Our first speaker of the semester was Niall Carlin, director of DoubleJump Studios. It was great to hear from a self employed animator and see what his approach to the industry is. It was also great to see Niall doing well because he went to the same school as Andrew Coyle and I; it gives us hope, haha.
One of the main points that I took away from the talk was:
“Don’t ask how, ask why!”
If you ask how, you will learn how it is done, which is useful, but you can find that on Google. However if you ask why, you will also find out how and you will get an explanation as to why the artist has chosen to approach the task in that specific way, which is more valuable.
Other Notes:
- There is no right answer to a creative brief
- It is important to get your work out there; criticism is good, knock on doors get feedback and learn from it.
- To become a better artist you need to learn skills that don’t come in tutorials; skills like design theory, colour theory, typography, composition and animation. The skill is not the tool, it is great that you know the tool, but anyone can use the tools, it is all about how apply these tools with your skills. – “Learn skills that don’t have answers”
- Compare your work to others; find a community of artists that you inspire to be. Don’t try to be the best, develop yourself and your skills to be the best that you can be, but beware the gap, there is always someone better
- Deadlines rule your creative life; it’s important to know when to stop and move on.
Edward Boyle - Creative Enterprise 