The Animation Options Blog

What in the world does the situation above have to do with production? Everything.

In addition to consulting and producing in Beijing, I’m currently teaching a class entitled “Inside Hollywood Animation Production” (you’ll have to forgive the cheesy title, but like “Kung Fu Panda”, it plays well here). During our first session, I had the students (a group of animation teachers) play a game that I learned at bang improv studio in Los Angeles. A group of 10-12 people stand shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle, and then join hands across the middle with two other people. The goal is simple, but seemingly impossible: untangle yourselves without letting go.

The first reaction is usually disbelieving laughter - especially when everyone is cinched in a tight knot. But gradually, the group begins to work together and figure things out. The teachers managed to completely untangle themselves within 10 minutes, to their great delight. Afterwards, I asked if anyone could see the relevance to production. “Teamwork” and “patience” were offered immediately. We also noted differences in personality: some participants took charge while others waited to follow orders, some kept their sense of humor while others grew frustrated. But the most important lesson was this: we are often faced with situations (such as filmmaking) which appear “impossible” - but with teamwork, insightful observation and cooperative action the “impossible” can indeed be made possible.

Cut to later in the week, as I was teaching the same section to a class of graduate students. Due to the size of the class, two groups of 10 competed against each other. Unlike the teachers, the graduate students did not wait to hear my instructions before grabbing hands willy-nilly. One group was free in under 5 minutes, while the other group (pictured above) was unable to completely untangle themselves. They were truly stuck, and after 20 minutes of suffering, I cut them loose. Another improv principle is to work with what you’re given, so I quickly amended my lesson on the fly. In addition to the observations shared with the teachers, I added this: sometimes, a situation appears impossible because it IS. The difference between success or failure, in games as in production, is usually in how you begin. A student correctly observed that if more than one person grabbed hands with a colleague too near to them, as opposed to across the middle of the circle, a true predicament could result. Even so, the “failed” group still managed to untangle themselves about 90% of the way. So even if you can’t get as far as you might hope, with faith and perseverance you can still get a lot farther along than you may think.

Something to think about as America celebrates a remarkable new president.