Post-Tween

This isn't really fair, since I'm getting together with the guys next week to have a semi-official post-mortem on the event, but I have so many thoughts that I want to organize/share them.

Firstly, the night before, I dreamed all night about all the ways it could go badly. And there was a guy on Twitter being a jerk about the whole thing, and because I was using the BeTween account I couldn't be as direct as I personally wanted to be. So every time I woke up I thought about that conversation and how negative he was...

But it really went beautifully. I think we had 40-some attendees total, which was the perfect number- enough for the conversations to be diverse and fruitful, but not so many that we couldn't handle them. And it went just long enough- longer than that and people would have gotten tired and grouchy, or we would have run out of content. Shorter than that, and it maybe wouldn't have been worth giving up Saturday for.

I decided to hold back Kohel and Kathy so they could participate in a session before leading one, and I think that was just the right call- it gave them a chance to get the tone of the event and set them up to lead their own sessions successfully. And people really wanted to talk with them and ask questions. Kohel ended up continuing his conversation with a smaller splinter group, which was just fine with me.

We had to really break up the conversations every hour in order to move on, and that, along with people complaining that the sessions should be longer, and that they should be recorded in case you missed something, assures me that they were fruitful and that people wanted to be doing what we were doing. I WANT people to think that maybe they missed something; I WANT them to have a tough time choosing which session to attend. That means we had high-quality content, and encourages people to want to do another one (if there is another one).

And I do think these are really fruitful conversations for animators to be having. The tech community does this kind of thing all the time, because their work is solitary and isolating. They form user groups and get-togethers and monthly stuff so that they can connect and share with each other, so that they can get insight and support, and the whole community benefits from it. I'm not sure why the animation community tends to think that the only people with insights to share are Experts who can Pass Down their Wisdom. It's often fruitful to ask your peers how they handle things, or if they know how to do something. And if we're going to build a more cohesive community here, we need to be talking to each other more. If we're going to start to develop an industry, a set of practices, a legislative agenda, it needs to come from communicating with each other on this level, not just talking about movies and artists.

However, as we did, I do think there's a real role for non-animators at events like this. We need attorneys and CPAs and insurance people, marketing and branding people, IT people and software people... we need to not only connect within our community, but outside of it, to build resources and knowledge that help us all work better. I think that any future BeTween should definitely include that aspect of it, although it's not a requirement of the format.

Finally, I'm personally so pleased that I feel like I gave our community this tool- that now there's a bunch of people who know how to do this and could lead one of their own. It's simple and inexpensive, and it's powerful. Maybe I won't have to lead the next one, or other people will decide to have their own on other topics. I'm beaming.

So yeah. I'm so pleased and yes, proud of myself, for making this thing happen and for having it go well. It's been a long process, pushing it forward, and I'm glad I never gave up on it (and thanks to those people who said to not give up on it). That's part of the learning experience for me; that if I don't feel supported in a good idea, to just keep with it until people get it and see where I'm coming from. I tend to think that if nobody buys in, it must not have been a good idea after all- I doubt myself. But I shouldn't be so eager to doubt myself. And I hope that these things I've worked on and brought to Portland animators; Drinking and Drawing, BeTween, and (to some extent) the local WIA chapter, have a life beyond me, and continue to serve everyone long after I've moved on to other things. Go me!

Inspired Involvement

As you can tell, I'm struggling a bit with maintaining this blog lately. It was begun in a burst of enthusiasm for social networking and Portland's open source community, and a deep desire in my heart to bridge disparate elements. I mean, that's the whole reason that I love animation- it's an amazing balancing act between creativity and technology, between inspiration and repetition. It's a place where I can satisfy both my desire to create original work, and then endlessly perfect it.

And yet, despite my excitement about the events that Asifa is putting together (Drinking and Drawing next week!) and my incipient freelance event*, I've also been going through a very introspective period lately. So instead of blogging about events and happenings in the community, I've been blogging about what I'm thinking and reading, or blogging not at all.

I'm fortunate that this blog has so few followers, and all of them know me, so it's not like I have to live up to any particular expectations, and yet I did have some expectations of myself when I began this, when I chose this title.

And I have gone on a slight derail the past couple of months, when I decided I was going to move and that anticipation put a number of things on hold for me (since I'm also not updating the sister blog to this one). And those steps I was taking for personal growth were very meaningful for me- I hope to resume them as soon as possible.

However, I very much don't want this blog to devolve into a journal. I do sincerely hope that the act of reading it is of some benefit to someone, and not just that the act of writing it benefits me.

And on that note:

* I want to put together an event, perhaps an unconference, that focuses on the realities and opportunities for freelance animators (and other creative people) in portland. I think that the film and video community have a lot of resources that animators don't necessarily know about, but that there are also challenges unique to the animation community. If anyone is interested in helping organize such an event, or has thoughts or suggestions to share, they would be welcome.

Thanks as always for your patience with me. :-)

Bric a brac

Well, it looks like I'm a board member of ASIFA Portland. I have to admit, it seems like it will be fun- I don't have, you know, a Real Job like an elected member, and they are a pretty laid-back bunch. So we'll definitely be putting together another Drinking and Drawing- I may not be hosting this one, but I'll show 'em how it's done. :-)

Personally, I'm going through a few transitions- I can't tell if this is baby steps toward major progress, or just sidesteps as I work out a few things. One thing I've been really focusing on (and it was going well until tonight) is delineating my time- I need my work day to end, period, at some specific time, and the rest of my life to commence. I tend to drag work stuff around with me all the time, and it's poor stress management and doesn't let me focus on other areas of my life that need attention. So even if it's just for an hour or two at night, I need it to officially stop. I've been hitting a gong in my apartment, and it's funny but it helps.

I'm reading Locke's Essay on Understanding. Delightful writing style- he starts out so self-deprecating, with just a few of his humble observations, and then commences to thoroughly, systematically, demolish any competing opinions. Funny how we take the whole tabula rasa argument for granted now, and wrap it into nature vs nurture- when he wrote this stuff, it was really groundbreaking.

What's coming up? Cre8Con, for one. I'm not sure I can afford to go- it's so much more expensive than it was last year, and my job just spent a fortune to send me to Siggraph. Too bad, too- I got a lot out of it last year. Also Art Spark, BackFence PDX, OMPA Industry Night, and Dr. Sketchy. So if you're a creative type, September has a lot to offer.

The final animation from Drinking and Drawing

Find more videos like this on ASIFA PDX


What I really like about this one is that people really maintained continuity- if you look at the one we made last year, it just morphs and morphs... this one has more of a sense of story.

Drinking and Drawing

Turnout wasn't as high as I had hoped, but everyone had a really good time. It's funny, because the group of people who ended up doing the bulk of the drawing really took ownership of the final product. I hadn't seen that happen before, but I think it's because at prior events there were so many people drawing that they only got to go once or twice.
I had a really good time and saw a lot of people I wanted to see, and finally met some people I had only met on Twitter.

My use of Twitter on this event was really interesting to me. I created a Twitter account for DrinknDrawPDX, and specifically sought out people on Twitter that I thought would be interested. Over time, DrinknDraw developed a social network that only slightly overlaps my own, and introduced me to people I wouldn't have met otherwise. And I'm still not sure that all those people know that I'm DrinknDraw and DrinknDraw is me. Funny.
So DrinknDraw developed a small social network on Twitter, and I spammed the hell out of everyone from my own Twitter account, and Facebook, and the Oregon Media Network, each of which had a slightly different result from a different but overlapping group of people.
The DrinknDraw account ended up being followed by some local art and media outlets, and had people volunteer to post press releases, as well as volunteer for the event itself.
That was pretty cool, actually- normally the process of getting volunteers for chapter events involves sending an email to a massive distribution list and then having interested people contact a coordinator who tries to coordinate them- in this instance, I called for volunteers from both Twitter accounts and within minutes I had one confirmed volunteer for each account. I love the speed and ease of tweeting those kinds of requests, and how quickly the community passed on the info. It's really cool.

At the event, someone I had never met before showed up and took the lovely photos posted here. Her name is Heather Zinger, and I think there's a wonderful artistic sensibility in her photography. And lo, she's interested in animation, so will show up to our WIA meeting.

On a different note, I think I need to set aside Don Quixote for now- it's a huge time sink, and I have some library books I'm dying to get to. It's a strange book- I spent a long time expecting a Decameron/Canterbury Tales kind of thing, and then just when I had accepted that it was going to take on the novel form, it switched over and seems to have become that. Which makes it easier to set down, actually.

loss of momentum

So, somehow over the snow days and the holidays, a kind of inertia set in and I'm struggling to get out of it.

Correction, I'm not trying that hard to struggle out of it, because I am enjoying pulling inward a bit right now.

Rest assured, soon I'll arise and attack this animation festival and get my teeth into Bobbsey and forge ahead on Women in Animation and so on. Drinking and Drawing is next week and that will probably get me going.

So, because I'm not really acting on those things right now, and I'm deep in Don Quixote (which is really long and strange), I just don't have that much to blog about.

I'm still mentally wrestling a bit with issues of creativity and connection, but I don't feel like I have anything new to share. I'd still like to chat about it with anyone who wants to. :-)

Drinking and Drawing

Events!

So, the date for Drinking and Drawing is set and I've just sent a message to everyone via everything. I'll spam it again next month when I have cool graphics and a press release. I have to admit I want it to be huge, so I'm open to suggestions of where to promote it.

In case you're wondering, the next steps are: design the fliers (Kalina will do that for me), write the announcement/press release (next week), borrow light tables (apparently Brian Larson will help with this), and then start recruiting volunteers to work the event itself. Next month I'll meet with the guys at the Someday Lounge and go over the details, and it will all be cool as long as a ton of people come and draw.

Ignite was really fun- a great crowd, great presentations, great all around. It was funny to see everyone going by their Twitter handles. Here's my favorite presentation:


Aaand tomorrow is cre8 camp- I'm really looking forward to it.

Gird up your loins!

It's time for me to start putting together the next Drinking and Drawing event. I'm really interested in getting input on the last one- what did people like? what didn't work? what would we like to see/hear more of? Should it be at the same place? Music? blah blah blah.

So please chime in!

If you're one of those poor unfortunate souls who doesn't know what Drinking and Drawing is, you can find out more here.