,
you keep looking at it, you keep saying
OK what next is he going to do?
You become part'n parcel of that
experience.
It is NOT rocket science,
Look back when you were a little child.
I have a memory of the fact that
I used to have a T-shirt which used to say
"I was doing very well in life till
education ruined me".
That's a fact. Somewhere down the line, we
somehow tend to over complicate ourselves.
We are all storytellers. Each one of us!
There is no such thing as geniuses in life
Everybody is a genius.
Everybody has got something unique
that they are going to bring to the table.
That they CAN bring to the table.
You have to believe in that fact.
What is that uniqueness? You have to find.
And that means going that extra mile,
taking that extra interest, that means
investing yourself that much more.
Why is it that you lose this craft
as you finish your 12th or you've
come out of school, you've suddenly
ost your craft of telling a basic story.
If you really want to test
your storytelling abilities,
sit with a little child
and keep that child engaged with a story
for 1/2 hour. You will come to know
how great a storyteller you are.
And give a little child a story to tell &
tell them to weave a story, & you will see
How imagination flows.
Anything is possible in their life,
Anything is possible in their world.
So why are we constraining ourselves?
It is not something difficult,
it can be learnt,
there is a structure to it,
there is a methodology to it.
You just need to put the pieces
in the right place
and approach it in a structured way.
and it can become a very simple
and a very enjoyable exercise.
Sachin's question, that should we not have
people presenting these kind of sessions?
Definitely they should.
I'm quite disappointed in the fact that
we don't have sessions on this.
We're not paying attention to
what is actually required.
[Vishal] I also feel that it's so much of
software tools and companies have brand
marketed themselves so brilliantly over
internet and all of these online educators
that they are insisting more on tools,
learn Maya,
learn Max with the professionals.
They've never insisted on saying
learn modeling as a skill or learn
how to make hyper-realistic models
or maybe a particular genre of textures,
maybe that could be one of the reasons.
People are running a business.
You can't fault them for running a
business, you can't say that
this is a wrong business.
No one has forced you into the course
You have joined it willingly, with your
eyes open, ears open, at least you should.
Open your eyes, your ears, talk to people.
The point is it's not about
right or wrong teaching in the course.
What's in a curriculum?
3d animation curricula
It's a standard curriculum world over.
The point is how much effort are you
putting in beyond that? What is your part?
Which is what I talked about
in the beginning, that
how invested are you in this?
How much are you pushing the system?
How much are you saying that it's ok that
I've been shown what certain tools do,
that's another matter.
I'm going to not get limited by this.
I'm going to go beyond this.
Are you doing that? Right?
So don't fault a software company
that has to sell software my friend.
You can't blame them for it.
You can't fault them for it that
Sir, they have pushed software
so now our animation is ruined...
Sorry!, I don't trust that,
I don't buy that ...at all.
It's up to you
How you take that solution and use it,
to multiply your own knowledge.
And whether you get limited by that tool,
or you get liberated by that tool
is entirely upto you.
It is a FACT that
you cannot become an artist due to a tool.
You can learn the tools
to enhance your artistry.
You can't run away from the basics.
Question Vishal over here
which I find quite interesting.
I'm not really sure what Pavan is trying
to say here, but
I always tell my students
that whenever you watch an animation
film or you watch a VFx heavy movie.
Watch a film twice.
First time when you watch it,
watch it purely from
an entertainment point of view.
Does the story excite you?
Do you get involved in the story?
Do you enjoy what you're seeing on screen?
Don't get into the technicalities of it.
Leave that aside.
If you're going to start what I call
intellectualising a movie like that,
you will never enjoy it.
If you are watching a movie for purely the
fact that you want to understand the
technicalities of it,
that's a different aspect.
Then Yes! you're anyways not
sitting in that movie to enjoy it.
My personal feeling there is,
you're basically then going there with a
with a magnifying glass
which is a horrible way to see a movie
if you ask me personally.
But, Ya, people like to do that.
There are enough books on 'making of'
There are enough online tutorials that you
get now which most studios put up
which are behind the scenes
on how movies are made.
How sequences are shot,
you can take a look at that and understand
how exactly they managed to pull off
a very complicated shot like this.
Very often in today's date and time
you think that this is all live,
when all of it is CG, it's done that well
and it's a shock to you.
Advice to lot of my students always is,
first time try to watch it
by keeping your technical hat outside.
Don't be the director, don't be the actor,
just be an audience member. Go in
watch it purely for entertainment value.
Did it grab you?
Did you get an immersive experience?
Did you really live
each and every episode in the film?
Was the film able to draw you in
as a performer in the story?
Then, if you still have the interest,
do your research,
find out online how they did it.
After you've studied it online
this is how behind the scenes they've
done stuff, watch the movie again.
Now you're doing it from a standpoint of
trying to learn.
How did they pull this off?!
Yes, I agree with you that sometimes when
you come to know, if you see it beforehand
you may not enjoy it.
I think you're over complicating things
for yourself.
They say films are a reflection of society
Storytelling is a reflection of society.
That is enough ammunition and fodder for
you to create stories.
Now it's your choice, do you pickup the
negative aspects, that you see around you
and you make a film on those aspects
or do you pick up the positive aspects and
you make a film on the positive aspects.
Just because somebody picks up a negative
aspect doesn't make him a lesser or a
bigger film maker that somebody who picks
up a positive. I think that is something
that we should be very sensitive to,
and we should respect the choices
that people are making.
Watch a movie from technical interest
if you really want to get under the skin
Watch a movie from entertainment point of
view if you want to get under the skin
whether the storytelling is good, whether
you enjoyed from a story perspective,
whether you enjoyed from a point that
is the film maker, are the characters
have they been able to touch you in a way
that you have gotten involved with
the story to such an extent that you have
forgotten that you are in the theatre.
As an artist you have to live the role of
and animation allows you to do this,
this industry this field that you're in,
you have to wear the hat of an animator,
a director, a performer, a choreographer,
a dancer, a light director, DOP,
cinematographer, art director,
costume designer .....everything.
Sound designer, music director,
even a musician.
So this is the one field,
one area that allows you the flexibility
to play all these various roles.
Investment means this only.
Are you invested in this...
across the various multiple verticals?
or are you only concentrating that No,
I know how to do modeling, I will do only
that and I'll have nothing to do with
the rest of the film.
You can't do that. You have to be invested
100% in it... in all fields.
I was once working with a music director
and this was a small TVC we were doing
and he looked at me and he said,
something that has always stayed with me
I'm talking some 20-25 yrs ago
when he said this...
He said, you know I always find it fun to
work with you, when you bring TVCs because
I don't have to struggle to put things in
meter with you. Your films are already
edited to meter, your performances are
edited to meter, how do you do it?
And my response to him was that...
it's 1, it has been an always an interest
in music, different types of music.
I enjoy Classical as much as I enjoy
Heavy Metal, as much as I enjoy
Electronica, as much as I enjoy
Fusion, to Sufi, to Hindustani, to
Western Classical, to Indian Classical
everything, across the board
Music has to be something that
if it sounds good to you
forget about what genre it is.
Now what that does is
when you take a short film and you're
looking at the story,
automatically somewhere down the line,
the instrumentation starts coming to your
mind. How would I
structure the music for this?
What kind of background sound would I use
in this scene?
What would be the voice character of my
performer, voice characterisation is a
very important tool for us animators.
Makes a huge difference to the performance
So when you start thinking sound
when you start thinking aurally,
and you have a mind that is constantly
being saturated from various aspects,
and you're enjoying the beat, the rhythm,
the harmony, the vocals....
when you get into that space, it starts
showing in your work, when you go
into a sound studio; the director telling
you that well it's a pleasure to make
sound for you because we're not struggling
that much. The sound design
is almost ready for us in terms of
the direction we want to take.
So, this is again where
holistic learning comes.
This is again where interest in various
different fields comes in to help you
in your work. And to push your work to
the next level.
Any good animation director today...
Take Vaibhav Kumaresh...
He'll keep humming,
some song or the other he'll hum.
Many times we have gone out for picnics
where we've had singing & music sessions.
Now he's an animator you may ask
he's an animation film maker,
why is he singing?
Why does he have an interest in singing?
Or what difference does singing make?
It shows in the work.
These sensibilities will always help you.
Sir, I think so it was a great and
a very informative webinar today and we
would like to have you once more
but on a very particular and precise genre
or precise topic which you could
elaborate on.
I feel it's time for goodbye Sir
OK
[Vishal] Thank you for being with us and
sharing your experiences with us.
Pleasure is all mine. I enjoyed I hope
this session is
been useful for people.
There are a lot of things which go beyond
technology which I think students should
seriously start looking at, if they are
not already, and they should invest a lot
of their time given the fact that there
are so many avenues for knowledge
available today to you.
[Vishal] Sir, there are a lot of requests
from all our viewers that we need 1 more
new webinar with Tony Sir, and that
usually happens in all of your lectures
So on that case, hats off Sir
for being such a good mentor
and this is something which we as all the
students we need today.
