Nina Paley’s career began in 1988 with her self-syndicated comic strip, Nina’s Adventures, which appeared in several alternative newspapers and two paperback collections, Depression is Fun and Nina’s Adventures. She created two solo comic books for Dark Horse Comics, and various graphic short stories for Last Gasp Comix, Rip Off Press, Laugh Lines Press, Grateful Dead Comix, Kitchen Sink Press, and the Japanese artist volume Jarebong. Her first mainstream daily comic strip, Fluff, was distributed internationally by Universal Press Syndicate between 1995 and 1998; in 2002 she drew The Hots for King Features Syndicate.

Comics burn-out drove Nina to animation. Her first film, Luv Is…(1998), was clay stop-motion shot with a vintage super-8 camera. She went on to make 3 more films in 1998, each exploring a different medium or technique: Cancer (drawing and scratching on 35mm), I Heart My Cat (16mm stop-motion) and Follow Your Bliss (traditional pencil and ink on paper). In 1999 she made the world’s first completely cameraless IMAX film, Pandorama, and received a grant from the Film Arts Foundation to produce Fetch! (2001), a short film incorporating optical illusions. In 2002 she created a controversial series about overpopulation and the environment, including the Stork, which won first prize at the EarthVision Environmental Film Festival and an unsolicited invitation to Sundance (2003).

In 2002 she briefly lived in Trivandrum, India, where she encountered the Ramayana, Indian sexism, and the failure of her marriage. She subsequently embarked on her current project, “Sita Sings the Blues,” a feature-in-progress combining ancient Indian mythology with 1920’s American jazz.

In addition to making independent animated festival films, Nina teaches at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. She lives in New York with her cat, Bruno.

What do you consider the main characteristics of good animation?
Good animation? I should say that I don’t consider my animation good animation, it is merely adequate animation.

Good animation is full animation, something that comes straight from the mind of an excellent animator, full of exaggerations and extremes of movement that would be impossible in real life. Good animation isn’t just “the illusion of life”; it goes beyond what life can do. Tex Avery’s work is good animation. Rotoscope is not, even though I like some rotoscope and use the technique myself often. Good animation incorporates the classic techniques, like anticipation and squash-and-stretch.

What tricks / shortcuts have your learned over the years that speed up the animation and drawing process?
1. Design. Good design lets you get away with crappier animation. People will be so happy looking at the shapes and colors they won’t care so much that your animation looks mechanical.

2. Nesting symbols in Flash. You can create extremely complex animation by putting lots of really simple animated bits together. For example: animate a ball bouncing up and down in one symbol. Then animate that bouncing-ball symbol moving across the stage. The ball will move along a parabola, even if you don’t know what a parabola is. Put that animation into another symbol, and copy it several times. Scale the “topmost” instance up. Scale the “bottom-most” symbol down. When the animation runs, you get instant multi-planing - even if you don’t know what multi-planing is.

Also: cycles, cycles, cycles! They save time and look good.

3. A Cintiq monitor - the kind you can draw on directly - has been a big time-saver for me. Before that I used a Graphire, the smallest cheapest tablet Wacom sells. I liked it a lot, I’d still use it if not for the Cintiq. I am downright incompetent with a mouse, as my former Parsons students can attest (I’d have to demo drawing in Flash using only a mouse - ugh).

4. Don’t be a perfectionist. “Adequate is good enough” - that’s my motto. Work on a scene or bit until it more or less functions and then MOVE ON.

There are other tricks and shortcuts of course, but I can’t write them all here.

You are teaching animation at the Parson School of Design in Manhattan, what has helped students succeed in your classes?
I taught myself animation, so it pains me to see a lack of self-motivation in so many students. The mere fact of paying tuition and sitting in a classroom will not make you learn anything. You have to actually be interested enough in your own work, to want to learn new techniques. The only thing that helps my students succeed is when they develop a profound interest in their own work. When that happens they succeed with or without me, but at least I can be more useful to them. When they’re already motivated, they understand how useful tricky shortcuts can be, and they take the same primal delight in watching their images move that I do. I’ve only had a few such students, and I’ve enjoyed them immensely.

This Spring I’ll be teaching Visual Narrative at Parsons. It’s partly an experiment to see if I can get people who don’t care, who maybe aren’t interested in sequential art, to get interested. (That’s never been my intention with my animation classes, which have been more technical.) I’ve done a few Visual Storytelling workshops at Parsons already and I’ve been thrilled to see students transformed in the act of making simple stories. Much of my inspiration is the book “Impro” by Keith Johnstone, which emphasizes creative expression comes from bypassing the ego and feeling safe enough to take risks in a group. Most people are terrified of both drawing and storytelling, and that fear manifests as disinterest in students. But I’ve seen students get over their fears and have a great time and tap into their creativity in workshops, so I’m optimistic.

What artists influenced you in your artistic career?
All of them!

What films and shorts are worth studying for a novice animator?
The Yellow Submarine. Allegro Non Troppo by Bruno Bozzetto. Fantasia. Anything by Tex Avery. Those are all classics. I hear there’s some great animation being produced for TV series today, but since I don’t have TV I don’t see it.

Really, you should watch what you like. Isn’t liking animation what makes people want to be animators? If it turns you on, study it.

When can we expect to see Sita Sings the Blues in theater?
Hopefully some time in 2008. Wish me luck.

What other projects will you be working on in the near future?
Nothing planned, but I may have to take more freelance work when my money runs out. Unfortunately that would delay the completion of “Sita.” Hopefully money will just fall from the sky and I’ll be able to finish by the end of 2007, as intended.

You can see more of Nina’s work at:
http://www.ninapaley.com/

Interview Conducted by: Ingmar Zahorsky
ZahorskyArt.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.