In Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, Michael Chabon writes about contemporary 3D animated films under a chapter entitled "The Splendors of Crap."

Chabon's dismal generalizations about computer animation are a bit unfair, but they hold some wonderful insights into creativity and storytelling. For instance, Chabon writes that the crap tv show he watched as a child was incomplete. "In its very incompleteness, born of lack of budget, the loose picaresque structure, and even of cancellation itself, it hinted at things beyond its own borders. There was room for you and your imagination in the narrative of the show." (Chabon, 80)

Chabon goes on to criticize computer animation:

"[The] ample budgets, large crews, and generally high level of technical prowess boasted by even the most execrable of the [CG animated films] enable their creators to employ the prevailing Star Wars-inspired aesthetic of packing every scene, every frame, with incident and filigree, without the concomitant open-ended structure that made the early Star Wars films, at least, a likely locus of fantasy play both for children and, in the form of fan fiction, adults.

The new studio-made CGI products are like unctuous butlers of the imagination, ready to serve every need or desire as it arises; they don't leave anything implied, unstated, incomplete. There is no room in them for children. And so they never form the basis for my own kids' games." (Chabon, 80-81)

Chabon's criticism is very similar to the mild concern expressed by filmmaker Spike Jonze about animators. In terms of animation acting, I sometimes feel as if this comes from an animator's ability to isolate gestures and ideas in a scene. We tend to section off each movement and idea into its own screen time and screen space- rather than engaging in the struggle to find elegant combinations. These isolated actions sometimes provide simplistic (rather than simple) acting choices. The most unique acting moments often come from various known gestures and actions being interwoven. Chabon makes an interesting insight into this idea by describing the evolution of Legos.

When Chabon was a child, Legos were a pile of bricks with no instructions. Today, Legos come in box sets with detailed manuscripts made to replicate some star speeder or pirate ship. Chabon initially writes the box set "modules" are a horrible advent that stops a child from creative thinking, but he refutes himself in the following observation:

"The power of Lego is revealed only after the modules have been broken up or tossed, half finished, into the drawer. You sit down to make something and start digging around in the drawer or container, looking for a particular brick or axle, and the Legos circulate in the drawer with a peculiarly loud crunching noise. Sometimes you can't find the piece you're looking for , but a gear or a clear orange cone or a horned helmet catches your eye. Time after time, playing Legos with my kids, I would fall under the spell of the old familiar crunching. It's the sound of creativity itself,  of the inventive mind at work, making something new out of what you have been given by your culture, what you know you will need to do the job, and what you happen to stumble on along the way.

All kids- the good ones, too -  have psycho tinge of [Toy Story's] Sid, of the maker of hybrids and freaks. My children have used aerodynamic, streamlined bits and peices of a dozen Star Wars kits, mixed with Lego dinosaur jaws, Lego aqualungs, Lego doubloons, Lego tibias, to devise improbably beautiful spacecraft far more commensurate than George Lucas's with the mysteries of other galaxies and alien civilizations." (Chabon, 56-57)

We may be able to learn from this as animators, or any prospective creative professional. We can freely take in the cliche, the overused, the generic, and the absurd to make our own Lego drawer. Make your drawer as robust and diverse as possible. A well crafted handful from such a drawer might reveal ideas that are no longer generic at all.

-Tom