The natural function of the human mind is to break down torrents of data into digestible chunks of information.
As writers, we go against this function by trying to fill up a blank page.
It seems counterintuitive. But we're not really filling a page, are we?
It needs to be understood that creation, synthesis, is just a highly advanced form of sampling: using the contents of the mind as a sample-source, rather than external artifacts.
Cut-up machines and random generators stimulate creativity by mimicing brain function. They remind us that we're culling from a store of experiential data. Think of the warehouse in the movie Dreamcatcher. We pull out a memory file, and from there, we edit: warping those memories, fiddling with their parameters, playing "what if?". We can even cut and paste, merging multiple events into one event.
The writer does not bring stories into being: xe carves a block, revealing what was already there in potentiality. Therefore, we can speak of fictional characters, fictional worlds, as already extant. For some, this takes on a spiritual significance... as Teilhard De Chardin described an objective world of thought, "soulbonders" speak of the objective world of their stories.
Chomsky's theory of generative grammar (as I understand it) states that language is an innate property of the human brain, and that all languages follow a common template. If so, then the language(s) we speak are themselves a sample.
Stories in language, language in brain. In both cases, reduction is the key.
― Syra (Syra), Sunday, 28 May 2006 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link
"The natural function of the human mind is to break down torrents of data into digestible chunks of information.
As writers, we go against this function by trying to fill up a blank page."
I'm not sure we try to go against the function, because if that were the case we would all be paraplegic blobs of flesh. Or possibly trees.
I believe to fill up a page, as a writer, is very similar to the function of trying to get an apple out of a tree. As a writer, or a hungry man, you can either sit before a blank piece of paper until it writes a story itself, or you can sit under a tree and wait until the apple falls on it's own, but most likely we are going to put together a theoretical set of events that might reach us towards the final goal, then we're going to do it. The only difference is that in writing you list down these theoretical events, and instead of an apple you have a book of theoretical events.
"It needs to be understood that creation, synthesis, is just a highly advanced form of sampling: using the contents of the mind as a sample-source, rather than external artifacts."
I think "highly advanced" is a copout term, which in using, you forfeit the need for further explanation, and create an unchallengeable argument. But I will anyway. Muahahahahaha.Our advanced form of sampling, and it's subsequently advanced form of data retrieval is SO advanced that we can create a fictional character which others can become familiar with, and even cry at their fictional deaths. SO, in knowing this, how much difference can you really argue that there is between the sample-source and the external artifacts? The thing about the brain is, that we process everything in regard to the information we've already gathered, so that each external artifact becomes unique for each individual person. It is experienced Differently, for each individual person, so that the true form of the external artifact becomes irrelevant anyway. This is why we love fiction so much. Because when we are truly immersed in it, it‘s difficult to tell the difference between it and the outside world. Every peace of fiction gets the exact same comparative treatment external data gets, and becomes our own in the same respect
“Chomsky's theory of generative grammar (as I understand it) states that language is an innate property of the human brain, and that all languages follow a common template. If so, then the language(s) we speak are themselves a sample.“
This makes sense. As far as I know, the human brain works in a similar fashion in language acquisition to song birds. If a song bird is not exposed to it’s species song in a certain developmental period during their youth, they can never learn the song. Also, one species cannot learn the song of another. Obviously birds are stupider then we are, but from the rare examples of humans being raised by wild animals, it’s shown that a human is developmentally stunted if they don’t learn a language during the acquisition period. (Contrary to Hollywood) If this language acquisition period does hold true, and it’s still in question, then it would make sense that each language is fulfilling a predisposed scope of verbal achievement. Much like the song birds predisposed scope.(There is variety of song in each species, by the way.)
― Joshua Aldridge, Monday, 29 May 2006 01:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Anthony Hudson (fabhappyfruit), Monday, 29 May 2006 02:41 (seventeen years ago) link
So you are saying that fiction is as valid as stimulation? Stimulation that has been effected through culture no less?
― Chas, Monday, 29 May 2006 07:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Syra (Syra), Monday, 29 May 2006 08:29 (seventeen years ago) link
I think shaking a tree is just as good a metaphor as carving a block. In both cases, we're not creating anything, we're influencing what's already there. The action is the same for writing but because it's not immediately available to the senses, because the work goes on in the head, we lose sight (heh) of what we're doing and that creates writer's block. The random word generators help.
I was thinking of some of Peter Chung's statements, in particular that he didn't want to involve people emotionally in fictional characters (if I've misquoted you, I apologize, Peter). That's more of a pure artist's perspective, I think. Storytelling, narrativism, puts the focus on hypothetical persons. You're right that how we approach a fictional character reflects on ourselves; I think it can create just as profound a shift in consciousness. (though, having said that: "great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, small minds talk about persons"... there's only so much you can do with the totally interpersonal before it becomes navel-gazing)
― Syra (Syra), Monday, 29 May 2006 08:57 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't believe that the mind exists as some kind of pre-existing total set of ideas, which is what is implied by sampling. I used to argue with a lot of my art school peers, who during the 80s were thoroughly enamored of appropriation (their word for sampling) as a means of teasing meaning from the gray background of cultural noise. That method was seemingly tied to some political yearning to separate the art from the material object (commodity). In a similar way, I think Syra's proposed approach reflects an ideal which de-emphasizes the role of ego in creation. It's anyone's choice which path to pursue- as long as it produces good art in the end.
I'll elaborate a bit on my wariness of involvement with fictional characters. I'm not quite promoting a Brechtian detachment (which, in practice, produces work that is too dry to be enjoyed). First, I choose to work in animation partly because I like the artifice of it- the inherent emotional distance. There is no real-world correspondece (and confusion) between the actual performer's persona (Theron, say) and the fictional character. More to the point, an audience's connection with fictional characters in a story is something vicarious, inauthentic. It may be "entertaining", and I agree there is a place for that. What interests me far more, and which IS authentic is the audience's connection with the author. As long as the former is a means towards the latter, then it has value. Otherwise, I can't really argue why reading Soap Opera Digest might be a waste of time.
― Peter Chung, Monday, 29 May 2006 09:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Monday, 29 May 2006 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link
Those are my faves!
― Chas, Monday, 29 May 2006 20:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Monday, 29 May 2006 23:40 (seventeen years ago) link
Wow!
Beautiful!
(I want to be pedantic also)
― Chas, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 06:49 (seventeen years ago) link
(All right, that's a joke)
― Peter Chung, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 10:42 (seventeen years ago) link
Animated Animal Issues
Shana Heinricy, "Absorbent and Yellow and Porous Is He: The Use of Animal Representations in SpongeBob Squarepants"Nina K. Martin, "So Cute It Hurts: Violence and Affect with the 'Happy Tree Friends'"Paul Wells, "What Do Animated Animals Mean?: Bestial Ambivalences and the Cultural Turn"
http://gertie.animationstudies.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=57&catid=31&Itemid=79
To expand on Chas' linkPedantic=
http://crossroads.animationstudies.org/index.php/option/content/pcontent/1/task/view/id/23/Itemid/49
― Peter Chung, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 11:13 (seventeen years ago) link
(I hope I shouldn't be ashamed)
― Chas, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link
Back on topic:Random generators as a creative tool, I think are more useful in music or painting than in writing. I prefer Eno's use of oblique strategies (a progenitor of sampling) and surrealist art (esp. Ernst) (never was a fan of found-object art, however) to Burroughs' Cut-ups. Pat O'Neill made films using chance juxtaposition to produce unexpected associations from familiar visual tropes. But artists aren't satisfied to keep repeating those exercises.
I guess I'm saying that reduction, or deconstruction only gets you half way. At some point, you DO have to fill up the page. (Well, somebody has to.)
" didn't want to involve people emotionally in fictional characters... That's more of a pure artist's perspective..."Yes. I write stories that originate from some idea which is not necessarly "character-driven" by nature. (In fact, I've never agreed with the primacy of "character" in narrative.) You then have to reverse-engineer the story to appear to unfold based on a character's natural behavior. That's called the craft of screenwriting. But when the "craft" becomes the driving motive for the writer, you usually end up with something impersonal (standard Hollywood procedure).
Pet peeve: viewers and critics who say "the city (or location) is a character in the narrative", or some variation. It's said when the specific idiosyncracies of a place are an important factor in the book (or film). Like the locale is being "elevated" to the status of a character, a human being. That's nonsense. A city can be a city and still be important. What anthropocentrism.
― Peter Chung, Tuesday, 30 May 2006 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 07:05 (seventeen years ago) link
I dont know if this relates, but this topic has reminded me of an article I read about scientists who were studying the brain while dreaming, ( I'll look for the link somewhere) In the article they explain that the scientists discovered that when you're dreaming, you are only actually experiencing images and memories, all jumbled together without any real context (how they figured this out I'm not sure.) It's only later when a person recalls the experience of the dream, that the dreamer "creates" a narrative out the abstractions in the dream.
― Voltero, Wednesday, 31 May 2006 23:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 1 June 2006 04:22 (seventeen years ago) link
Do the events we observe in life and in dreams have a meaning "INNATE AND IN THEMSELVES"-- independent of the mind observing them? Or are events defined by a mind that imposes that meaning on them? (I sound like Trevor) Actually, I think our minds both "create" personal meaning and "discover" universal meaning. We participate in the world's creation by our need to make sense of it.
If we hold that meaning is predicated by mind--"What is the meaning of life?"It's what we decide we want it to mean.
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 1 June 2006 04:39 (seventeen years ago) link
Nah.
I think there's something to the sampling idea. It's hard not to. As far as ego, it really seems little more then a filter in the sample theory. Granted, an important filter, but a filter on both the input and output process none-the-less. Still, considering the variation in style and, dare I say, quality of output in any creative effort, it's hard to imagine that there isn't something more to the process of creation then the consumption and reuse of data.Then there Is ALWAYS intellect. So pretty much, you put a few theoretical and, as of yet, uncalculatable qualities and processes together and you've got creativity.It seems useless to talk about really, because if you try to break all the theoretical components down into tangible parts, your answer automatically becomes more mystical then what you originally started with.AAaaaaaaaaarrrrhhhhg. Although don't let that stop any of ya'll.
Animation possessing an inherent emotional distance. Hmmm. This is a hard one.I'm trying to work around this but I can't seem to. It makes sense that obvious human representations would be easier to identify with, but it's clear that people can also get attached to cartoon characters. I wonder if the amount of personal identification varies with how the character is drawn. For instance, if the characters in Billy and Mandy looked like the characters in Kim Possible, would they get away with so much? InTEResTing.
Sometimes this crap can be interesting, but I agree, it's got to work towards something. To spend so much time analyzing someone else’s product without it working towards personal understanding, or achievement, is just kind of a waste. Although maybe these people gained a deeper understanding of whatever they may be involved in, I don't know.
"For me, it's not the creating process where the reduction occurs, but in the audience's viewing of an artist's work."
I suppose it would depend on what the method of the writer was. I think that at first the artist condenses it. That the artist sees the story and writes symbols on a page, but eventually the creation becomes focused on the symbols rather then the creators original vision. Now I'm talking about mostly minimalist work, because that's my favorite. You look at books like The Great Gatsby or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and you realize that the precision of the words is the real art of the book, and that the story becomes almost secondary. I’m not sure how steadily that caries across styles though. I’m sure areas are always stressed differently.I think the only way a reader would condense an artists work is if they didn't grasp everything the artist put in the book, but sometimes the reader can grasp something the artist never intended, so it seems like a pretty good exchange to me.A lot of it just seems to be reinterpretation.
― Joshua Aldridge, Thursday, 1 June 2006 05:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Joshua Aldridge, Thursday, 1 June 2006 05:19 (seventeen years ago) link
When that happens, my own view is that the reader is engaged in a creative act at that point-- triggered by the author's words, but originating out of his/her own experience.
Like Ray Lee was doing.
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 1 June 2006 05:32 (seventeen years ago) link
To make things worse, these movies would in turn influence my own story (in superficial ways, maybe just the "connective tissue"), making me feel like I was ripping them off.
It's annoying to feel both points of view: that of the artist, who selfishly wants to tell his story to others, and the viewer, who just as selfishly wants to see his own story in other peoples'. Sometimes it makes the whole effort of creating art feel pointless.
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Thursday, 1 June 2006 06:53 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't know, some of my favorite stories have been played out by my dreams over the course of the night, and I've woken up scrambling to write them down in a coherent manner. I think that when writing becomes a purely intellectual endeavour, it can limit the range and interest of the final work.
Though I'm sure that the overlapping creativities of two people, when done right, can transform something that started as purely intellectual into something a little more primal. No doubt this is where the inclusion of mind altering drugs into the creative repertoire comes from, the attempt at overlapping creative spots from the same brain to achieve something more primal.
In this sense, I think that the dreaming mind works in a ways similar to this, it's bringing in the input from parts of your brain that don't normally get a say in waking creativity. Now, you can argue that dreams have no context or meaning inherent to them, but really as Trevor pointed out, nothing has meaning that the mind hasn't imposed on it. With that in mind, dreams have more meanings than most things in our lives, since what we remember is what we have chosen to be meaningful, and we can only dream about what we can remember.
So, I'd like to argue for dreams as a valid (and interesting) creative source, especially since they can give a voice to methods of thought that we'd normally not see involvement from.
― skye, Thursday, 1 June 2006 12:46 (seventeen years ago) link
I am saying that, at some point, an intellectual process of deliberate organization will need to be applied, if for no other reason, than to finally commit the dreaded act of EXECUTION. That takes discipline and craft. That's the whole point of being an artist. It's the unique set of skills a person applies to bring focus to what is otherwise intangible and elusive. Frankly, it's why I get impatient with work which merely juxtaposes sampled elements. I don't need to go to a museum to see that. I get it walking down a city street.
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 1 June 2006 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Joshua Aldridge, Thursday, 1 June 2006 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― skye, Thursday, 1 June 2006 23:38 (seventeen years ago) link
Regarding Peter's question about the meaning of meaning; I think the question is meaningless. The whole process of imposing meaning on something is an attempt to tame it, cage it, control it. The next step is then to indoctrinate others in that meaning, which is itself an attempt at controlling them. The meaning itself is arbitrary and therefor meaningless. There are as many meanings to events as there are people who witness/experience those events. They can't all be right. Rather. it is the act of imposing meaning that contains the true meaning, which is control. In essence, it doesn't matter what you believe. What's important however, is not that you believe it, but rather that enough people believe the same thing as you. Because let's face it, otherwise you're just some nut.
And lastly, I'm glad Peter emended his earlier statement about dreams being excellent source material for creative narrative. You make a good point about needing to tie it together with some type of logical execution, and your own work is the best example. I love Aeon Flux for the way you and the others who worked on the show marry randomness with meaning. In most cases it was skillfully done. However, Chronophasia. WTF? If ever there was a prime example of where the dreamscape overwhelmed the organizing spirit of the waking mind, that was it. Or maybe I just don't get it.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Peace.
― Logo, Friday, 2 June 2006 06:38 (seventeen years ago) link
The meaning itself is arbitrary and therefor meaningless.
We're saying the same thing, Logo. However, I'd argue the question is a meaningful one. Because I think the attribution of meaning on world events, though artificial, has an enormous effect on the actions people undertake as a result. For that reason, the more arbitrary the meaning, the more we need to examine our responsibilty on deciding what things mean.
Morality is an example. You can either believe that actions are absolutely good or evil (according to some divine law, say) or that our moral definitions are based solely on some social or evolutionary calculus which is arbitrary. Absolutists argue that if morality is artificial, then there is no compelling reason to do good. I'd argue the opposite. Because the definition of morality is in our hands, it's all the more reason to do good, since we have the authority to define what "good" is.
― Peter Chung, Friday, 2 June 2006 14:53 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm done talking about it, but I'll sign off with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-modernism
― Peter Chung, Friday, 2 June 2006 15:37 (seventeen years ago) link
Or understand it. It's an appeasement of curiosity, which in itself, has never been so evil as you make the human cognitive function out to be.
"The next step is then to indoctrinate others in that meaning, which is itself an attempt at controlling them."
This is a bit one sided, isn't it? If you shared no meaning with anyone, you wouldn't have any loves, any friends, or even any common acquaintances. You wouldn't have a language that meant anything to anyone but yourself.Human relationships grow stronger with shared experiences, and with the shared meaning they create between individuals. It's how we function.
― Joshua Aldridge, Friday, 2 June 2006 18:40 (seventeen years ago) link
But yes, returning to the discussion... Syra, I love what you've come up with. And Peter, I think your point about Syra's approach reflecting an ideal which de-emphasizes the role of ego in creation, is very important.
Writing an artist statement last year about my some of my drawings, I considered using a very similar comparison to block carving as the one Syra has described: How sculpters reveal in their material what was already there (in potentiality), and therefore are not only creating but also discovering what they produce. What I wanted to relate this to, was my experience of feeling much less the creator of my work, than the discoverer of it. Now upon further consideration I feel like I was its co-author.
The works I refer to are generally abstraction drawings. An important point about them is that I never tried to visualize the what they would end up looking like when I started - this is the mandatory degree to which I detach myself from an ego driven need to have total control over what I'm doing. My approach is very similar to surrealist automatism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatism_and_the_computer. But to me it feels more like a sort of collaboration between my automatism and my conscious censor. My automatism takes major influence over the composition. Often, I give it the majority of control. At the least, I consciously add a level of polish to the composition while trying to cooperate with what my automatism's input seems to lean towards (unless I really think its necessary to overrule - and I can be mistaken about such decisions). Sometimes my automatism takes total control while my conscious censor becomes humbly removed in the wake of its flow - for brief but important moments. In a sense I imagine the process to be comparable to raising a child. I have a great deal of influence over what it grows into, but it is its own being, and the more I remain sensitive and respectful of what that entails, the better my ability to nurture it towards a pleasing outcome. (So the question is what does "automatism" entail?) The consistent result of drawing in this manner is that I have produced works, or aspects in works that surprise me, and make me wonder how I could ever have done it alone. And my opinion has become that I have, in an impotant sense, not done them alone.
― Sam Grayson, Saturday, 3 June 2006 04:53 (seventeen years ago) link
And Josh, I never meant to suggest that humans are all insidious beings purposefully trying to brainwash eachother. That's just what ends up happening (joking :)Seriously though, I understand that no man is an island unto himself. In fact, people are usually defined by their relationships; their family, friends, coworkers, internet message boards. We need other people. But we also need other people to understand us, to see things our way and in that sense we do try to indoctrinate them into our sense of meaning. Imposing meaning on something, i.e. understanding it is the first step toward manipulating it. The theory of relativity allowed us to understand the nature of mass and energy. With that knowledge we were able to create vast sources of power. We tamed the atom. Meaning led to manipulation and control. Or take someone in therapy. They examine their actions and motivations in order to deduce a meaning that elludes them. Once they've come to a viable conclusion about themselves they are then able to change their actions for the better. Knowledge of something gives you a power over it, the power to change it. And the same is true for knowledge of people. So in that sense, making friends, getting involved in the political process, or even just writing, or drawing are all methods by which we control others by altering their state of mind to something within or breadth of understanding and thus control. Some people of course have less than noble intentions when they do this. Most of us, not. The potential is always there though, and that's all I was referring to.
― Logo, Saturday, 3 June 2006 05:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― skye, Saturday, 3 June 2006 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link
Ego: Pfff, that's not so cool.
Superego: Is it bad that I find this cool?
― Syra (Syra), Tuesday, 6 June 2006 07:04 (seventeen years ago) link
As an afterthought: Even though I agree with Syra, we need to remember that all the things posted on this thread are just opinions. It seems like this sort of thing could turn into an argument if we take ourselves too seriously.
― your hair is good to eat, Tuesday, 6 June 2006 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link
Now having thought about it a lot more, I kind of gave in and accepted that there is merit to the idea of a sort of ego evasion. I still don't think "getting rid of the ego" is feasible - I think that's an idea people can get carried away with. But understanding the term ego to be referring to ones immediate consciousness, I believe that acting outside of it is feasible via the various means through which one can achieve unconscious action.
― Sam Grayson, Wednesday, 7 June 2006 06:36 (seventeen years ago) link
This is not to say that we should just be floating around without history, without experience, without a self. Instead that we should not filter all things through the all-catching blanket of expectation. Simply put, we should say "yes" to absurdity, invention, confusion, failure, chaos, abstraction and imperfection.
"I'm trying to free your mind, but I can only show you the door, you must walk through it" haha, sorry, I couldn't resist. Jennifer.
― jennifer barclay, Tuesday, 13 June 2006 19:39 (seventeen years ago) link
I still empathise with Skye's position though. How does getting rid of the ego in order to get what you want, make sense?Surely having conscious expectations is essential to most creative progress. If you have no standards to meet, "why do it?".
But this is why I like Peter's use of the term "de-empasize". The idea is not to eliminate the ego's input, just make it less dominant. Of course the ego will ultimately decide whether what you've done is any good or not (in the case of my drawings I would describe the input of my ego as mostly fluctuating).
Basically I feel that creating something usually entails engagenment with the conscious and the unconscious. De-emphasizing the ego, I think, equates to allowing for more unconscious input or exploration than usual. The potential benefits of doing things on a more unconscious level, I find, include allowing the contents of your unconscious (conditioned or otherwise) to flow forth more comfertably and freely, thereby allowing you to become well uccustomed with such contents and potentially more adept at making good use of them - or perhaps just accustomed at being able to improvise with whatever the hell turns up.
― Sam Grayson, Thursday, 15 June 2006 11:16 (seventeen years ago) link
Just to clarify: I'm not advocating this approach, which I simply thought was a possible source or consequence of Syra's proposed "reduction" model of creative writing, which I disagree with.
In my experience, rampaging egos produce the most exciting art. (It's also true that sometimes a really talented asshole just ain't worth the trouble...)
― Peter Chung, Thursday, 15 June 2006 17:34 (seventeen years ago) link
There's a quote about design in a book I've been reading, "Good design is a compromise between strict adherence to function and the self-indulgence of the artist."
― skye, Thursday, 15 June 2006 23:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― jennifer barclay, Friday, 16 June 2006 00:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Barb e (Barb e), Monday, 19 June 2006 04:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― your hair is good to eat, Monday, 19 June 2006 09:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 05:34 (seventeen years ago) link
Okay, on second thought, it's not very adult, either. Where does that put it?
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Syra (Syra), Thursday, 22 June 2006 20:11 (seventeen years ago) link
...It's no wonder I haven't graduated yet...
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Friday, 23 June 2006 07:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Joshua Aldridge, Sunday, 25 June 2006 05:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sam Grayson, Monday, 26 June 2006 07:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Tuesday, 27 June 2006 03:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Sam Grayson, Tuesday, 27 June 2006 11:06 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Wednesday, 28 June 2006 03:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― your hair is good to eat, Wednesday, 28 June 2006 08:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Thursday, 29 June 2006 08:56 (seventeen years ago) link
What I meant by "made every frame count" is that the characters were constantly contorting their faces into insane expressions; you could watch the show with the mute on and it'd still be funny. And as far as backgrounds go, so long as they're not so sloppy/plastic/ugly that they distract from the important stuff I don't care what they look like or how they're drawn. I think about 90% of the time, characters, dialog, plot, and underlying theme if there is one (not necessarily in that order) matter a whole lot more to me than visuals. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is about as animated as most people's avatars but it's still one of my favorite shows.
This is an interesting discussion and all, but to tell you the truth I feel a little guilty for aiding in the derailment of this thread -- and I bet Syra's a little annoyed too (sorry Syra). If anyone wants to talk more about Ren & Stimpy, silly cartoons in general or the importance of background art, we should start a new thread.
― your hair is good to eat, Thursday, 29 June 2006 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link
What I meant by "made every frame count" is that the characters were constantly contorting their faces into insane expressions; you could watch the show with the mute on and it'd still be funny. And as far as backgrounds go, so long as they're not so sloppy/plastic/ugly that they distract from the important stuff I don't care what they look like or how they're drawn (and I don't think the AF backgrounds are lazy). I think about 90% of the time, characters, dialog, plot, and underlying theme if there is one (not necessarily in that order) matter a whole lot more to me than visuals. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is about as animated as most people's avatars but it's still one of my favorite shows.
― your hair is good to eat, Thursday, 29 June 2006 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link
As far as my post, I wasn't specifically referring to your comment. Sorry, maybe I should have mentioned that. It's just something that struck me when you mentioned making every frame count. And of course, two people can have very different opinions. John Kricfalusi has been mentioned here (or maybe on the older forum) in a way that makes him seem kind of like the anti-Peter Chung. He does quality work, I think, but of a very different quality.
― Matt Rebholz (Matt Rebholz), Thursday, 29 June 2006 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― ringtones free, Monday, 3 July 2006 10:33 (seventeen years ago) link