Gabe Hordos on "How To Train Your Dragon"

Gave Hordos at University of Regina Film Department

Last night we went to a talk by animator Gabe Hordos, which launched the Living Skies student film festival. Hordox is from Regina and has been in LA with Dreamworks for the past 12 years. What really stuck with me was his attitude about needing to redo work and repeat activities over the years. He talked about loosing his first project due to a misunderstanding of computer hard drives when he was in high school. He also talked about having to throw out months of designs on "Toothless", the main dragon in "How to Train Your Dragon" which he was the supervising animator on when the directors decided to change him from cute to scary. In the end, he has realized that it is doing the work which is the goal, not getting the work done. If completion is your only goal, then setbacks are painful. If creativity is your goal, then setbacks are opportunities. Great talk.