the yak occidental

Still-Life of Flowers (detail) by Rachel Ruysch, c. 1695 Spring was a statement of faith, trust that all would be well, that light would return. The faithful earth was swept with the religion of the season. Opening. Rising. Muddy, soft, and renewed. I believed spring entered not only our dreams but those of the moose and wolves. Soon we would all be about, back to our lives. p.134 from Solar Storms by Linda Hogan

If you can't bring solutions, at least be prepared with the facts about the problem. The rookie mistake we will focus on in this video is only bringing problems and zero solutions to your team or superiors. Right off the bat I want to make clear, that when you are in a Coordinator or Manager role, part of learning your role IS being mentored on this stuff – you can’t necessarily know how to solve problems you are encountering for the first time. In other videos in this series, I have offered the 15 minute rule, which is to try and figure something on your own for 15 minutes before asking for help. An extension of this for Production is that if you can’t bring solutions, at the bare minimum you should have facts about the problem at hand. For example, say the problem is your FX department isn’t going to have all their shots done in time for the due date on the schedule. You might not have any solutions on how to fix this, but you can bring your boss and supervisor some key informa...

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life by Mike Krzyzewski with Donald T. Phillips  Grant Hill once perceptively remarked that every team he played on during his four years at Duke, I coached differently. Actually, every team I’ve had in my coaching career, I’ve coached differently. That’s because each year brings with it a new team, with new people who have different personalities and different skills. If I hope to get the most out of these players as a group, I have to coach them differently than previous teams. p. 16-17 Recruit great individuals who are willing to be part of a team and who are coachable. p.18 Because they’ve been in that rotation, they’ll have great empathy for the current players. And to me, that is a much more important aspect of leadership than having the great technical expertise of someone who’s coached for fifteen years elsewhere. Not everyone can know what he ...

Sometimes, you just need to get a show out the door. In Animation, we are all at the mercy of the schedule. Especially if you are working on animated series like myself, you will know the familiar song of not enough time to RnD, project ramp up, doing overtime, and so on.  As much as we would like to be able to measure twice and cut once, we are often developing our shows on the go. Though we all try our very best, not every show is going to be a hit, nor is every shot or asset going to be demo-reel worthy. Sometimes we just have to get the show out the door. In Production, we need to stay as agile and flexible as our artists as things change at a rapid pace, particularly on shows that may be especially chaotic. Perfection is not the point when things move fast, and at some point we have to let a process or project run its course, doing what we can to maintain order and efficiency. To this end, Andrew Hill with John Wooden offer the advice on screen from their book Be Quick - But D...

Perhaps more of a Halloween-appropriate list, here are the most disturbing books I've read This is a picture of Harriet Richardson (later Staunton) at the time of her engagement in 1875, found on the Persephone site . Her life is the subject of Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins CW: all sorts of abuse and violence are prominent themes in these books and I refer to a very disturbing Canadian news article We live in troubling enough times and so it may seem odd to post a list of "most disturbing books,"  and yet, I read [content warning for link]   this article on the CBC and was instantly reminded of Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins . Jenkins' book has been reprinted in recent years by the incredibly Persephone books and is also one of the most disturbing books I have read the past few years. The book Harriet itself is evocative, engaging, and well written even despite its extremely upsetting content. I find it particularly devastating because Harriet is based on a true sto...

...or rather, against micromanagement. Working in Animation means we are working in an inherently creative environment. This begs the question - can you simultaneously run a tight ship while allowing for creative freedom?  In my opinion and experience yes, you can. Production needs to help build a solid basis for organization and processes that allows our creative and technical leadership to do what they do best – create.  To this end, Twyla Tharp, choreographer and author of The Creative Habit says,  “This, to me, is the most interesting paradox of creativity: in order to be habitually creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative, but good planning alone won’t make your efforts successful; it’s only after you let go of your plans that you can breathe life into your efforts” - from The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life by Twyla Tharp Once we have provided the environment and support, we need to let people do their thing, and we get the best perform...