1. Animation is only for kids.
This is the one that's top on my list, and that I hear almost every time I tell someone what I do. There's this stigma that only children watch animation, and anyone else who does has the mind of a child. That's entirely not true. For one, if it was, animation wouldn't exist, as most children couldn't plan, draw, and produce television-quality animations. Second, even not looking at Japanese animation / anime, which has many programs and feature-length films targeting adult or more mature audiences, many American animations have a wide audience of adults who enjoy them for having surprisingly well-planned, engaging plots and characterization paired with an innocence unique to cartoons. There's also video game animation, and 3D cinematics for films; those can touch on some very adult topics. Loving animation doesn't make you childlike, or limited in your intellectual capacity. It just means that you enjoy the genre, maybe even enough to work in the industry.
2. Traditional animation is dead.
Not at all. While many studios do supplement using computer animation tricks, many of our favorite shows are still produced with traditional 2D animation techniques, as well as full-length animated films. While computer animation has its advantages, there are certain human elements of style and technique that it can't quite duplicate.
3. You'll never get anywhere working in an animation studio.
Most people think if you get a job in an animation studio, you'll spend the rest of your life erasing someone else's in-betweens in a dark basement and sweeping pencil shavings from the floor, likely for a starting salary. But that's just it: it's a starting salary for a starting position. In a studio environment, you a beginner generally starts off in internship roles or as a cleanup artist. That doesn't mean you'll stay there. As you learn the ropes and prove your skill, you'll move up into positions better suited for your talent and the studio's needs.
4. Computer animation is of lower quality than traditional animation.
You've probably seen the attempts at 3D-to-2D that look like badly-done Poser models run through a poster filter, or the jerky Flash animations with maybe two or three quick, disjointed animated tweens applied to hastily-drawn vector art. Unfortunately this is far more common online than high-quality computer animations. The fault isn't with computer animation; it's with the animators. Just like in traditional animation, quality takes time. Too many people think that because certain things are faster and easier in computer animation, they can cut corners and produce low-quality animations in a matter of minutes. To produce something truly worthwhile, it still takes time, skill, attention to detail, and dedication to perfection. Computer animation can produce amazing quality in the right hands.
5. You must be a master artist to be an animator.
No, you really don't. You don't need to be Da Vinci to animate well. You do, however, need to have a grasp of drawing and art in general. Whether you're a good artist or not, if you intend to animate you'll be drawing and creating, or modeling and creating. You need to understand proportions, scale, anatomy, and numerous other principles in order to be successful. You don't need to be able to produce a full-scale oil painting worthy of the Sistine Chapel.
These are just a few of the myths associated with animation and the animation industry. What other myths would you like to see dispelled?
