Advice

- Editing is a craft that takes
years to learn and perfect

and any editor will tell you
that they're still doing it.

So the best thing you can
do is just keep at it,

keep practicing.

- Cut as much as you possibly
can as frequently as possible.

Go out and shoot stuff
just so you can cut it.

Give yourself a task and give
yourself some constraints

and get a smartphone, get some,

download some free software

or some inexpensive software and just cut.

Cut and cut and cut.

Try things.

Try juxtaposing images.

Try putting music over things.

Just feel it out and experiment and don't,

say I wanna tell a story
with these three things

and then try it or say I don't
care if it makes any sense,

I just wanna feel this.

Just cut.

The more you work on your
craft, the better you get at it.

- And be tenacious.

Tenacious beats talent.

In other words, the more you want it,

the stronger you go after it.

It's more important
than if you're talented.

- The more you work on something,

the better you feel about it.

The more you apply yourself to it,

the prouder you are of it

and this is the part that
can be hard to remember.

The harder the problem is
that you have to solve,

the more proud you are

of the solution that you come up with.

- If you're drawing to get
a job, that's not good.

You gotta draw for yourself.

You gotta draw sort of based
on your inner feelings.

If you're thinking, if I draw this amount,

I'm gonna get in Pixar, that doesn't help.

You wanna look around and
find the truth around you,

find what's funny.

If you're in your
basement all day drawing,

that's not good either.

You need to get out.

- Listen and watch and
read other stories too

just to immerse yourself in
different kinds of stories.

- It's great to watch a lot of movies,

think critically about the scenes,

see what's working, what's not.

When you are watching a movie,
think about how does this,

listen to the sounds.

Think about how the sound
is helping the storytelling.

- Putting yourself outside
of your comfort zone

has always benefited me
creatively and personally

and it kinda just opens up your mind

to different ideas and points of view.

- One thing that helped me was
that I was a camp counselor

at a summer camp one summer

and it got me out of
drawing in my basement

and those experiences have
helped my films amazingly.

The opening line for Dug in Up

is I have just met you and I love you

and that's taken from
a kid who ran up to me

at summer camp and said,

didn't know me, little kid,
you're my counselor, I love you

like that

and all these things that
you can sorta store up

and they come back into
your work all the time.

So get out and experience the world

but bring your sketchbook.

- And the world is changing too.

I think a lot of girls are
applying for animation schools.

Right now, the enrollment
is about 70% girls

in a lot of animation schools.

So the landscape's
changing which is awesome

and for me, I found a lot of inspiration

from a lot of online artists,
lot of online female artists.

I think it's not just
the people around you.

Now, with the internet,

it's like we're connected
with the whole world

so you're bound to find a lot
of like-minded people like you

anywhere in the world too

and it's a great feeling to
feel like you're not alone.

Yeah.