miss-gardner:

codywalzel:

codywalzel:

Go for the thing you actually want to do.  

Many students, teachers and family told me studying 2D animation in school from 2009- 2013 was silly because there were already no more 2D jobs, and that I should study 3D animation. But I hate rigorous, technical work, I honestly hate computers all together. I’m not built for that kind of thinking, and I’m not interested in it. I was and am far more interested in drawing and film making than mastering technology. I’m almost four years out of school now, and have now had far better career opportunities than many of my 3D classmates because I am passionate about what I do.

My senior year of college,  I narrowed the parts of the animation process that I am most interested in to writing and storyboarding. But, I was afraid to pursue those jobs because I knew from interning in studios that they were highly coveted positions. So, I went for cleanup and animation jobs, hoping to work my way up. I even got lucky and landed character design work down the line, though I’m not particularly interested in design. It was only when i started taking storyboarding classes, making storyboards in my spare time, pursuing storyboarding jobs, calling myself a storyboard artist, that those opportunities started to become available to me. And it turns out, I’m far better at storyboarding than I was at those other positions, because it’s the thing I enjoy the most. This is not to say “don’t take that cleanup job that pays the bills.” Take that job, and do online storyboarding classes at night, and read storyboarding blogs on your lunch break, make storyboard samples and comics in your free time on nights and weekends… Then, ask for storyboard tests, and test and test and test. It might take a while, no worries. Go ahead and put ‘storyboard artist’ on your website in the meantime instead of ‘illustrator’ or ‘cleanup’ or whatever your more accurate fallback job is. Don’t work in a studio and wait for someone to give you the opportunity. You might think because you are hard working at your compromise job, the management will reward loyalty with the job politely asked for, or maybe were even too polite to actually ask for. They won’t give you that job. They probably won’t even help you get that job. So test within that studio if they’ll let you, and apply other places in the meantime while you keep paying the bills with that job.

There’s no excuse to me. Even people who want to direct can direct their own animated shorts in their spare time and build up a commercial directing portfolio from those shorts. You can do the same thing making crappy live action films with borrowed equipment in your spare time. It’s costly and time consuming, but you can throw your musician friend a couple bucks for the score, get a compositor buddy to assemble it in exchange for some animation she needs, and buy a bunch of friends pizza to help you clean up scenes or hold lights or whatever. I’ve done it before.

I used storyboards as an example above, (read blogs during lunch, etc.) but apply that same tenacity towards whatever you want to do: vis dev, character design, comic penciler, stop motion fabricator, 3D modeler, whatever. I want to be a writer now, that’s the next hurdle for me. I’ve written two pilots and I’m taking it seriously, going to writing events, talking to people, refining my work and writing new material, and generally conducting myself as a writer. I have no idea how long or even if this will take, but I’m pursuing it like it’s real because I enjoy writing, so I think I’d be good at it. Please don’t be one of these people that talks about all the stuff you’re “working on”, when you are really just thinking about working on that stuff. Too many of those in the world, please just go and get things done. “There are those who write, and those who talk about writing.” An adage I like. Apply it to whatever “There are those who design characters, and those who talk about designing characters…”

So please, everyone, go for what you want, don’t stop short now. You’ll be a lot better at your job when you’re doing the thing you like.

Reblog for those who walk in the daylight

GUYSSSS!!!!!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What a great opportunity it is when someone says you can’t do something. Simply light their words on fire in your mind and let it fuel your passion!

naamahdarling:

roachpatrol:

roachpatrol:

ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this.  you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me.

humans are fucking terrible and this awful world we live in will fucking kill you but if you are kind, if you are brave and clever and try really hard, you can defy it. you can impose on this bleak and monstrous structure something beautiful. even if it’s temporary. even if it doesn’t heal anything inside you that’s been hurt.  

i’m gonna sleep and i’m gonna wake up and i swear by everything in this deadly horrible universe i’m gonna make someone happy. 

i’ve seen a number of comments and tags where people feel that they must swallow or repress their anger in order to engage in kindness. that is not at all what i am recommending here. radical kindness is an expression of anger. it is not passive. it is not repressive. it does not require you, in any way, to forgive those that have fucked you up. it does not require you to be quiet. 

it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more. 

have a cookie.

i will say this again: we are all going to die. the universe is enormous and almost entirely empty. to be kind to each other is the most incredible act of defiance against the dark that i can imagine. 

i will say this again: we are all going to die. the universe is enormous and almost entirely empty. to be kind to each other is the most incredible act of defiance against the dark that i can imagine.

snorlaxatives:

the scooby doo animated film renaissance (around 1998 to 2001) in which zombie island, alien invaders, witches ghost, and cyber chase came out was literally an iconic era in animation history… the disney renaissance whom??

allthecanadianpolitics:

I’ve said it before.

Kevin O’Leary may not have the same xenophobic views of Donald Trump, but he’s still incredibly dangerous. He has a very authoritarian view of governance, and terrible, truly stupid ideas.

His hypercapitalistic fiscal policies will hurt millions (Case in point O’Leary’s threats to cut off equalization transfer payments to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia if they continue to oppose fracking).

Canada cannot afford to make this man Prime Minister.

actuallykanayamaryam:

lizardsister:

galaxy-eyed-guardian:

asgardreid:

lizardsister:

scott pilgrim straight up killed people though and nobody cared

That’s just how Toronto is

Actually can i point something out? Bryan Lee O'Malley said Scott never killed them. They just were teleported home and had their lessons learned.

thanks after 100k notes not a single other person has pointed this yet ur the very first person

if you die in Toronto you just reappear in your house with a wicked headache

diananock:

sunshinedeertreeself:

didyouknowmagic:

temperamental-cartoonist:

Y’all seriously need to learn to fact check things you see on here.

1.) it wasn’t Disney who turned down Coco but DREAMWORKS. 
and to those who STILL erroneously insist that Disney/Pixar turned down The Book of Life

2.) People getting mad at this:

Marigolds are traditional to our culture as well as to the holiday, ESPECIALLY in petal form. Not the best example but that’s like getting mad at different Christmas movies for using mistletoe.

3.) “Oh it’s the same plot.” Has anyone looked up the plot for this movie other than outright bashing it from the trailer? 
“The footage, raw though it may be, spun a compelling story about Miguel, a sweet kid who loves music despite the fact that his abuelita banned music long ago, thanks to an ancient drama involving Miguel’s great-great-grandfather—a dashing musician—who walked out on the family. That musician, Miguel discovers at the start of the film, is his town’s most famous son: deceased film star and music supernova Ernesto de la Cruz. On the eve of Día de Muertos, Miguel breaks into de la Cruz’s mausoleum in order to borrow the famous skull guitar that hangs there so that he can enter a talent competition and convince his family to embrace music again. Once Miguel touches the guitar, he becomes something of a living ghost. His family can no longer see him, but Miguel can now see all of his dead ancestors—who look like fantastically decorative skeletons—crossing over a bright bridge made of marigold flower petals from the Land of the Dead. Looking for help and answers, Miguel travels to the Land of the Dead—a dazzlingly vibrant, stacked metropolis inspired by the Mexican city of Guanajuato—himself and sets off an adventure with trickster skeletal companion Hector to find the rest of his family, de la Cruz, and the answer to how he can fix this curse.”  
You know how insistent Pixar is on always making original films. So don’t you think that they would continue that?

4.) “But the white director who thinks he knows everything because he’s been to Mexico.” That’s right, a white person who is not of Mexican/Latinx culture can not truly KNOW our culture simply by visiting it. And Lee Unkrich knows this fact. Which why he assembled a group for the sake of making sure the movie is culturally accurate, rather than him taking on that role

you know, a team of actual latinx. Including someone who was a huge critic of Coco, and is a critic of Disney, Lalo Alcaraz. He is most famously known for his response to the action of Disney attempting to trademark Dia de los Meurtos (which will be our next point). It’s not Alcaraz selling out. It’s him working together with the movie so it’s not just Disney trying to bring in more Latinx fans but rather creating what Unkrich’s true mission: “a love letter to Mexico.” This team along with many other Latinx creatives (like Adrian Molina who was originally just a writer and then promoted to co-director) and a fully latinx cast (again, as insisted by Unkrich), are working together to make it a Latinx piece of media. ( http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/pixar-coco-gael-garcia-bernal-dia-de-los-muertos-miguel )

5.) We all know and got rightfully angry at Disney for attempting to trademark Dia de los Muertos. This was due to the similar original name the movie had. As expected, it received intense backlash to which Disney quickly revoked the request to trademark. Unkrich was the first to vocalize that this was a mistake. This even leading to that point most likely has to do with him being a white man not of our culture, but this humbling experience is what really knocked that message into him and he began recruiting people like the ones in the above point to make sure that the movie itself is true to the people, culture, and holiday, in ways he himself could never fully grasp.

6.) It’s about the Day of the Dead like The Book of Life. My response to this is easy: look at how many movies are there about Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s day, Saint Patrick’s day, etc.

7.) Gutierrez himself doesn’t want it to be a competition but as two wonderful films about one aspect of Latinx that will hopefully lead to more in the future.

I love The Book of Life, and is one of my favorite movies if I’m being honest. When it first came out I was filled with such pride and joy for many reasons. One of course for it being a gorgeously rendered film, but for it being such a positive and beautiful representation and celebration of Mexico. As someone who grew up only seeing white main characters, with people like my family and I as only side characters, it brings me such joy to see more media being produced in which Mexicans are the focus along with our culture (which is agreeably much more diverse than what is being tapped into). We still got a long way to go as Mexico is still only one group of Latinx culture, but we are witnessing the stepping stones of Hollywood beginning to reach out and representing this community by working with people of those cultures. The Book of Life will always have a special place in my heart, but I’m not letting my love of that movie keep me from supporting Latinx creators that are putting out Coco. I’m finally getting the representation that I craved as a kid and loving it.

SOMEONE DID THE ENTIRE FACT CHECK YALL DESERVED BLESS YOU

Fact checked!!!

Can’t wait to take my little one to see it.

Coco’s going to be amazing. Fight me.

dreadpirateekre:

ok so let’s talk a bit about jobs vs passion. my last fulltime job was at a big game development studio; the kind of job you’re (supposedly) passionate about. most of my colleagues adored the games we made, and so they didn’t care that the company had a major diversity problem, that our salaries were below average, that we didn’t get overtime compensation yet stayed ‘til 11PM more often than what’s healthy, and that the company promoted an unhealthy alcohol culture. because we were passionate. this was the kind of job you grow up dreaming about; don’t go throwing it away because some colleagues are harrassing you or because you get no recognition for your efforts!

for more than a year I was tired. stressed. in constant pain. my anxiety was through the roof. I worked on these “dream projects” and I felt dead inside.

when I quit that job I started freelancing as a writer. I got some really good jobs. I also got a bunch of small-time, low-paid, “hey at least your name is on it so isn’t it enough to pay 10$ for this text?” kind of jobs.

with the typical millenial housing situation of an apartment that I could barely afford on a fulltime pay and a constant stream of job offers that were underpaid I spent four months doing what I love, while constantly overwhelmed by stress. my insomnia got really bad, and when I managed to fall asleep I would dream about my bank balance. I would dream of losing whatever stability I had left in my life, simply because I couldn’t afford a “normal adult life”.

and so, today I got a job. it’s a fairly standard QA job at a medium sized game development studio. unlike any other game companies I’ve been at they offer humane working conditions. they don’t expect me to show up too early and stay too late because I’m passionate. the hours are nine to five, and they disapprove of overtime. the pay is slightly above average, and I get health benefits. I’ve been through several interviews, and at no point has someone tried to belittle my career or tried to convince me to work for less than I’m worth.

for the first time in many years of my career, I’m happy. I’m at ease. I applied for this job because I wanted to get away from the passionate part of the industry. I wanted a job where I could go home at five and dedicate my freetime to my own writing projects. I wanted to work at a place that didn’t eat my heart and soul and energy as I contributed to projects that wouldn’t even bear my name in the end credits.

so what I’m trying to say is that there’s nothing wrong with having a “normal” job. you’re not giving up on your dreams if you take a job outside your main interests. if it offers stability in your life, it’s enough.