Why Animators Must Fail Upwards

Animation is a hard craft to master, requiring a lot of practice. All our early efforts are likely to be unsatisafctory. Which is why animators need to fail upwards. 

All of us fail in most of the things that we do for the first time.  The key to success is to keep failing, fail better, and fail faster.

Animators Are Made, Not Born
Great animators don't emerge fully formed. We all need to practice our craft. When you see a Pixar or Disney film, you see the finished, polished result - you don't see the pain and struggle the animators went through along the way.  Everything we do can be done better. If we don't keep trying, and practicing, and getting feedback, we won't create anything good.

Make Mistakes - and Keep Making Them
This is one of the great things about studying our craft. Our work does not have to be perfect, or even near perfect.  We just have to keep doing, and trying, until, at the end of the course, having made plenty of mistakes along the way, we start to do seriously good work.

Fail Upwards and Fail Faster
So keep at it, and trust in yourself - you will get there, and you will succeed in the end. What we all need to do is learn to fail faster.

Walt Disney - The Failure

Everyone remembers Walt Disney the success, few recall his failures. In fact, Disney failed with his very first character – he created the character Oswald The Rabbit, only to lose the copyright to an investor.  

To save his career and his business, Disney went on to create the famous mouse - which made his name and his fortune.  

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK.