What a Character

This week, as an end-of-the-semester celebration my mother took me to Walt Disney World! Which may very well be the best place in the whole of this magnificent Earth. We saw magnificent things (Cinderella's castle, dozens of little girls dressed up as princesses, extraordinary fireworks and so much more), we rode magnificent rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?), and, dear readers, we learned to draw Pluto like a pro.

Learning to draw Pluto like a pro may sound like an intimidating feat--and it is!--unless you have a seasoned Disney animator teaching you, which is precisely what we had. Way back in the corner of Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios park, there is a little area with endless appeal if you are at all interested in the art of Disney, where you can view concept art, see a little of how animated films come together, and most importantly, learn to draw your favorite characters (or whichever character everyone else in the room shouts out). It is to this exhibit that my mother and I headed, and waited in eager anticipation for the doors to open to that magical little drawing studio in the heart of Disney World. We waited, we people-watched, we guessed Disney characters from a screen placed there for our entertainment, and all but leapt for joy when the doors flew open! But then sat down again because it still wasn't time; a little girl had wandered to where the door-opening-switch lived and pushed the inviting button therein. So we continued our wait.

A few minutes later the doors opened again, and behold, this time it was our turn! We shuffled inside to a room full of drawing tables, each fitted with one sheet of paper and one pencil, eraser not included, and selected our seats. And then a master animator stepped forward, and--after an ominous warning that these pencils had no erasers and therefore must be used lightly!--he began to draw. There was a camera above his little drawing board (fitting with the same single sheet of Disney paper as all of ours) so that we could all view his drawing on a huge screen just behind him. He instructed us to draw circles and lines and curves and eggs all strangely related to each other until, right at the very end, there was a brief game of something like connect-the-dots and all of our strange shapes turned into Pluto! A room full of near-perfect drawings of the same beloved dog. It was pure Disney magic.

A few days later I was reading Romans and came across this verse, "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Now I know this is a bit of a stretch, but stick with me here. Reading about "producing character," I couldn't help but think of what it takes to create a character in the world of animation. Be it Pluto or Alice in Wonderland, all of the characters we know and love went through a serious editing process, going through a hundred different shapes and colors, a million different possibilities. If you are able to see the concept art for any major character you will find dozens of images that look very little like the final result, what is taken from those images might be as much as the form of their face, and might be as little as an expression. It takes a lot of editing and rethinking and reshaping to finally form them into the perfect character for their story.

What I take from this silly reading of such a serious verse is the hope that we are becoming important characters in a real story, through the trials of everyday becoming more and more who we need to be to make this story the best it can be. If we don't get too caught up in the fears and cares of each moment, and accept the editor's pen, as it were, we can become characters with a story worth telling.