So after a long meeting with Herr Professor Westlund, I have been given the freedom to trust my own process. WOW, what better validation as a artist can I have?
So this will take courage, risk, determination and hopefully everyone will not think I am a total wack job. I'm going to try to start documenting everything that I am doing to create this piece... not just the formal aspects.
So after 5 weeks, I still not sure what exactly it is that I want to say about EGO.
This is what I have been doing to this point:
Thinking, contemplating, and researching ego, daily, sometimes hourly... being aware and watching ego situations in everyday life, picking and choosing those that I would like to explore. This requires me to get out and interact with people, forcing me to pick up skills I have minimally used for the past seven years.
Agonize over script, beatsheet, storyboards, animatic. Knowing that I cannot really do these at a preliminary stage if I do not know what it is that I want to say. I am no longer going to agonize... I trust that these will come about when and if they need to be there... this may come about very organically.
Researching artists, animation and recently director David Lynch. After reading every little scrap if info I could bring up, watching "Pretty as a Picture: David Lynch" 1997 and "Eraserhead" 1976, Lynch is my hero today. Lynch exemplifies artistic expression across multiple media, stays true to his own voice, stated "there is always a way to get the vision you want, even if there is no budget, you can find a way." All of this great use of Ego and he is generally a good human being to boot. (I assumed that since his films were "weird" he would be as well.) I have heard nothing but kind words from those that worked with him (unless he has some sort of God-like power that enables him to prevent any negative comments from surfacing... but if that were true then Dune would have been a major hit.. huh must be a good human.)
Procrastinated drawing practice for a full five weeks... time to complete that schedule of all of my time to include drawing... oh and be diciplined to follow it!
Last term it became apparent that I had become creatively blocked. I had followed my normal routine of immersing myself with information a process I enjoy, but found that I could not connect the dots of information to bring everything into a cohesive whole. So I started looking for material to help and started
Reading:
"The Artist Way" and "Letters to a Young Artist" by Julia Cameron.
"How to Write for Animation" by Jeffrey Scott (this is my 2nd time through)
"God is No Laughing Matter" by Julia Cameron.
"The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles"
by Steven Pressfield.
I am happy to say that I managed to successfully get through two creative projects in the last two weeks so the ability to do the finalization stage is back.
So that is really what has been going on in my brain regarding this project.
Sounds like you simply need to keep on rocking, homie. Might I suggest you take a look into the roots of the word "ego?" Y'know, where it originates, possibly how it might have been created, etc. Do not draw your whole focus away from its concept obviously, but maybe looking into the word itself -- not what it means -- might shed some light onto what you want.
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