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Lee, Chinyun (Jean)

ESL - 33B

Professor Carlisi

15 March 2018

My Long Journey

Section 1: ​Literacy Narrative

Compared to airplanes, I prefer trains more. Although airplanes are faster, people

can see more beautiful scenery while they are taking trains. I felt like I’ve been on the

journey by train for a long time to decide my major.

Almost every kid love watching cartoon and animation, including me. Since my

parents were busy, television became my good friend. I liked every character and scene that

I watched on the TV. All of them had a great influence on me, so I started to practice

drawing and wondered if my work was shown on the channel in the future. From then on,

being an animator or an artist became my dream. When I prepared for my graduation in

junior high school, I told my family that I wanted to attend an art school to be an animator

instead of normal high school, none of them agreed with me. They considered drawing

could be a good hobby rather than a career. I was convinced by them at that time, so I

surrendered. However, this fact totally defeated both my dream and my confidence.

Even though I was defeated, I still love drawing. Unfortunately, there’s less and less

time for me to practice drawing because I was constrained by heavy homework from

school, disagreement from my family and my self- understanding and determination which

is the most important reason. When it’s time to decide our major in university, I was

thinking to turn my hobby into a career again. But my family were not satisfied with the

other majors which were textile design and fashion marketing, and I was afraid to have the
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exam again. Lastly, I chose to major in library and information science. Without doubt, I

was not interested in any classes at all. Plenty of people in Taiwan have different jobs from

their majors, so I thought it doesn’t matter what major I was. I always went to school to

chat, play, sleep, have party, and go to club. This situation lasted until I was going to be a

junior in university. I still learn something useful such as how to do programming, write

research paper and work with a team, but designing a post for my club was the thing that I

enjoyed the most at that time.

God never shuts one door without opening another. I had a chance to come to the

U.S. I was thinking that I could be the same major, because a lot of American colleges have

library and information science major. However, I didn’t like library and information

science. There was a strong feeling came to my mind : if I didn’t try this time, I probably

would struggle more to fulfill my dream in the future; therefore, I decided to change my

major into Animation. To make this decision, I sacrificed many things like, a half- finished

diploma of graduation, a great job opportunity, my family and friends, and social life. I

must work hard to catch up other students and fulfill my dream. It’s a long journey for me

to decide a major. If I told to 15-year-old I that my major is animation, she’s not going to

believe me.

Animation is related to art. Thus, most classes are art, and we need to do a lot of

sketches. I started my first art class in PCC. The first time I stepped into the art building

was in a day with a comfortable weather. When I looked at the building, I felt it was so

special and different from others, and people around there were all have artistic style! In the

classroom, we had easels and large tables instead of small tables; our floor and wall was

full of paints instead of clean one. The best thing was professor sat in the same table did the

same thing as students! What a beautiful place! This place was definitely for me! I enjoyed
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much more than any class that I had taken before. I used to think that my skill was my

weakness because it was not good enough to compete with those who’d drawn for a long

time. That’s the reason why I grabbed any chances that I could practice. All of my

homework was considered as my chance to practice, so it took me a great deal of time on

doing homework. In addition, There’s always a pen in my bag so that I could draw

whenever I had some ideas or time to practice sketch. Due to these reasons, skills are not

my weakness at all. In the meantime, my different culture background let my work became

more special and interesting because most of my classmates didn’t know about that.

Whereas, critic time turns out to be the hardest part for me. I have difficulty expressing my

ideas to people because English is not my mother tongue and I am not organized.

Compared to me, some people’s work were not as good as they said, but their artist

presentation always drove me to think deeper about their works. The more art classes I

have, I understand more about this field and fall in love with what I am going to do in the

future, but I know that only passion is not enough to be an successful animator.

Section 2: ​Explanation and Description of Discourse Community in Animation

Animator shows people the world they look and imagine. Though there’s no sound,

such as “pink panther”, audience still know what the story is about. I used to think that

animators only need to be good at drawing, but when I get more involved, I realized that to

be an animator should be capable of communicating with other people their ideas and think

critically. Tons of animator only know how to draw well. If I can improve communication

skills more, I will be more likely to have achievement in this field. Linguist John Swales

defined discourse communities as "groups that have goals or purposes, and use

communication to achieve these goals". Discourse community in animation is wide, it can

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be directors to audience and designers to technicians. Personally, I want to be an animator,

so my discourse community is composed by animators, directors, and storyboard writers. I

didn’t know about this world clearly but I know working in an art world is stressful because

there are a lot of talented people around us, and bunch of works that we probably have no

time to finish. In order to understand more about animation major, and know how can I

prepare for my future career, so I set an interview.

My interviewee was professor Albert Yu, who graduated from Art Center

entertainment design, is the professor in PCC and works for disney. Our interview was on

21st March in 2018 at 3:15 p.m. The location was in Pasadena City College, Center for the

Art building, CA317. The interview lasted for 15 minutes. There’s no voice recording in

this interview. However, in order to memorize all the details, I took some notes after the

interviewee answered questions. According to the interviewee, I understood more about this

field:

First, there’s no doubt that students who wants to be an animator must be good at

drawing and be able to draw everything, so practice is necessary. If they are not able to

draw, the picture comes out from their imagination will not be that ideal. Also, if they only

draw specific thing, their work will be limited. People are visual animals, they like to see

beautiful thing instead of rough work. It’s easier to get a job if students who can draw well

than those who cannot.

Moreover, being major in Animation can have variety of jobs, such as television

industry, movie industry, animation, illustrators, designers, artist and so on. According to

Hart Research Associates, 81 percent of employers look for an employee who uses critical

thinking and analytical reasoning skills, so students who major in animation are also

required to practice analyzing and interpreting information in college. Because when they
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become an animator, they will need to read tons of scripts. How can they design those

characters, cars, environment properly becomes really important. For example, if they are

going to design a character who lives in the water, they have to think about which organ

that creature uses to breathe; how does it look like; where does it live and what is its

personality. Another critical thinking skill is time management which is also a certain

strategy that animators should consider since there are endless stories that they have to read

and thousands of hundreds of drawings are required to be finished. Art takes time, design

takes more time. Not to mention that animation is combined with both. Once they cannot

manage well, they probably cannot turn in the project, or even worse-- make the body sick.

In some case, animators are not satisfied with their pieces, they will fix them again and

again, but sometimes they should just let it go and do others.

“People who can communicate well especially in English tend to be more successful

in Animation field.” said by professor Yu. Animator should communicate with other

effectively as well. Before we become profession, every classmate and professor are our

future network. Seize the chance to know more about them probably can bring more

chances to ourselves in the future. In this case, oral communication becomes important.

Also, if we have an interview for a job, animators have to express their ideas to convince

interviewee from a company or audience. The interviewee said that when we turn into

professional, we will face different kinds of person, no matter the person is a director, artist,

screenwriter or our co- workers. If we communicate effectively, we can work effectively. I

think that’s the reason why all of my art classes have critics during the class. Professors are

trying to train us how to communicate and express our ideas to the audience.

The last but not the least, interviewee told me that animators should have the

following inner sources: self motivation, passion and persistence. Neither of them can be
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lack because animators always sit in front of the desk for a long time to draw. Sometimes

they have the sacrifice their social lives to practice their skills! Take my friend for instance,

she doesn’t have any social life after she got into Art Center College of design, one of the

top design school, her daily schedule is study- do homework- sleep.

I believe I have some inner source and skills, but it’s still not enough. I realized that

I have to push myself more in order to prepare for my future career, so I am developing all

of the skills and strength the one that I’ve already have.

Section 3: ​Reflection on Future Career and Necessary Preparation for future

In conclusion, English communication skills to animation is like the chocolate to

mocha. It smells like coffee, but you can taste the chocolate while you are drinking it

because although it seems that animators only need to have drawing skills and

imaginations, English communication is an important part of it. Coffee is bitter, but the

chocolate is sweet which add more flavor into the coffee. There are several stations but

none of them are my destination while I am taking the train. In order to get to my

destination-- being an animator, I have to practice more, especially is effectively oral

communication in English. Now I am in the U.S. where is filled with many English

speakers. It’s a good chance for me to practice my English speaking skill. In the meantime,

I am taking ESL class which is also a way to practice my time management, critical

thinking, and English communication. On the other hand, I will make good use of those

critics in my art classes. m“Success doesn’t come for free. You have to do whatever it takes

to seize your moment.” said by Ernesto De La Cruz, a character from one of my favorite

animation​. ​I believe that if I seize the moment and make effort in this progress, I am going

to improve fast. The further I go, the closer my dream is.

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Works Cited

1. Yu, Albert. Personal Interview. 21 March 2018.

2. Hart Research Associates. “Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success”.

20 January 2015. ​http://tinyurl.com/nz6txph​. 4 April 2018.

3. Swales, J.M. 1990 Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4. COCO​. Dir. Lee Unkrich. Perf. Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin

Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renée Victor, Ana Ofelia Murguía. Walt Disney Studios,

Motion Pictures, 2017. Film.