There are a couple of things I want to do before I die. I’m calling it the B.I.D. (Before I Die) List.
I don’t think it’s worth putting them in order. I’d rather just put them out there.
When I was six years old, I wanted to become the equivalent of Walt Disney in South Africa. The essence of it was the wide-eyed wonder of what animation could do for an audience. I just loved it.
As a young boy, one of the first cinema experiences I had was watching Aladdin. It was magical in many ways: the lights of the ticket booth, the smell of popcorn and the fact that we were going to see it in the evening! That meant that I was not only going to bed later than usual, but I was OUT later than usual. (A big deal in the life of little guy with an early curfew.)
But it reaches far deeper than that. As a young boy, I completely understood the power of this type of cinema. While small samples of adults walked into other action and horror films, I recall standing in the queue with my family (of 3 generations), and seeing other families queueing far and long to go into the same big, dark, magical theatre. Children and parents. Teenagers, younger siblings and grandparents. I remember the excitement and anticipation sitting in that theatre as the lights went down, and the thrills and wonder of it all as colous, visuals and sound bombarded our senses. And I remember the smiles on their faces as we walked out afterwards. I remember understanding – intuitively – what this medium could do: it could achieve not just thrills… but togetherness.
Animation’s only limit was imagination. And as a 6-year-old dreamer, that didn’t seem limiting at all.
Through my childhood and adolescence I kept a curious vista on the careers and job descriptions of animators. The ones I met and chatted to seemed like an eclectic, recluse sort of personality-type. Their world seemed quiet on the outside, but colourful on the inside. I was curios, because my life wasn’t like that. I joke every so often that I started on the drum kit and have been pining for it ever since. I mean, wouldn’t it be nice to sit in the back corner of the stage, rather than standing out front? In many ways, I’ve envied what I perceived to be the quiet life of animators.
This year I turn 40, and I still want to become an animator. For two reasons. The first is all those childhood dreams that I’ve mentioned already. I’ve continued to look at it all from one side of the fence and it still looks intriguing to me.
Which leads me to the second reason, which is that I’m curious. I’m curious for answers in the world we live, and curious to see what that line of work will reveal on the other side of this fence. My intuition says it will reveal – at the very least – more togetherness in a fragmented world.
