Secret #2: The Box Beside His Desk

Here is the second installment of a five part series:  How daily creative journaling can be the foundation for advancing your studio work.
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Recently,  I watched the 2018 documentary, Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, by Kaku Arakawa.  The film, of course, is about Miyazaki, the Japanese master animation director. His work has earned prestigious awards at international animation and film festivals for five decades.  (See the trailer for this film here.) 

Japanese master animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, is the winner of about 100 international awards. In 2001, his film, Spirited Away, won an Academy Award for Animated Feature.

At one point in Never-Ending Man, there is a shot of a large cardboard box (see photo below) next to Miyazaki's work table.  Obviously, the box contains dozens and dozens of discarded drawings and storyboard pages.  Not trash.  Not mistakes.  These are outtakes (to be carefully filed away at some point).

This box contains outtakes (not mistakes).

As animation director at Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki needs to do a lot of experimentation. He needs to try things out.  A lot of stuff does not work very well.  This is normal.  Even for the master.  It's simply the nature of ideas, imagination, and drawing.  There are a lot of outtakes.

The martial arts film actor, Jackie Chan, shows us outtakes that are quite different.  He shows them to us because they are dangerous stunts that nobody should try. 

Let's face it.  Drawing in a journal or sketchbook isn't so risky.  What's at stake?  Realistically, it's just a sheet of paper. 

So here is secret #2: 
Don't use a bound journal or sketchbook.  I recommend using what we might call a loose-leaf journal.  In other words, cheap copy paper (See below).  Why?  It is so easy to discard outtakes.  It makes journaling feel very safe.  I believe you will be more apt to try stuff and experiment.  Because it's just a sheet of paper.  

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Because it's just a sheet of paper.  ​

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