Matthew Innis has posted some excellent quotes from the illustration giant Howard Pyle. These quotes were recorded and preserved by Pyle’s assistant Charles Defeo.
After the first half-hour of work, your lay-in should kill at a hundred yards.
If you can make a picture with two values only, you have a strong and powerful picture. If you use three values, it is still good, but if you use four or more, throw it away.
They will never shoot you for what you leave out of a picture.
Time Out invites Terry Gilliam to build a list of the 50 greatest animated films of all time. There are some odd decisions that many would object to (how is Disney’s Robin Hood better than Jungle Book?), but it’s a pretty decent list overall. Gilliam’s commentaries are interesting.
Hayao Miyazaki and Moebius shared an exposition of their work in Paris, and they sat down together for a joint interview.
Scott Westerfeld’s children’s book Leviathan was released this week. The book is another addition to the strange literary fare that seems to sell well to children these days, though I haven’t read it, and have no plans to.
What interests me more is the book “animatic” — the motion graphic trailer, made up of moving images from the book. This approach to promoting books is becoming more commonplace, and, anyone who has worked on animatics in After Effects or Combustion will know that, these things are an art form in-and-of-themselves.
I’m a huge fan of pencil tests. No, a pencil test isn’t something that measures the qualities of a pencil. A pencil test is the raw artistic performance of an animator before any assistant takes hold of it. The value in a pencil test is to observe how an animator thinks.
Only the most important elements, the irreducible story telling gestures and movements, are drawn. It’s like stripping away the visual candy of finish, color and effects to see deeply into the heart and soul of an animator. Sometimes that glimpse isn’t very valuable at all. But when the animator is a master of story and performance, the pencil test is far better in rough sketch than it is when clothed in complete artistic finish.
Given this truth, the Pencil Test Depot is a gem of a resource for animation appreciation.
Sidebar has recently interviewed artist Greg Manchess. Manchess talks about his days in art school, struggling to find teachers who taught art rather than philosophy, and his formative years working alongside Gary Kelly at Helmut Design. Greg also talks about his many projects, his artistic process, and current career situation.
Greg is not a believer in the popular idea of talent. A rare few actually have something we would call talent. For most of us excellence comes through strong training and hard work. This is an important lesson that would save many art students from stalling their artistic growth.
There is also an excellent article Subtle Distinctions that interviews Greg about his sensibilities and approach to painting. This was originally published in Step by Step Graphics magazine.
Glen Keane is animator of Tarzan, Fagin, the Beast, Aladdin, Long John Silver, and many other memorable characters in the Disney line-up. Glen is a master of character animation. His work is filled with emotion, personality and appeal. But there is one thing that stands out about Glen’s work that surpasses most other animators, and that is his work tells a clear and believable story.
The greatest challenges of any animation performance is to serve the story in a clear, believable fashion. In fact, this is the challenge of all the dramatic, storytelling arts, be it acting, directing, or writing. Is the story served clearly and believably?
Keane’s animation is clear in it’s communication of story and personality in every frame. It doesn’t have to be in motion to work. Stop on every frame and you will see these things in every pose. The poses are not confusing, they are simple and clear. The motion is not cumbersome, awkward or cliched, it is believable and filled with emotion. And it all fits within the dramatic needs of the story.
Keane also storyboarded many sequences in Tarzan. Here is a storyboard reel for one of his sequences.
Steven Spielberg spoke at the AFI in 1978. Here are some clips.
First, Spielberg talks about how many directors don’t know what they want. Animators, on the other hand, have to see everything. They have developed their imaginations to be able to visualize everything.
In this clip, Spielberg talks about how he uses storyboards and sketch artists to pre-visualize his ideas.
Brad Bird is one of the most visionary directors alive today. And he has guts. How many directors would have the nerve to go into Pixar and shake up the system to keep it fresh? How many directors would even know how to begin? Yet Bird did just this while writing and directing two of the most successful Pixar movies to date. The McKinsey Quarterly interviewed Brad Bird about his leadership at Pixar (posted at GigaOM).
Twenty years ago John Grisham couldn’t get published. But he stuck with his instinct, and 20 years later he has written 22 books that have sold over 250 million copies and spawned ten movies, with an eleventh in development.
“I’m a famous writer in a country where nobody reads.”
Humble, Yet Disciplined Beginnings
Grisham started writing his first book while practicing law. “If I had 30 minutes to an hour, I would sneak up to the old law library, hide behind the law books and write A Time to Kill.” (USA Today Interview with Dennis Moore)
Grisham was consumed with an idea, and he was disciplined in his efforts to write this book. It would take him 3 years to complete A Time to Kill. “When I started writing in the fall of ‘84, I had no idea what I was doing, but I was motivated for all of the right reasons,” he says. “I had a story to tell and I wanted to see whether I could tell it.” (USA Today Interview with Dennis Moore)
I didn’t study writing. I don’t think you can study it. I’ve always read a lot. I don’t study other authors. There’s — it’s a god-given gift to be able to just tell a story, in such a compelling way and 400 pages that hooks the reader into all — till the very end. (Bill Moyers interview)
His friend Bill Ballard said Grisham’s writing habit was very disciplined in spite of the stress of his full time job. “Practicing law was stressful. If he had to get up at 4 a.m. to get in two hours of writing, he would get up at 4 a.m. He certainly has that voice in his head. When he’s writing, his characters are talking to him in his head. (Robert Lee Long, Desoto Times Tribune, June 29, 2009)
Grisham fills in some details: “I would wake up at 5:00, and I’d be at my office by 5:30. That was the only quiet time of the day. Because Renee and I were having babies and life — I was in the legislature in Mississippi. I was, you know, my law office was busy. It was never profitable, but you know, it was still busy. A lot of clients who couldn’t pay. From 5:00 until 8:30, or 9:00, that was the only quiet time of the day. And I’d go to the office and make some strong coffee and sit down and start writing. And I didn’t know, I mean, I’d never written before. My goal, when I started the book, was just to finish it. ‘Cause I’m always starting a new project and never finish….I worked on it for three years. I remember I had to go to court sometimes at 9:00. And I can remember just sitting in court being dead tired ’cause I’d already written for three hours. And it, you know, it’s draining. When you do it a lot it really takes a lot out of you.” (Bill Moyers interview)
The road of writing wasn’t easy. John experienced many times of doubt and discouragement. “And there were times I would put it down for a month. And I didn’t really want to go pick it up again. And I would say- I’m tired. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to sleep. Just why am I doing this? I used to walk in a bookstore and see all those tens of thousands of beautiful books and I would say, “Who wants to hear from me?” you know, what have I got to say? How can I add to that? And, you know, I just– I finished it. After three years. And lucky enough to get it published.” (Bill Moyers interview)
Grisham queried forty to fifty publishers with, A Time to Kill. They all rejected his book. He was broke, yet he was already writing his second novel, The Firm, “at his desk wedged between the washer and the dryer in the laundry room.”
Two years later the small New York publisher Wynwood Press took a chance on Grisham and printed 5000 copies.
Wynwood was not able to market A Time to Kill as strongly as John wanted, so he bought 1000 copies of his book and began his own book tour and marketing strategy. While marketing A Time to Kill he finished writing The Firm.
Random House picked up The Firm, and this book launched his career.
Writing Habits
Since then, John writes on average one book a year. His writing habits are seasonal and have not changed. He told Slushpile, “The books are written from August to November, from 6 a.m. to noon, five days a week. Old habits die hard….I write at the same place, same table, same chair, with the same cup and type of coffee. The same computer has produced the last fifteen books, and it’s about to give out.” (Slushpile interview)
Outlines
Grisham outlines his stories extensively. Sometimes these outlines take longer to write than the manuscript. And at any given time he may be working on several outlines for different stories.
Grisham’s outlines consist of 2 paragraph synopses of each chapter projected for the story. Aside from the editing, the outline is the most painful part of the writing process for Grisham. Yet he refuses to cut corners on this part of the writing process.
“The more time I spend on the outline, the easier it is to write the book.” (Borders interview)
When you lay out the entire landscape of the book, you see what subplots are not needed, and what characters you may or may not need. Once it’s all laid out, you can examine how the beginning, middle and end are working. The beginning has to be captivating. The middle must have enough interest to sustain two hundred pages. The ending should be unpredictable. This is Grisham’s “secret” to a good story, and the outline is the tool that helps this construction.
This outlining practice was a hard won lesson he learned after writing A Time to Kill. The book was over 900 pages. “It was a mess,” said Grisham in a Borders interview. Three hundred pages were cut out of the manscript. This was perhaps one of the greatest writing lessons Grisham ever had. “That’s a lot of hard work, I’m not going to do that again. So when I wrote The Firm, I said, I’m going to outline this thing–to streamline this thing. I’m going to get it down to a 500 page manuscript so that I won’t have to write the 300 pages that I’m going to throw away. It taught me a valuable lesson about planning–outlining.“
Influences
Grisham was a self-taught writer, driven by instinct and by critical reading. He studied successful novels to understand their structure and pace. Bill Ballard relates, “He analyzed how best sellers were constructed, plot development, at what time readers would be engaged, at what time they would put the book down.” (USA Today Interview with Dennis Moore)
John Steinbeck had a great influence on John’s writing style. In fact, he says he reads The Grapes of Wrath every three years, and in 2008, he reread all of Steinbeck’s works.
Bill Moyers asked John what fascinated him about The Grapes of Wrath. John replied, “Just the people. The story. The human conflict. The suffering. And the sense of survival those Oakies had in the face of the great injustice. And, you know, it was written for the little guy. And great characters. A great moment in history that he captured beautifully with– with his best writing, I think, that he ever pulled off at the age of 37. It’s just a great story.” (Bill Moyers Interview)
Grisham also admires Mark Twain, Pay Conroy, and John LeCarre, who he says is “probably my favorite writer.” In one interview Grisham mentioned he recently read E. L. Doctorow’s The March and loved it.
Writing Advice
Grisham has clear advice for fiction writers.
Make the fiction as good as possible, and everything else will fall into place. (John Grisham interviewed at Slushpile.net)
When you write suspense, you cannot spend too much time with other elements of the story, such as setting, food, wine, relationships, etc. It’s a long list. You have to continually keep in mind that you are trying to make sure the pages are turning at a rapid rate. (John Grisham interviewed at Slushpile.net)
Outlines are crucial. I start with Chapter 1 and write a paragraph. Then Chapter 2, then Chapter 3. When I get to Chapter 40 the book had better be finished or I am in trouble. The outlining process is no fun, but it forces the writer to see the entire story. (John Grisham interviewed at Slushpile.net)
Write at least one page every day, without fail. If you’re trying to write a book, and you’re not writing at least one page a day, then the book is not going to get written. (John Grisham interviewed at Slushpile.net)
Soledad O’Brien asked John if he works one book at a time, or on multiple books simultaneously. John responded, “I work on a couple of ideas, and most of them don’t stick.” (CNN with Soledad O’Brien)
June 2009 marks the 2oth anniversary of A Time to Kill, and Dell has released a 20th anniversary edition in paperback, with a new introduction by Grisham.
Further Reading & Watching:
John Grisham’s Author page at Amazon.com
John Grisham’s official website
Dennis Moore’s article at USA Today
Collection of Interviews at John Grisham Online
