The wonderful texture and smell of hot melting bubblegum on asphalt was utterly inspiring! Courtesy of Joseph Gilland.

How about just using the Internet to find an expert on the element you want to animate, and then contacting them? Asking questions of or interviewing local professionals who would be intimate with the element in question. When we want to animate a house on fire, do we ever think to go to the local fire station and ask a firefighter for his or her point of view? If we want to animate bubbles, might we go scuba diving? If we want to animate waves, can we go surfing?

I strongly advise that one just go for a walk, armed only with the desire to learn more about a specific element. Just walk, meditating on that topic, and then open your eyes. You will be absolutely amazed at how often references appear before your very eyes. The natural world around us is full of it. Infinite amounts of ongoing reference for just about anything you could possibly imagine.

For the next day and a half, I embark upon this journey with the students. If I have anything in my bag of tricks that pertains to their element, accumulated over thirty years of referencing visual effects, I share it with them. I encourage the most "outside the box" approaches imaginable. "Try something you would never consider trying!" I implore them.

Each morning, I show some animated films, just something to get the juices flowing, and to get the dialogue running again. At intervals throughout the three days, we review what we have learned up to that point. It is loosely structured, but the intention is that we move ahead with purpose, with an opened mind, and with our imaginations running at full tilt. And our computers, as much as possible, dark and quiet.

This year, this group of students just blew my mind. They latched on to the very essence of the workshop, and they expanded their minds, as well as mine. They had fun with it, they ran with it, and best of all, they took advantage of it. Even if the exercise only breaks them of their regular day-to-day routine, I consider it to be of enormous benefit to their creative growth.

On the last afternoon, I asked the students to get up, one by one, in front of the classroom, and do what I have been doing for the last three days. Explain clearly, step by step, everything they now know about this visual effect that they decided to learn more about. Using whatever visual aids they choose, including their computers, I ask them to describe in detail the process they went through, the discoveries they made, and the conclusions they drew. I ask them as many questions as I can while they are up there, so they don't get off easy. I want to hear everything. And I make them speak up and look up, and don't mumble either! Imagine if I came to do a workshop and looked at my shoes while I was talking? Well, that's the little "public speaking" seminar within the "Organic Approach to Visual Effects."

This group of students did a fantastic job. There was a sincere effort by everyone, and there were some real insights gained. There was also a great willingness to learn, outside of what they might have thought they needed to learn. And best of all, there was actually a sense of wonder. That fantastic childlike quality of wonderment that is so precious and rare in this over-informed society of ours, which can be so cynical and skeptical of anything that doesn't come in a perfectly designed package. We tapped in to the potential of our imaginations, and the infinite universe of available reference material all around us.

There is something so wonderful about discovering something new, especially things in real 3D space, not the virtual one that we seem to spend so much time in these days. When we see, touch, and feel something in the natural world around us, there is an elegant element of spaciousness that just isn't there on the screen of our computers. Even on the page of a book, there is that subtle tactile touch, the gentle sweeping sound of a page turning. The smell of sulfur after we light a match. The texture and smell of gooey bubble gum on a hot summer day, the sound of a pencil scratching a page, the wonderful texture of whipped cream splattered on the floor... mmmmmm!

Now, students of animation, armed with that untouchable moment in your imaginations when your mind expands into the universe and connects with the creative collective consciousness of every moment that has ever been... now, sit down at your computer, and unleash yourselves into the future of what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.

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.