Break into the Animation Industry
by Tony White
Today the odds are always stacked against the first time job seeker as there are quite often more individuals seeking work than jobs to satisfy the need. Therefore, as a young and emerging animator it will pay you to prepare for your own career path wisely. Self-evaluation is of paramount importance and certainly more than a cursory evaluation from individuals within the industry will serve you well. You will definitely need to be prepared in one or two unexpected areas. Traditional art, for example, is one such area.
Skills in traditional art techniques are still very valuable in the modern digital world. The ideal is that if you both draw well and learn how to operate software well at the same time. If you succeed in doing this you will certainly be more of a premium to an employer than someone who specializes in just one of these skills. The 3D animator who also knows about ‘color’, ‘perspective’, ‘anatomy’, ‘form’ and even ‘2D animation’ is definitely a better catch for a studio than a sole CG technician. This could well put you ahead of the pack – especially with the bigger and more accomplished studios.
Consequently anyone considering a career in the contemporary animation industry should consider only the schools that give some kind of traditional art training in addition to a CG one. Therefore would-be students should be very discriminating when they choose their school. Don’t rely on a school’s name or reputation alone. First and foremost, check the current faculty and the program that is being taught. Degree programs are invariably many years long (and expensive in terms of loans, etc.) so you don’t want to eventually discover you made poor investment years later!
Despite the desirability of a well-balanced education offering traditional and contemporary art skills, students should use their time to specialize in one favored area of production if they can. The bottom line is that you need to understand your market and your own personal skillset – and know it well before preparing your portfolio of work for your job search. Passion for what you do and what you have done is another attraction for a potential employer going through the hiring process. If you don’t convince them of your passion then you might as well not show up for the interview!
Also be versatile and open-minded with any job opportunities come along. First-time job-seekers invariably do not find their ‘ideal’ position from the get-go and so they have to be prepared to consider a ‘plan B’, or even a ‘plan C’ if necessary! The most important thing these days is to get a start anywhere you can, until the day comes where you can navigate a move to where you eventually want to be!
‘Networking’ is your biggest friend as it’s far more effective for you to build your connections within the industry from a position of employment than from an outside position while unemployed. Students should always seek ‘internship’ opportunities whenever they can, for although these are usually unpaid positions the networking opportunities that open up are invaluable.
The biggest challenge any job seeker is confronted with when seeking that first job is ‘work experience’. Quite often someone can be totally suited for an advertised position but is denied employment because they don’t have any. This is a hard one to get around and often reveal an eternal question: ‘How can I get a job if I don’t have industry experience but can’t get industry experience if I don’t have a job!’ The best advice I have for students is to chase those internship opportunities when you can, or if that’s not possible, offer yourself as a pair of free helping hands to any studio that is in need of help. Remember that most importantly you are indeed gaining industry experience and building your personal reputation and networking contacts at the same time.
Another way of networking is to attend seminars, conferences, events, and even comic book fairs with at the very least your current business card in your pocket. You never know when you will have that magical moment of being in the right place at the right time, which nobody can legislate for. However, if you aren’t there you will never get the opportunity to prove yourself, so you always need to be prepared to be ready for such moments. Ideally you should have your portfolio or animation showreel with you when you go to such event opportunities – and at the very least always keep your business card with you should a chance encounter with a potential employer occur.
One thing that is a major feature of the modern animation world is that most jobs are cyclical in nature and it is therefore important that you always give the very best of what you can offer to the studio when you are working for them. Most jobs these days are limited time contract jobs so even if you are in the industry you always have to think of ways that you will remain in the industry! So even while you are hired, don’t close down your job-seeking instincts. Keep your ear to the ground for upcoming opportunities and check them out if they present themselves to you.
The animation industry has never been one for jackets and ties and by and large the artists and animators in the animation world dress casually and live their lives less conventionally than most. That said personal appearance and demeanor is still very important when you go for that all-important interview. This doesn’t mean that you have to look and behave as if you’re attending church or a funeral. It just means that you have to present yourself in such a way that the person interviewing you feels comfortable and not threatened. Remember, most animation production is a ‘team experience’ and therefore you will always be judged if you appear acceptable as one of the family!
Now it’s time to discuss the do’s and don’t’s of presenting your work. You are only as good as the work you show. Your work has to be accomplished and have quality. It needs to be imaginative yet it has to be relevant. It also has to answer the needs of what studios are currently looking for. Yet it has to be unique and versatile too! As indicated earlier, studios are mostly looking for a person who’s good at everything and yet can bring something entirely new and exciting to the party.
Here are some thoughts on what should be presented when applying for an animation position.
Today the very best animators are not just software jockeys. They are artists in their own right that just happen to know how to operate software too. Often film and game production are done under great time and money pressures, so it is better for a studio to have an employee they can switch from their main specialty to support the needs of other departments when the crunch comes. More and more studios are now feeling that drawing is so important to their artists that they even hold weekly life drawing classes for everyone. I therefore cannot stress enough the importance of drawing for the working professional in this competitive day and age. A strong portfolio of wide-ranging drawings, designs and illustrations is still one of the strongest support weapons a job seeker has in their portfolio – in addition to their regular animation showreel. You may have already developed your own drawing or artistic style. The once great Disney studio has specific requirements when they reviewed a showreel…
Gesture drawings: These were required to demonstrate a feeling of life, movement, volume and structural clarity.
Sketchbook drawings: Applicants were expected to keep a personal sketchbook, which would record observations from life as well as from the artist’s imagination. They called these ‘Café drawings’ and were expected to be generalized sketched observations of people going about their everyday lives, especially in the form of action poses.
Animal drawings: Portfolios were also expected to show drawings of animals in both movement and at rest.
Figure drawings: Applicants need to offer drawn explorations of the human form – clothed or naked – with a simple but clear examination of the unity of form and a more detailed examination of things like hands and feet with a special emphasis on how a character moves and behaves.
Refined drawings: For further evidence of artistic skills, applicants were advised to show more developed drawings that included portraits, much more detailed hand and feet drawings in terms of the human figure.
Finally let’s discuss what is required of an applicant’s animation showreel, which is by far and away the most important element of the animation job interview.
Showreel length: A consensus of opinion suggests that showreels should be something between 3 – 5 minutes long, no more.
Content: Show your very best work that will turn heads but not everything you’ve ever done. Studios prefer seeing a short piece that is packed with animation goodies than endless repeats of mediocre or widely varying work.
First 20 seconds: The reality is that only the first 15-20 seconds of your animation work is guaranteed to be seen! Employers are under extreme time pressures these days and so they will tend to decide whether they want to see more or not in that amount of time. So, always put your best work at the very front of your showreel.
Packaging: If the content of your reel needs to look professional then so too should the packaging. So keep the packaging elegant yet simple. Keep the information it contains to a minimum too. Just have your name and the contact information on the front of your presentation package and nothing else.
Short film content: Because of the need to show initial impact and versatility, it might not be ideal to just show only a short film as your animation showreel presentation.
Core content: The following is a recommended outline of what you should show to demonstrate your animation ability.
- Core actions – specifically walks, runs, jumps, idles, tumbles, deaths, etc.
- Other full body bipedal reactions.
- Facial actions – with or without lip sync.
- Quadruped actions – natural quadrupeds and/or fantasy beasts, etc.
- Principle actions – with secondary actions and follow-through movement where necessary.
- Special effects animation – but only if you’re interested in this kind of work.
I wish you ’good’ luck with your future job hunting!
Tony White is an award-winning director, animator, author and educator. Currently a full-time senior lecturer at DigiPen, Tony studied animation with industry legends Ken Harris (Warner Brothers), Art Babbit (Disney) and apprenticed with Richard Williams – 3 times Oscar winner/author of “The Animator’s Survival Kit”. Tony has written three best-selling animation books and is now proud to add a fourth, “Jumping Through Hoops: The Animation Job Coach” via www.anibooks.org. Blog: blog.animaticus.com.
Featured in StudentFilmmakers Magazine, Volume 6 Issue #1.
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