Ideally, after leaving university I want to go into a 2D art or animation field that is creative and fulfilling for me. This includes illustration, character animation, background art and concept art and design. With this in mind, I have catered my portfolio, showreel and CV to these. In the future I will make separate CVs for roles such as “background artist” or “concept artist”, but for this course I am keeping things simple with “2D artist and animator.
As of now, I do not want to leave Northern Ireland to work. I may change my mind in the future, but as of now I want to stay here to work. Because of this I have researched the major animation animation studios in Belfast and Northern Ireland and have sorted them in tiers of how much I want to work for them.
Out of all the studios in Northern Ireland, I would like to work at Alt Animation the most. They are a primarily 2D animation studio with a good range of projects aimed at a variety of age groups with some new, exciting projects coming up. Regardless of the target age group, the projects all look fun to work on and I think I would feel creatively fulfilled working there.
Following Alt, the studios I would like to work at most would then be Paper Owl Films, FlickerPix, Sixteen South and Jam Media. These studios work in a range of 2D and 3D projects and the work these studios do is good and creative, although it does not peak my interest as much as Alt.
Below that are the studios Double Jump Studios, Hola Lola, Taunt, White Noise Studios and Mad Horse Productions. These are 3D, 2D and motion graphics studios, mostly working in advertising. While the work they do is of a good quality, I feel as though I would not be creatively fulfilled working at these studios. That being said I would still be happy to work at any of these studios.
With all of this in mind, my showreel, CV and portfolio have a large focus on my animation and character work. Unfortunately I did not have time during the course to work on my Toon Boom animation, for my showreel as that would help me get a position in the industry, so that will be a top priority for after University. Despite this, I believe I have a strong and focussed portfolio.