Ken Duncan
Last Friday Blue Sky brought Ken Duncan to speak to the studio. It ended up being a pretty dang awesome experience. He spoke to the studio in early afternoon, but with plenty to share and teach, stuck around and came down to animation afterward and spoke with us till it was the end of the work day. A few of us stuck around longer chatting and ended up going to dinner, and then off to a farewell at a local pub for one of our animators. It was a great time and it was an excellent opportunity to get to chat with him for so long in such a small group.
He had a lot to say and it was brilliant to get to hear his take on things and talk about his days at Disney. There was also a lot of silly banter that induced quite a bit of laughing. It’s great to be able to be on that level with animators. Very genuine guy. He made a lot of points that stuck out to me. He’s pretty passionate about animation and pushing CG where it hasn’t gone yet. One of the common things that people get asked when they visit is what they think the next step for 3D is. Many times the answer is something specific relating to style. Ken’s answer really stuck out to me. Paraphrasing as my note taking skills aren’t that quick, but he said:
It’s the ideas in the future that are going to change things. It’s up to the people with imagination. You have a piece of paper and a pencil — what are you going to do with it? We need to explore different styles and not chase the same look as everyone else. Then the technology will be pushed.
No need to expand on that, but I thought he put it well. Inspiring stuff I tell ya. Now back to work!
October 31st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Thanks for posting this. Piece of paper, what a nice way to put it. CG is a medium that can emulate most of the other media out there, A piece of paper with a pen is probably even an understatement :]