We human beings , we are good at pattern recognition and its good . Because if we notice “everything” we will freak out and that’s why we generalize some things.
But you would not believe we generalize insanely , in daily use of our language we are using generalizations lot more than one can imagine.
There are countless ways we sabotage real communication by using lazy overgeneralised language – from Unlimited Power
If something happens more than once or twice we just generalize it.
Take this example
of 3 guys
x, y, z
As ‘x’ grow up , he saw elephants , if he happened to see in photos or in real and he saw elephants have tails .
So what will be his view “All elephants have tails”
As ‘y’ grow up he found out that “Some elephants Don’t have tails”
For ‘z’ guy , unfortunately he saw 3-4 elephants and they didn’t have tail so for him “In all animals, elephant don’t have tails”
If these 3 guys start discussion about elephants it will be huge debate
You might say what’s the point of elephant story ?
Good Question …
See we might know 200 or not more than that people really close or say 500 and based on that sometimes we generalized for entire Mankind.
May be pretty extreme example.
We have this “small scale” about things and we measure everything with it and that could be dangerous.
When people generalize its often like this type
All ____ are
Every ____ is
Always ____
Never ____
E.g if I write
All animation institutes are ______
All animation institutes Never going to ____
All animation studios are ____
You probably likely to come up with something .
Another type is when we do “Particular Set generalizations”
Like In X country /area/region animation institutes are ___
You might say , ” wait , wait , I don’t do such generalizations , I’m smart and I know every one is unique , I never do
generalizations ”
If so , I’m glad that you are that way .. 🙂
Now see this, If some animation student asking help from an awesome Animator and his question is
” How can I improve my animation skills ? ”
Good Question .. , Right ??
You know it’s actually damn generalized question.
It’s not at all specific
Does he want advice for animating humans , birds , or he’s asking for acting or for body mechanics, or
What skills he’s actually talking about ?
This type of generalization is tricky , we do it , we don’t realize that we generalized.
May be an animation director telling you, ” Animate a scene where the kid is happy.”
Its generalized , who the kid is ? why he is happy ? how much happy ? where he is ? what’s he’s doing in scene ?
in what context happy?
Sometimes people are generalizing they don’t understand , but that’s not the worst part , worst part is when they
evaluate on it.
Another example is client comes to you and says “create a scary character”
So you work hard and create a monster character, 4 hands , 3 weird eyes , reptile like tail
and When client sees and he finds it Funny character than Scary , cause in his view Giant character like Hulk is scary.
Throughout your animation career you will get chances to get help from incredible professional animators, riggers, modelers, animation directors and if you want to really learn from those special occasions you really don’t want to ruin that using over generalized language.
Don’t worry , I will tell you how to get rid of all this stuff.
Here is your Generalization Tool
1) First of all DON’T Generalized at all
2) Make sure you are not using
All
Every
Always
3) Check on what your opinion is based
4) If you are generalizing , write down
What?
Why?
See the reasons really makes sense
5) have this question in hand
” Am i generalizing ?”
6) Sometimes we don’t see ourselves generalizing ,
but good exercise is to notice when others do in daily life and chances are , we might generalize the same.
