I'm not a failure (although I feel like it most of the time)...
Part 1
I was born in South Africa, my mother is dutch and my father was a mix of european blood, mostly english, he unfortunately passed away due to cancer. I have 3 sisters and 1 brother and 1 half-brother.
I inherited creativity from both sides but I think mostly from my mother's side. Her grandfather was a famous dutch cartoonist, Albert Hahn. Here is a link to some of his work:
From a young age I was drawing and I was very interested in comics. When I first saw Star Wars I was entranced by the imaginative settings and story.
I began writing and drawing comics when I was about 8. Later on I became interested in animation and began to think that this was going to become my career path. I continued pursuing art, writing and drawing comics and making small animations until I finished school.
Leading up to finishing school I was considering how I would afford to study animation as my parents were very poor. I also became a christian and there was a youth leader who was encouraging me to spend my first year out of school doing youth work which I decided to do. I finished school in 1994 and in 1995 I did a year of full-time youth work.
Near the end of 1995 I began re-considering how I was going to study animation. My uncle and sister both encouraged me to study graphic design, they said it was cheaper and more broad and I could later specialize in animation. I view this now as terrible advice but I was young and I thought older people knew better.
My first big career mistake was following their advice. I spent 3 years working hard as a waiter and barman to pay for my studies and to live. And I was studying the wrong thing - graphic design. I achieved a 3 year national Diploma in Graphic Design.
However I was still young and the mistake need not have been disastrous. But unfortunately I made more mistakes.
Straight after I finished studying someone in church offered me a job as a graphic designer. I thought at the time that things were going very well. In a way they were. The trouble is that my employer didn't know that my ambition was not graphic design. I had developed some interest in graphic design so I was not completely aware of where I was going wrong. In my job I was mostly doing graphic design but some of my work was animation/multimedia and some of it was illustration.
Now here comes the spark that ignited my next choice.
In 1999 "The Phantom Menace" was released to an excited audience. I was super-excited. When I was growing up my parents never had a video machine so I had seen little bits of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
The Phantom Menace made me realize that not only did I not want to be a graphic designer. I actually didn't really want to be an animator either. I wanted to be a film maker like my hero - George Lucas.
I immersed myself in all things Star Wars related and read books on George Lucas' career. I decided I was going to try and find work in the film industry as a runner and work my way to the top.
I visited a film company called "Nautilus Crew" in Cape Town. I sat with a lady who interviewed me. I had with me my creative portfolio and I was wearing a very loud shirt with manga characters printed on it. She said that I was perfect for the film industry.
At the time I had a company car so I asked her if I needed a car because I would lose the car when I left my job. She said it was a non-essential. I asked the right question but she did not realize that her answer was going to put me in trouble.
So once again based on someone telling me something I was about to make my second big mistake. I handed in my resignation with my plan to start working for Nautilus Crew as a runner.
to be continued...
