MSPW Trumps Technique
First, check out this post on startups and animation I saw at News.YC. What can I say, a post about startups and Pixar, right up my alley.
It reminded me, I got a kick out of hearing Brad Bird interviewed by the Spline Doctors (q.v.) when, near the end, they asked him about Glen Keane’s impressive technical ambitions. He was like, yeah, fine, but come on, the audience doesn’t care about that! “Hey kids, you want to see some sculptural drawing this weekend?” Classic.
So yeah, the director’s priority isn’t to advance the technique or the technology, but to tell a great story well. You could just as well say it’s to make something people want, since he’s a guy who really fights for what the audience wants. So technique is good but not gold.
Technique and experimentation is the focus in academia, film festivals and so on, and there’s some pretty lively subcultures that follow that kind of stuff. But if your goal is to make something people want, then that’s what’s got to be in the driver’s seat. All that push-the-boundaries, show-everyone-how-I-can-do-it, expand-the-art-form, make-cool-technology-for-its-own-sake stuff has got to be in the back seat.
So if you want to MSPW, don’t fall in love with technique. Make it the servant, not the master. Value what it does for the art, not how it reveals your cleverness. Keep it in the back seat. And when it gets out of line, go ahead and kill your darlings. Don’t hesitate to delete “cool” code. Smash the amazing hands off the sculpture.