Every Second Counts: Animation with Vince Cheney
Vince Cheney is a 31-year-old animator currently living in Fresno, California. He’s another creator from the indie game development team I’ve been a part of for three years, so I think I’m qualified to say he’s one of the most steadily dedicated creators I know, always mindful of planning tangible, achievable goals to reach the next level in his skills. His discipline has always been a motivator for me personally, but what I also find encouraging about his story is that in the grand scheme of things, Vince is relatively new to his craft — he has about 6 total years of experience so far. His journey serves as living proof of all the progress someone can make in just a few short years of pursuing a creative passion that may have been randomly discovered in your mid-20s. Check out our conversation below!
(And if you notice any weirdness in the samples of his animation included here, chalk it up to my gif conversion skills rather than his animation skills!)
How did you fall in love with animation?
I think the first instance was when I was watching Monsters vs. Aliens, this old DreamWorks animated movie, with a group of friends and they were on the floor laughing. I’d always been a creative person but just never had an outlet that made sense, so in watching that movie I was like “oh, this is funny, people like this, it involves creativity… I could do this.” Then what pushed it further was when Tangled came out. Plus seeing all the behind the scenes stuff and how they would break down a scene and how it all comes together piece by piece by piece. [So it hasn’t been all that long since you’ve focused on animation?] Yeah, not that long, it’s been maybe 6 years. Before that I was doing graphic design, and that was fun, but I feel like I didn’t get the hands-on training for Photoshop or Illustrator that I needed to survive. For digital art there’s the mix of the creative side and the technical side, and I would always get lost in the technical side. I would get lost in color theory, shadows, shading, and even just plain old drawing skills I feel like I lack a lot. So with animation, I don’t have to draw well, I don’t have to color things, I don’t have to light things, I can just make it move in a way that’s realistic.
What do most people not know about your type of work or your personal creative process?
I think what blows people’s minds with animation, specifically 3D, is just what an animator does, how detailed and in-depth the movement is for even just a second of screen time, just how much goes into that. People think, “Oh, I thought there were only going to be five people on that credits list, but there’s hundreds!”
My demo reel currently is about a minute long, and it probably took me… [laughs] Oh my goodness, long. Years. At least like a year and a half of 8-ish hours of work a week. And the crazy thing is that people in the studio could do one second in a day. That’s what’s crazy. So, basically, that’s the level that I have to shoot for to be able to be working that well, that fast. It’s hard to do.
You work in a factory by day and are an animator by night. During this season of your life, how do you balance the demands of your job with your creative time?
[laughs] That’s a good question because I work on average about 10 hours a day, and then sleep for about 6 hours a day. So… [laughs] yeah, currently, that’s a tough one. I’ve noticed a change — I actually just finished a walk cycle that’s really rough, and it took me about 2 hours, and in my brain I’m like, “Man, this should have taken me 30 minutes!” That’s just me pushing myself, thinking I’m not good enough. But yeah, my ideal week outside of eating food and pursuing my fiancée is ideally to put in 5 hours a week towards animation. Ideally one hour a night but that’s hard to do. What I try to do is get big chunks out of the way in my free nights, so when I hit two or three hours a night, I’m happy, and then I go to bed.
When it comes to game design, how does that kind of work feel different or feel the same as the other animation work that you want to do in film? Are there things about game design that you like more or less?
I think for games you kind of have to be willing and able to play multiple roles. You have to be able to be a designer, plus an artist, plus an animator, plus a lot of things — especially in a small studio or developing studio like ours. If you need someone to draw, you just have to be like, “Well okay, I can kind of draw, I’ll make something up.” You have to be a better-rounded artist, capital “A” Artist, rather than just a specialist with this one thing you want to do. So that can be challenging, balancing what you, personally, want to do and what is needed for the group project to survive. Maybe you have to give up animation time all together for something else because you can’t animate yet, because you’re not there yet.
I think both games and films have the potential to tell really good stories. Both have the potential to be very immersive, make you think, make you process, make you rethink reality, what you are, what you believe in. I think on a skill level, I’m more drawn to games because they don’t take as much work. [chuckles] They don’t require as much fine-tuning. You have to do a lot right, but you can also get away with a lot, and you don’t have to do much facial animation unless you’re doing really fancy cut scenes. Basically, it’s mostly body mechanics and making this person run right and jump right and die right. So those are the things I feel like I was drawn to in game animation, because I felt like I could plunk myself into that better. There’s just a different skill set.
What helps you recharge your creative batteries?
I draw. I have less time in general now so I don’t draw as much, but that helps me be creative in a different way. I have a lot of books on animation that I read, a couple videos that I watch, there’s a couple sites… there’s the school I went to for animation called Animation Mentor, and they do a weekly video that has a question and answer time. Those are encouraging. OnAnimation.com has a lot of behind-the-scenes, demo reels, how-tos, and things that people have posted. Sometimes I’ll just not do anything and read, or I won’t use my computer and draw or paint, so that’s kind of what I do to recharge.
What always gets you excited about your craft?
Seeing it move, even if it’s really terrible. [laughs] There may be three months of work left before I can get it to where I like it, but still, “It’s walking, it’s alive!” Then I can make it better, and that’s the joy of it.
What is a daily (or regular) discipline you’re following right now, related or unrelated to animation?
I’ve noticed that I have to animate early — when I get home if I go straight to animating, zero distractions, then I can get more done. Whereas if I’m like, “I’m going to check my email, I’m going to write somebody back, I’m going to do this or that thing,” then I tend to not do ANYTHING that night. Just trying to have a mentality of, okay, I’m going to sit down for an hour and do the work, whether anything comes out of it or not… at least I can say I tried today.
In what ways have you improved over the past few years? What do you still struggle with?
I think that my body mechanics have improved, which is basically how to create believable motion, even if it’s on a character or object that is completely not able to move that way. I think what I still struggle with is facial animation, so talking, laughing, expressions… that’s hard. That’s like a whole, whole different level of animation that I haven’t even arrived at yet. [chuckles]
Even if you never “succeeded” in your field, whatever that would mean to you, what would keep you creating anyway?
I think if I couldn’t, if I wasn’t able to animate, I would try to direct a film. If I just got to the point where I was like, “man, these people are way better than me,” I would either try to direct or just keep doing it because — I don’t know, this sounds depressing, but because there’s nothing else I feel like I would be good at! I might as well keep going. I don’t know, that’s a hard question.
What are your creative goals right now?
Specifically for animation, my creative goals are to be able to animate full-time, whether that’s freelance or for a studio. Ideally remotely, so I’ll be able to work from home. That’s the big, huge, crazy goal. But for the right now, it’s to jump on projects that I can, that will let me work on my 5 hours a week, if that’s enough for them.
I’m currently involved in two animated projects — one of them is moving really quickly and is currently in what’s called PreVis, where they’re basically hashing out what the show’s going to look like before they start animating. So I’m kind of behind the lines going, “Okay, whenever you guys are ready I’m here to animate.” The other project is moving very slowly (and is kind of in a different mindset), where they’re going to try crowdfunding first and then animate. The first project team is doing this because we can, we love it and we have a passion for it — and if people like it, cool, if they don’t, we still did it and can brag about it because we did it.
Another thing I just started is being a specialist in Artella, which is an online pipeline for animation projects. So I’m taking a 4-week class in that.
Are there any tools, books, or other resources you would recommend to others starting out in animation?
Oh boy… There’s the books you just have to have because they’re cool, and there’s the books you have to have because they’re actually helpful. The one book you actually have to have because it’s really helpful is The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It is a 2D theory, so it’s basically taking Disney-style drawings and applying it to animation in a broad way, but it is applicable to 3D animation. Even when you’re working in 3D, it’s in 2D on a flat screen when people see it, so the concepts still apply. That one’s the really, really helpful one for me, especially when I have to do a walk cycle and I’m like, “How do I do this again?”
There are a lot of other books on force, what it means to push, what it means to pull, but yeah, the resources are endless.
What other advice or words of encouragement would you give to other creators in your field?
I think the cool thing about animation is that you are free to do whatever you want, and there are a lot of examples of people breaking the mold — so if you feel stuck, don’t be afraid to do something different. Tim Burton worked for Disney and hated it, and then he made the Nightmare Before Christmas and loved it. So it’s one of those situations where if you’re stuck, and you’re like, “Man, I absolutely hate this, I can’t do this, I love the art but I can’t do the art,” then make your own art! That’s kind of the push I have to give myself daily and weekly… I may never work at Disney or Pixar, but what if I could find a way to work on something that matters to me? So make it personal. Don’t be afraid to be different, don’t be afraid to break the mold.
