On the 5th week, our tutor Alec gave us a talk about Job contracts, freelancing, and the option to choose placement year.
Animation Job contracts
For an animation job, the salary is quoted as an annual salary before tax. If it is a permanent contract, it may stay an annual salary review. Usually within an animation job, you can check to see if you are eligible for any bonuses, for example when you finish a project ahead of time.
The length of a contract in an animation job is usually a fixed term, for example, lengths between 3 / 6 / 12 months at a time. Some studios could offer a rolling contract if you wish to keep working with them. Permanent contracts are much less common in the entertainment industry, but they can still happen.
In an animation job, Some contracts could state if there is overtime and if it is paid. Alternatively, the impact of COVID has increased the use of remote work – means more Flexi-time.
In terms of legal rights, contracts should state employee and employer rights, terms of contract termination, notice periods etc. Creative studios may provide contractual, non-disclosure agreements for all work undertaken.
Sources:
https://www.gov.uk/browse/working/contract-working-hours
Pensions
We know retirement is a long way off for us, but it is a common thing, and worth planning now when we start working. Although, our employer could also auto-enrol you into a workplace pension. And if we are, or become self-employed in the future – we should set up a personal pension.
Sources:
https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/auto-enrolment/automatic-enrolment-an-introduction
There is ultimately a difference between having experience vs no experience before you attempt to look for a job.
Having work experience up to 3-5+ years allows for
- levelling up skill and speed in efficient time
- time to build a network of contacts
- gain confidence in your abilities
Having little to no work experience requires the need to
- create a professional standard of portfolio work that will capture clients
- The speed/skill of workflow would need work on
‘Effort and perseverance is the key’
Location
Belfast /NI
- fewer studios and advertising agencies
- cheaper rent / cost of living
- Nice to live close to home, or at home
England / London
- more studios – one of the main bases in Europe for Animation /VFX / Advertising agencies
- Expensive rent
- More cities with different creative opportunities etc. Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester
Remote / In-house
- Covid has allowed more business to go remotely – to stop the spread the virus
- can be competing against cheaper labour markets – where places are going fully remote
- Freelancing ‘in-house’ or close, is easier to manage in a team environment – may be called in occasionally
- In-house reduces cost of software
- building trust to work from home, will allow you to be more flexible to work remotely – benefit in future jobs
Pricing / Overheads
This is a good triangle diagram which categories what is good, cheap or fast work. No work can be all three at the same time. When a client asks for work to be fast etc. following this graph will let you know that this work may not be the best quality, or may be more expensive – if you are to work at a fast pace. It is good to know what you are worth.
Pricing
Day rate – min – £200-300 and up (England) – £150 and up (NI)
Project quote – Day rate x number of days – with % discount (eg. 10 to 20%)
Note – your prices can vary depending on the medium / quality of your experience
Overheads
Hardware – PCs, External drives
Software licenses – can be billed to client separately
Rent/bills – home and/or rented office
Tax
Tax free – 0% – less than £12,570
Basic rate – 20% – £12,571 to £50,270
Higher rate – 40% – £50,271 to £150,000
Sources:
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates
When you get a job / clients to work for:
- Don’t be rude
- take feedback / direction well
- May get asked for creative input, but also rejected
- keep networking
- Keep learning – training in studios
- Keep your showreel / portfolio up to date
- Keep looking for opportunities near the end of your contract
- build your brand / artwork by blogging, vlogging, social media
- Work at work! Stay off phone / social media at work
- Take regular breaks from screen
From this lecture I have more knowledge about the insides of applying for jobs, working on contracts, freelancing and more. It is refreshing to finally understand what the different types of contracts are, how to calculate my pricing and pay rate, how tax will affect this and so on.
After our lecture, We took on a task by looking through a chosen brief. We were to read through the brief and identify areas of concern that we should be addressing to a client for effective communication in the future.
My group worked on the Bar promotion advert brief. The concerns we found were:
- Are there character designs to work from to make ‘character animations ‘ of the ‘anthropomorphic animals’? Or do we create both the character designs, and animation?
- What drink/food are we promoting? What bar are we promoting?
- What style should the animation be in? What visual direction do we have?
- How will the animation play out? Do we make a script/storyboard/animatic to plan this?
- This seems like a lot of work to be delivered in one month
- What software/hardware am I using? Do I pay for my own supplies?
- What is the pay rate?
It is good to know that we understand the errors in this brief and what we would consider communicating to the client about in order to make our job easier and smoother. It lets us know we are prepared to work for our own worth, and take on work we know we can handle, instead of being underpaid, or overworked.