Sometimes it dawns on me that there's a lot of tools in the animation industry.
I'm on an industry related list. While many folks bemoan the state of the industry, there are also many threads about "who have you met famous in the industry". One such thread resulted in a whole stream of name dropping about some vague instance where they spilled coffee on some heavy hitter or some such thing.
One person even went so far as to say they would fall on their knees and pay homage to god if they ever saw Walt Disney...because, according to him, he was god.
God? Try anti christ.
Jesus, with such unquestioning devotion to utter shlock, no wonder these people are at the whims of the execs. The only standard is that the person got famous for animation, there is no acknowledgement about how vile they really were or how Disney was a hundred times more evil than the most vile exec, or that the actual content of the film was utterly devoid.
Hell if these folks spent half the time thinking about how to push the envelope, how to create truly innovative and influential films, that they do on who they have rubbed elbows with, maybe they actually *could* get some ground breaking shit out there.
Seriously. It baffles me why more animators haven't been inspired by the likes of many independent filmmakers, how they fail to be inspired by Ed Wood or David Lynch or Dario Argento or the countless other film geniuses. That they fail to be inspired by the content-strong anime, stuff like Robotech or Tenchi or the hundreds of brilliant anime series that have been made over the year. That they haven't followed the model of really mind blowing comic books, like Sandman or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac or Stray Bullets and taken the shit to the screens...
I fully intend to embrace that role. It's my responsibility to get on the map, to put some brilliant ideas out there in the form of animated film, to do it as my way of bucking against all the american produced shlock, my way of answering the problem of all these films where all they care about is showing off the latest, snazziest animation without bothering with content, good writing, engrossing characters.
I mean look at Burton. He did a well animated, well written movie. Two of them actually. And he got an enormous cult following. At conventions, even years later, devoted fans spend into the hundreds on his paraphanalia. It *can* be done.
But it can't be done by being a tool and a wanna be. So someone is famous. Big fucking deal. I mean, yeah, we all want to meet people who do work we're inspired by. It's natural to feel a rapport. But there's a difference between feeling someone is a contemporary that has helped you as an artist and being a tool who wants to suck up and tell all your friends how you met so and so. Work on your art, produce great shit, and the giants will seek *you* out. But go famous person chasing and you'll just seem like another pathetic, vapid LA twit.
And besides, isn't the important thing the work you do, not who you know?