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What it means to be a Creative, how we are judged and deal with motivation issues

Stephen BrooksMay 7, 20152 Mins read1.3k Views

“What is a Creative?” That’s the theme of this week’s podcast where Stephen and Rob are flying solo (duo?) on another ‘hot cocoa show.’ Check out the outline below with timestamps if you want to skip to a particular topic. We talk about why our career (animation) and creative careers in general are a bit different and sometimes hard to relate to by those that aren’t in this type of field, what type of pressures we’re under and how we cope with them, and the all important topic of wrestling work and personal projects at the same time. What is the deeeallll with objective and subjective criteria?? Drinking game to NOT do… sip whenever I say objective or subjective. Yea, don’t do that.

My hope for this week’s episode is that we articulate why being in a creative field is so weird and seemingly incomprehensible to even those close to us and why that may not matter (and that’s a good thing). I kept this episode clean so if you want to send this to someone who you feel doesn’t understand you, wants to, and you don’t have the words or time to try explaining it… feel free! And let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below. How do you understand your career? How do you deal with the unique pressures it presents?

Annotations:

(9:03) It all starts with a message from Billy Dragon Trask

(13:44) Topic #1: Why is our career different?

(15:25) “How are we judged?” – Objective VS Subjective criteria

(26:23) “How we get jobs?” – The Bad, The OK and The Good

(32:27) “How do we fulfill those jobs?” – Clients’ goals filtered through our personal creative expression (do they own you, are you a hired gun, or do you share creative ownership?)

(38:37) Topic #2: Work Projects VS Personal Projects

(39:29) “What’s the difference?”

(41:05) “Who’s goals are they?”

(45:36) Topic #3: Energy management VS Time management

(48:10) “Why are we talking about when referring to ‘energy’?”

(57:26) “How do you replenish your reserves?”

(1:01:37) “How do you deal with motivational issues?”

(1:07:20) SHOUTOUTS #1: twitter replies (JK Riki, Greg Pugh, Peter J Casey)

(1:08:00) “What is passion, really, and how does it play into our work?”

(1:12:53) “Replenishing energy reserves… or being lazy?”

(1:16:59) “Can you just force yourself to do creative work?”

(1:25:22) “Do you always have to like what you do?”

(1:28:14) The balance between “skill” and “interest”

(1:33:01) Topic #4: The Battle Between You LIFE and YOUR Life

(1:36:54) Creativity, the merging of “selfish” and “selfless”

(1:39:40) Remember why you’re doing this.

(1:42:36) “Will anyone ever understand me?”

(1:59:38) SHOUTOUTS #2: facebook comments (Billy Dragon Trask, Benjamin Shelly, Andrew Kaiko, Martin Bell, Ronald Chaparro, Chris McEwan, Mathius Schulenberg, Mark Porter, Samuel R. Albro)

Stephen’s VLOG series in creating an animated short (playlist includes episodes 1-8) mentioned at the 1:19:55 mark in this episode of the podcast

Check out more of your hosts:
Stephen Brooks (@RubberOnion)
Rob Yulfo (@RobYulfo)
Pat Ryan (@TheBadPatRyan)

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Written by

Stephen Brooks

Stephen Brooks is a freelance animator in NYC that specializes in a hand-drawn style. Being a professional since 2005, he also produces indie shorts with self-made music, sound fx & voices. Lately Stephen has taken to introducing others to animation with production VLOGs, a podcast, instructional videos and is writing a book on traditional principles in a digital world. View his animation work www.rubberonion.com