We recently connected with Lindsay Scanlan and have shared our conversation below.
Lindsay, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I knew I wanted to be in the creative field before I even was capable of fully talking in sentences. My favorite movie growing up as a kid was Studio Ghibli’s ‘My Neighbor Totoro’. It’s a beautifully animated film with a gentle pace, but it was still so magical and different from the movies I had seen before, that it made my little six year old head explode. I was obsessed. I wanted to draw like that, to create like that- SOMETHING.
My desire to get into the creative field took a couple different avenues growing up though. I really wanted to get into theater. But even with classes, it just wasn’t looking to be a successful career for me, more of a hobby. I found a lot of excitement in helping design sets and assist in technical theater however, stuff that involved paint and pencils. It made the marbles in my head start to fall into the peg-holes that would help me reach the epiphany I needed.
So when I revisted my love of animation and drawing, I realized after 16 dumb long years that there was actual schooling for it, and it was something I could probably do pretty well in. I just knew somehow I could. Even when I got rejected from CalArts three times, it didn’t stop me. I took multiple figure drawing classes, I sketched, I painted, I wrote, I just didn’t stop drawing. Right before I applied to CalArts a fourth time, I sat out in the cold december rain to paint my backyard and nearly got hypothermia.
My learning process went even more hands-on and intense at CalArts. I worked late nights, weekends, and inbetween classes on my projects. There was a lot of screaming. A lot. But at the end of each semester, I looked at my work with a lot of pride. I struggle to look at my work from even just a few years back because it just feels so different. I don’t think my past self would have ever predicted what would come from me now.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As I mentioned before I studied Character Animation at CalArts. My main focus has been the story discipline, which involves storyboarding, and writing. The work that I am most proud of, aside from what I created at Calarts, is the current storyboarding/screenwriting freelance job I have been on for a year, which is still under nondisclosure. But just from that job, I have learned more about boarding and writing than ever, and it has really helped my skills develop, especially in the times we are dealing with now, where the industry is struggling.
In my spare time, I also love to design things, many of which center around my favorite animal: Opossums. I once made a sticker design for opossums and it went viral, so much that if I see it on someone’s shirt or water bottle or laptop, I get a little giddy.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Bad. Not only are they environmentally harmful, they’re a bad investment. I have repeatedly rejected offers to make my work into NFTs because I am morally and financially opposed to them.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Support your unions! WGA & SAG are fighting the good fight so that our future can be brighter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lindsayscanlanart.weebly.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/hillopurkkii
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-scanlan-288651173/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lindsayscanlan2681
Image Credits
The photograph is taken by Erin McDermott The drawings are by me :)