Dark Artists
We have an phrase in the programming world, the Dark Programmer. The term comes from the analogy with dark matter: we know it exists because it exert gravitational force on our galaxy, but other than that we have no idea what it is. A dark programmer is like dark matter: we know they exist because someone keeps writing Java-based actuarial software for insurance companies, banks, hospitals, and other large institutions, but these aren't the sort of people who post to GitHub or Bitbucket, don't contribute to Stack Overflow, and generally aren't interested in advancing, or even learning much about, the state of the art. They just want to do their job for the day, go home, and not think too much about what they do.
It occurred to me, while watching the credits roll by for the movie Frozen, that there seem to be Dark Artists as well. Looking through the list of all the various artists, digital CGI, and ink-and-paint animators listed on the film, I proceeded to go through all of them to find out how many had some sort of presence on the web related to their love of their art.
About half. Almost all of them had some presence: they have LinkedIn accounts, IMDB entries, and the like. But only about half the artists had Deviant Art, Tumblr, Blogspot, or some other account where they shared process drawnings and discussed their work with other people. (Mostly Blogspot. Which I think is weird. Is there something in the TOS of Blogspot that makes it more desirable for arists than the others?) Which means that half the artists on the biggest animated film of the year just want to do the work, take their paycheck, go home, and not think too much about what they do for a living.
The programming world needs dark programmers; I wonder if the same mindset is in play for animation departments. After all, not every who went to art school came out as passionate as when they entered.
It occurred to me, while watching the credits roll by for the movie Frozen, that there seem to be Dark Artists as well. Looking through the list of all the various artists, digital CGI, and ink-and-paint animators listed on the film, I proceeded to go through all of them to find out how many had some sort of presence on the web related to their love of their art.
About half. Almost all of them had some presence: they have LinkedIn accounts, IMDB entries, and the like. But only about half the artists had Deviant Art, Tumblr, Blogspot, or some other account where they shared process drawnings and discussed their work with other people. (Mostly Blogspot. Which I think is weird. Is there something in the TOS of Blogspot that makes it more desirable for arists than the others?) Which means that half the artists on the biggest animated film of the year just want to do the work, take their paycheck, go home, and not think too much about what they do for a living.
The programming world needs dark programmers; I wonder if the same mindset is in play for animation departments. After all, not every who went to art school came out as passionate as when they entered.