Yesterday I posted an excerpt from an interview with animator Todd Ramsay, creator of the goofy short Honkbarn cartoons, in which he mentioned that an injury caused him to come up with a new style. Here's one more bit from that interview:
“I’ve tried to come up with concepts for shows in the past
but every idea seemed so contrived. All of my ideas were influenced by what was
going on in mainstream animation and nothing felt true to what I wanted to do.
Taking a few months off work was the best thing that ever happened to me. I stopped
watching cartoons on TV and was basically locked in my house in the woods
without the constant reminder of the rules and regulations associated with
animation production. During that time I took a different approach to
animation. I began recording idiot noises and found a few royalty free sound
clips on the net and started animating a couple of the Honkbarn characters not
knowing what would happen until actually drawing the next frame. I didn’t have
an idea, a storyboard, or a script. I was just animating for fun, something I
had never really done before. It was an experiment in animation, a way to
convey my own sense of humor through an art form.”
Hmm, forced separation from the usual ways of thinking created new insights.
Do you think you might be in a rut with how you think about the things you do? When's the last time you did something that relates to your work, just for fun?
What could be a voluntary way to force yourself to find a fresh outlook? Why do we find this so hard (me, too)?
And if you want to see another Honkbarn, here is the most recent one (it's one minute long):
