setting a standard

In any art form, society finds one artist in particular who seems to have, in their terms, achieved mastery, and people then set that artist as the standard. Keith Lango explored this idea in his blog posts that we were assigned to read last week. Lango discussed how with animation, viewers and students learning the craft look up to Pixar and set them as the standard. In the back of their minds, animators are thinking Pixar is the best, I want my work to look like that. Everyone is susceptible to it; everyone finds something they see as the best, and they then judge everything else based off of it. Lango opposed this idea and questioned it. With Pixar specifically, he especially emphasized the idea of 'man days' and the power artists have to actually get something of Pixar quality done. The films we watched in class were completely relevant to the Lango readings. Not only did they back up the idea that one should have fun with their art and not just try to match the standard, but they were also proof that even if something isn't Pixar quality, it can still be considered good animation. Even if it doesn't take thirty billion man days or a team of hundreds, good animation can come out of it. The reading and films together made a statement: not to fit the expectations society sets, but to go your own way, because animation is an art form. And art in itself is all about exploration.