We renamed my group Darkhorse, The Heavy Metal Band, and played at the wrap party for the original Heavy Metal movie. Now that was an unforgettable experience.

In the middle of working on the original film, Mulan, which dragged on for years, it was a fantastic creative experience that pumped us all up and helped to keep us all going. Years later again, during the production of the original Lilo & Stitch, I teamed up with Aaron Blaise, (the co-director of Brother Bear) and a key animation assistant, Steve Austin, to create a trio that performed groovy acoustic/electric music with highly intermittent regularity around the Orlando area. It was another fantastic creative experience that I feel it made us all happier and better artists, every time we got together and played.

I can rewind the story even all the way back to 1980, and remember my earliest rock & roll band Darkhorse. We renamed ourselves The Heavy Metal Blues Band to perform for our last gig ever, at the wrap party in Montreal, for that infamous cult classic, the original Heavy Metal movie. Wow! Now that was a little bit of fun, I can tell you! An experience to relish for a lifetime.

All this reflection and storytelling is really just to emphasize the importance of branching out and dabbling in as many creative areas as possible, to help us stay engaged with our animation, as well as ultimately enhancing our creative bag of tricks. It’s also worth noting that in the inevitable “dry spells” that pop up in many animation artist’s lives, when work is really scarce, having other creative outlets can also lead to working professionally in other disciplines, so diversifying your creative toolbox can also save your fanny in that respect. I have worked professionally as a musician, an illustrator, and a photographer from time to time, and it has indeed, gotten me through some of my toughest periods in this sometimes fickle industry!

Most of us as artists, know all this stuff, and couldn’t live our lives any other way. As creative individuals, the vast majority of us have our fingers in all sorts of creative pies!

What I was surprised to find, particularly with the newer students of animation pursuing a career in the digital realm of animation, is that many students have not really considered the idea of diversifying creatively, and so I continually emphasize its importance when teaching or lecturing to the next generation of animation artists. Many youthful “3D” artists don’t even seem to understand the importance of drawing to the degree that they should, in order to greatly enhance their creative communication skills, never mind branching off into countless other areas of creative magic. So I call on all educators of animation to keep this in mind, and make sure that we plant the seeds of true creative experimentation and exploration in every student we teach!

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a true artist was expected to be well versed in physics, engineering, architecture, science, biology, writing and music. The “Renaissance Man” as he/she was referred to, (although very few females were permitted to be a part of that sadly male-dominated era) stands as an excellent example of what I am emphasizing in this column. All areas of creative thought and practice, complement one another with underlying principles and practices. To rise above the average, to capture life fully with energy and creative originality, we, as artists, are responsible to be the “antennae” of our society, and explore every creative outlet available to us, in order to best be the entertainers and educators of the masses that flock to the theaters like sheep, the average Janes and Joes who are so (hopefully) attracted to our creative magic.

The more we can all diversify and experiment creatively, the better our creative product will ultimately be, and the public at large will get more bang for their box-office buck. It’s all about creative energy, imagination and knowledge folks, so let’s broaden our creative horizons every chance we get, and, as a result, give the countless fans of our magical art form the best creative edu-tainment that we possibly can!

In his 30-year animation career, Joseph Gilland has worked with studios as diverse as Walt Disney Feature Animation and the National Film Board of Canada. He has worked on all styles of animation, experimental films, television series, commercials, theatrical feature films, stop motion, title sequences, live-action films and documentaries. He is writing a passionate book about the art of animation.