Category: Discussions/Essays

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” — Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor

We all know that the ability to focus is essential for success. But the idea of being focused is often misunderstood. To many, to be focusing in on something only means to isolate our attention to a singular event or object. This, of course, is very difficult to do. Our minds in general prefer to move, much like our body does; it wants activity. Call it an insatiable desire that is deeply rooted inside our consciousness or whatever, but it’s something we all have to deal almost every waking moment.

Spotlight Focus

By default, we like to place our attention on one thing or another. Like a flashlight in the dark, spotlight focus is when we isolate our attention, bringing in clear and bright focus to whatever we aim at. Modern science, or technology in particular, tends to work in this way. Like a sharp knife, the minds act like a dividing tool, separating and dissecting what’s in front of us. We might concentrate hard or not but this is how most of us think conventionally. It is a good way to bring fine details to light especially when there may be many things vying for our attention. A spotlight approach excels at specialization, specificities and zooming in for a close up view. Whenever we use cameras, a microscope or even our smartphones, we are visually and mentally absorbed in details.

Floodlight Focus

To see or sense the bigger picture, we have to adapt a broader view. A floodlight focus will shine light on the entire breadth of what’s in front of us. Its light is not as bright or sharp as the smaller spotlight but we are able see more. This is very useful and powerful in helping us understand how things — poses, colors, lines or shapes in our graphical work — relate to and impact each other. To be good at composition or choreography or directing, having a flood light focus is mandatory.

Problems

In doing art, it’s always too tempting to use exclusively one kind of approach or the other. If we only look standing back from the situation or challenge, we don’t get to come up close. The catch with using a floodlight approach is that its light isn’t that bright or clear. It’s like very early rough or blocked animation; it can look good in a quick glance but none of the exact timing or details that make the character shine are present.We can’t see and thus might lose out on all the good stuff which may make or break the success of a finished work. We also learn immensely about things through direct and deeply focused attention and effort. Looking from a distance doesn’t provide that. An architect who doesn’t visit the construction site won’t control the final outcome. Furthermore, we build discipline and power of attention when working in details because shielding or filtering out all the noise and distraction is a lot of work since the complexities require it. A good example is an animator who follows closely the elbows or hands of a character so that the arcs, spacing and timing are absolutely perfect while ignoring everything else around it.

Of course, the standard routine (and problem) amongst beginners is usually the opposite; the inexperienced are always too eager and obsessed with the details or specialities. They struggle with seeing the big picture and get obsessed with the juicy individual items that demand their attention. Without constant awareness of the big picture, they don’t realize that the cake they’re building is lop-sided — i.e. the foundation is flawed — because they’re too close to the icing to see the whole cake. The painter who’s obsessed over the eyebrows in a portrait while the composition is problematic or the animator who’s maniacally absorbed with the lip sync while ignoring the serious defects in the body mechanics are prime examples. For sure, this is the worst outcome even if it’s the most common amongst young artists. Details can always be added or perfected, but foundations that are shaky don’t yield favorable outcomes. In other words, screw up here and there’s little hope of salvaging the work that’s been done.

Another problem with being too zoomed-in is that it makes us vulnerable to jumping around in terms of paying attention, usually from one little thing to another little thing. We get stuck in the mode of immediacy and become reactionary and lose all clarity. How so? We suddenly see something that might look unusual and end up going off on a tangent. Before we know it, we’re way off course deviating from the composition or choreography that had been thoughtfully laid out beforehand. Working with spotlights exclusively makes us prone to that.

Balanced Usage

In reality, we always need to bounce between both types of focus. Balance is the best approach; switching back and forth from floodlight to spotlight focus is what top professionals do. Like the athlete that sees the whole court or arena, he can dribble/shoot/kick/hit that ball where he wants in the midst of high speed activity. His eyes might be singularly focused on the ball but he “sees” everything around it. To approach our work (and our life) with a flood light focus helps us to stay orderly and aware, thus preventing the kind of tunnel vision that accompanies a singular approach to looking at things. Then, by flipping over to a spot light focus to turn our attention to specificities — like splining the fine detailed movements of the arms after the body is fairly solid — we can ensure complex details are addressed. Making art is like an adventure into the unknown, like journeying through a wild jungle. If during the entire creative process a constant switching occurs, we can then cut some of the branches in our way as we proceed through the forrest and also stop to climb up the high tree to make sure we’re still heading in the right direction. For animators, it means peripherally sensing the weight, overall pose and choreography of the movements while singularly manipulating a single body part of the character concentrating our primary attention on its arc and spacing. It’s not easy to do this, but its the most intuitive and effective way to operate. It’s like driving; we never take our eyes off the road or what’s in front but we’re always aware of the surrounding traffic and pedestrians.

Summary:

The best work is balanced in approach and execution. Bringing light into a situation means bringing clarity to it. Flipping back and forth between spot light and flood light focus is one way of staying on top of the entire process without sacrificing the overall flow of our work or the intricate details that make it special. The work of great artists throughout history have shown this time and again.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” — Aristotle, Philosopher

“Gentle words bring life and health; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.” — Christian Proverb

Today I’d like to focus on words, specifically the roots of words and their meanings. In an age where words have become slogans, often politicized and sometimes trivialized, their true meanings have, in some cases, become so distorted or even perverted, that they have come to infer something entirely different from its original intention and all its profundity.

In art, we know the power of symbols — their ability to incite emotion and initiate thought. Words are a convenience of communication that have, over humankind’s history, come to signify so much more than mere dialogue. By looking at the roots of words, we might see and learn to understand the profound meaning and intentions that lie at their origins. I think they are well worth pondering.

illusion:

Usually meaning falsity, misrepresentation or deception, its roots belong to the latin word ludere which means to play. So rather than being viewed as a negative, illusion or maya (its root word in ancient Sanskrit) signifies the game of life or theatre — a place of fun, exploration and make-believe. As artists, we know that to create means to dive into our imaginations. In order to bring about the most amazing magic — to form the most believable of illusions — and turn our dreams into beautiful physical expression, inventive play is absolutely necessary. Therefore, to solve our multitude of challenges, and to do so creatively, means to have a childlike mindset of playfulness.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

noise:

Commonly thought of only as it relates to sound or hearing, noise actually has its roots in the word nausea signifying physical disturbance or sickness. One French definition for noise is parasite describing again how offensive and invasive noise is to the human mind and body. Today, we’re ceaselessly bombarded by noise — industrial, vehicular, television & radio, smartphones, advertising and even our own conditioned thoughts — that it seems almost impossible to avoid it in modern society. Yet to create, we must find solace from distraction and consciously form environments that allow us to listen and see more clearly, for without clarity, there can be no vision.

“Out, beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”― Rumi, Poet

responsibility:

This much dreaded word of today comes from the combination of the Latin words respondere, meaning to respond, and the word abilitas, meaning ability. So in a sense, responsibility represents not burden but rather opportunity — the opportunity and ability to respond. Hence, responsibility is something we should crave rather than dread because it means that we decide; we make the present and the future. This is incredibly hopeful without being utopian.

In dreams begin responsibilities.” — W. B. Yeats, Poet

idea:

Before this word came into its more crystallized form to mean the “result of thinking or concept” it originally referred to the nature of something, its mode or fashion. In a sense, it refers to the look of something, the seeing of it. Its form originates from the Greek term wide-es-ya, suffixed from the root of weid “to see.” Therefore, to form ideas, is to see them and to see them as true as we can. I’ve always believed that to form ideas, we must learn to see with our eyes and minds wide open. The most visionary, the most creative of us, are truly attentive, truly great at seeing.

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”― Confucius, Philosopher

passion:

Passion has its roots from the Latin word passio, meaning suffering or if going deeper, it tracks back to the word passivus or pati, to be capable of deep feeling or suffering without activity or without resistance. So when we think of being very passionate about something, it really means to suffer from it, to be completely vulnerable to it. Perhaps this is why, without suffering or giving in, we can not find true beauty or meaning behind things. It is not surprising then, that the word compassion, which means to feel pity or togetherness for, has its roots in understanding someone else’s pain — their sorrow — and hence come to mean real kindness and understanding, the very virtues seriously required to be human.

“Sorrow is deeply related to beauty.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti, Philosopher

fear:

The word fear has its roots in the word phobia, coming from the Greek word Phobos which means irrational fear or horror. The Anglo-Saxon usage of the term refers to ambush or real physical danger. Today, fear pervades of all of our minds. Our modern “economy-focused” culture today leans heavily on the idea of fear to motivate us into action; to doing what we don’t want to do (like undesirable labour) and to consume (in order to alleviate that fear). Those terrible fears of not having enough money, of lacking real talent or not receiving love from others cause many in our society to live in constant terror. Yet, not much of this fear is genuinely real or immediately dangerous. Our fears today reside primarily in the mind, in our thoughts. As its root word implies, most of it is just worry.

“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”― Mark Twain, Writer

discipline:

Discipline often infers obedience or the punishment implied as a result of deviation from such obedience. But before its distortion into becoming the French word we know now, the roots of discipline come from the Latin word disciplina, meaning disciple or pupil. So, to be disciplined is to mean one who is well-learned or well-studied. A devotee to discipline is one who loves learning and, because learning is life, the pursuit of learning about ourselves and our world is that truest from of education. Therefore, rather than obsessing over the trite and meaningless accumulation of material wealth, social status, or even spiritual bragging rights, being disciplined — i.e. being focused on learning — is the best and most beautiful way of satisfying our insatiable need to grow or expand. A disciplined life gives meaning and joy to our very existence.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi