The power of starting over.

This week I’ve learned a very valuable lesson that I’ll try to practice every time I feel it’s needed. I know that many people are afraid to begin again. To try something new.

To (deep sigh)… start over. Even though it seems strange, sometimes it can be the best choice.

I know this because unfortunately, I am one of these people. It’s typical of course because starting over means that I’ve failed. That I’ve lost precious time. Long story short, this week just like any other week, I tried to address the notes that I got on my personal work, but things got very complicated because what I had originally was far from where I was heading. As you probably know by now, animation is like an ecosystem. Change something and most likely something else is affected. I got really frustrated and basically wasted one more day trying hopelessly to make my shot look good. (I wasn’t enjoying this process anymore)

The next day, as always, I was reading some animation blogs online while trying to get my morning inspiration. I came upon (Edward) Ted Lister’s blog and a post he wrote giving advice on animators Starting out.

I found particularly interesting the third number on his list titled “Don’t be afraid to throw work away”. He wrote, “Tying into that idea, it’s best to walk the tricky line of being passionate about your work, but not being precious. If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to cut it out and start again. I used to want to try and keep every single key-frame in a shot that I had done because I had put so much time and effort into it. When I was working on World War Z, I sat next to an animator named Alvise Avati, and I was amazed to see him take something that looked alright to me and throw it away. Start over and have something even better. Trying to shoehorn existing animation into a new idea could be holding your animation back”.

My first thought was, what? That sounds counterproductive. I went through planning and my original idea has changed so much. I can’t just do something different now, after all this effort I put in it. My second thought was, damn even through Ted Lister still Alvise is teaching me things. It’s probably some ancient Italian magic. Whenever I need advise he provides it. I thought long and hard about Ted’s words and remembered that in one of my favorite talks online Marco Marenghi mentioned something similar during the Q&A part of the talk.

In his words… “Let me tell you something as an animator. Every time you animate a shot, it gets better… Don’t be afraid to throw it away and start again, because you will apply what you’ve learned on the first, second, third, fourth time on the final shot and it will look much better.”

I came home that day and threw away the part that wasn’t working, I shot some quick reference which I adjusted to fit the timing of what I needed and started blocking in the new idea in a layered fashion. Hallelujah, it works perfectly. And it took less time than it did to get there in the first place.

Finally, this lesson clicked in my brain. It was one of these famous aha moments that change one’s world. I already had a lot of them in my journey and I’m sure more will come.

I decided to start writing these posts to document my journey and share my experience in getting better in animation. I believe this is a perfect example of what I can share when I think I learned something valuable. I hope this helps whoever didn’t think about it or forgot that it is an option or, even better, people who are fighting with this mindset that starting over is an admission of guilt, that we have failed, a perfect excuse that suggests that we should start blaming and beating ourselves up over all our mistakes and efforts.

Starting over is not a bad thing. It may be the best move I ever made, particularly when I know in my heart I was on the wrong track. Because continuing on doing the same thing, for the sake of comfort or fear of change, is further compounding one more extra move in the wrong direction. I learned this the hard way and it felt so bad, as if every good thing that I’ve animated in the past was pure luck and this problematic shot is what defines me as an animator. Of course that’s wrong and now I know it.

So please, don’t go into the darkness like I did, stay positive. Take a break and start over, it worked really well for me. I must remember this lesson from now on. Thank you for reading and all the best with your animation.