Animation and Football
Animation and football are two words rarely used in the same sentence. After working at several different companies over the years I’ve noticed that not many in the animation industry like to watch or be involved with football. Many see the sport as a silly game played by overpaid grown men with enormous egos. But, there’s still something that animators and designers can take from the game of football that would be incredibly valuable in their own craft.
In this article, we’ll go into several connections between animation and football and how even though they’re incredibly different, you can learn a great deal about animation by paying attention to some of the details in football. As described in “11 ways to be more creative”, the most important part of being creative is being able to make connections between two unlike things.
Competitive Spirit
Whether it’s because of their lack of involvement with sports or a fear of competing, many animators believe that being competitive is a terrible thing that doesn’t have a place in the industry. Competition is and always has been a great motivation tool that pushes nature forward as a whole. Take a look at the “Birds Of Paradise” dance. The male bird dances for the opportunity to mate with the female. Competition here isn’t just a way to motivate… it’s how they have to keep their species from going extinct.
Back to football…
In football, records are constantly being broken, people are getting stronger, jumping higher and running faster. It’s the competitive nature of football that keeps athletes pushing what the new normal is. That competitive spirit is what makes them work harder and practice longer. Athletes have an interesting personality trait that makes them want to be the very best at whatever they do, they see a record set by somebody and their first instinct is to break that record. That’s not unhealthy, that’s desire and motivation.
I will say that while sports are objective with hard facts and numbers — animation is completely subjective and opinion based. This doesn’t mean you can’t be competitive though, it just means that the competition is in each individual’s eyes and not agreed on by the masses. Who do you see as the best? What do you think will happen if you worked more than them? What if you took more risks than them?… I bet something pretty special.
Competition can get to an unhealthy level but the secret of using it in the creative industry is to focus on yourself more than everyone else. Focus on what you’re doing, what you’re NOT doing, what you could be doing. And unless your goal is to be exactly like your competition (which it shouldn’t be) you shouldn’t be looking at another artist’s style as competition. Simply look at their work ethic. Chances are those people you look up to — the biggest difference between you is how much time they put in — and where they put it.
How To Fail
One thing that athletes do very well, is fail. Most athletes lose more than they win, but to them — that’s ok. Failure is a feeling that you learn to accept and build from if you do it enough. They learn to bounce back and get back to work the very next day so they can win the next time out. It’s sort of like taking a bad critique and being thankful, not upset. learning how to fail in art is incredibly important, not everything you make is going to be amazing, even Da Vinci had some work he wasn’t happy with.
More important than learning how to fail though is learning how to win and letting those emotions carry you to your next win. Again, in art — you’re the only one that can define “win”. Maybe you finished a personal project, maybe you won a scholarship or award. If you win, it’s important to take a moment to celebrate internally and move on to the next batch of fails until you get to that next win.
The Hustle
HUSTLE is probably the most used word in football. it means to put in 100% effort, energy & efficiency into every activity you do in route to your goals. Don’t be lazy or distracted, just do at an elevated level. You should hustle in everything you’re passionate about, it’s a way to maximize the amount of practice and work in a shorter amount of time. Remember — the competition has practiced more than you so you need to show some urgency if you want to be the best.
Planning
Society generally believes that football players are terribly overpaid for working such a little amount of time every week. They play 16 games over the course of 17 weeks. So they get paid millions to work just 3 hours a week, right? Wrong! Those athletes are constantly practicing and preparing around the clock, every single day of the week. Their coaching staff puts together strategies, schemes and roles that they need to completely understand/memorize over the course of a single week. Then after they “go to work”, there’s a new opponent and they start all over again. Many great athletes don’t make it in football because they don’t put in the time to properly plan for games.
In animation there’s a certain level of planning and strategy that needs to be completed before you can do the hard work of making the final result. You must be 100% prepared, not 90% –100%. Think about about the problem points before you’re staring at them right in the eyes, being prepared is to create the most efficient path between A & B before you go near A. Make sure you’re well beyond exhausted of planning before you even start the real stuff.
For more info. take a look at our article titled “Strategy in Animation”
Patience
For this one, let’s jump over to the ultimate game of patience — Baseball. A Batter only gets 3 strikes but in professional baseball the first pitch is usually watched as it goes by the batter with no intentions to even swing the bat. After that pitch, the batter steps out of the batter’s box, readjusts and then uses that first pitch to gather information on what the next pitch might be. As the batter did his planning (see above) he has a better idea of what pitch might come next. (ex. That first pitch was a curveball, typically he throws a fastball outside next.) Some call that boring but I call that riveting. Every pitch is a battle of patience by the batter and pitcher.
When animating a complex character animation, instead of pushing forward to just animate, take a step back and grab some paper and pencil to figure out the problems and solutions. It may not be the fastest for getting the actual work part done but the overall process will be much more efficient over the course of the entire project. For instance, you might hack an animation together with a thousand key-frames but what happens if the movement doesn’t end up looking right with the surrounding shots? It’s going to take much more time fixing that animation than it would to have the patience and thinking before doing.
Fanatic Emotions.
And back to football…
At college football games there’s up to 100,000 emotionally screaming people that just want to feel the happiness of their favorite team winning when the time runs out. It sounds crazy but there’s a level of passion and risk that goes into being a fan. Many people wouldn’t go to or watch these games if they knew their team was going to lose. These fans are taking a risk with their emotions because that feeling of happiness is worth the odds to them. While these fans aren’t the ones putting most of the work in, they still feel like they’re part of the team because of the level of commitment they have to their team winning.
Let those same emotions drive you and your work. Take risks and have a serious passion that can use willpower alone to make your work something great. If you care about it enough, only good things can happen.
Storytelling
As we know from our previous article, “Story is everything”.
Football is almost like a soap opera or better yet, a reality TV show — except way better stories with real people, not actors. Many creative professionals see watching sports like the biggest waste of time but what they don’t take time to notice is that they’re amazing stories. Each person playing has been through hardships, injuries and an incredible amount of doubt (both internally and externally). Get 22 of those people playing against each other on a 100-yard field and tell me that’s not an incredible story.
Each game in itself is almost it’s own separate story with an introduction, rising action, climax and conclusion. Some even have twist endings that see one team come back from incredible odds to win. That can certainly get more emotions out of you than “The Sixth Sense”.
Also — watch “Rudy”. Not just an amazing football movie, but a great movie in general.
Teamwork & Collaboration.
In almost all sports there’s a team of people working together for a common goal. Even in the individual sports like Tennis or extreme sports like BMX, there’s a team of coaches and training staff that care very deeply about the overall goal. They know that if everyone exceeds their responsibilities and hustles, they will likely accomplish their individual and team goals. In these relationships the most important thing is trust. Sometimes one person might help another solve a problem they once had, maybe it’s throwing mechanics or a type of route to run, either way trust is extremely important to how the advice is received.
As an artist in a team, you must make sure that others can trust that you know your responsibilities, that you have a desire to win and that you have a level of passion unmatched by most. You should also be very open to the ideas others have in your team as they only want to help you and the team achieve the goal of winning.
Conclusion
Whether you’re a lover or hater of football, look a little further into what’s actually happening on the field when they play. There are incredible stories and an unusually high level of passion that makes football one of the most outwardly emotional things in society today. These are just a few of the many valuable connections to make between animation and football.
Check out some of the animation work we’ve done for sports in our ESPN/Grantland Reel and extreme sports with SK8.
If you’re interested in both animation and sports, make sure you check out “Makers of Sport” Podcast by Adam Martin.
-Matt Vojacek
Originally posted on Zwelly.com