Assignment 1
Part 1
For this assignment we have been tasked with creating a blog post with our research into a job role or roles within either the animation, gaming, VFX industries. When going over the roles I most find interesting, I mostly gravitate towards seeing fluid and compelling character animation so I looked towards both 3D and 2D character animation. After considering my options further I decided to focus only on 2D character animations because I’ve always had a fascination with 2D traditional hand drawn animation and 2D rigged after seeing things such as Disney’s Treasure Planet and growing up with Cartoon Networks Adventure time, seeing how people could make drawings on a page or tablet create the illusion of motion really captivated me from a young age.
When trying to become an effective 2D animator there are many different skills a person must learn, for example before being able to animate, being able to draw is essential, meaning that a good grasp of the fundamentals of art with things like perspective, anatomy, proportions and overall have a solid drawings is needed before even thinking about becoming an animator to a professional degree. When looking for a job in the industry employers might also need to see someone’s ability to not only have solid drawing skills but also be able to draw in various different art styles, since the majority of different animated shows and movies look vastly different from each other it’s .very important to be able to adapt from your own art style and draw something in the style of the given project you’re working on. When working in the animation industry it is not uncommon for people to move from studio to studio after work a wrapped up on the project they were previously working on and with moving from one studio to another comes a change in animation practices because no two studios will ever be the same. When someone transfers to another studio they might be expected to have some form of experience in a certain types of software that is typically used in the studio, meaning that it is important for animators to not only have a good grasp of the animation practice itself but also have knowledge of different tools and software used within the animation pipeline for that specific company or studio . No matter what position or role is taken within the animation industry it is inherently very reliant on people collaborating with each other, so being able to communicate effectively in addition to being able to work well with others is extremely important for the studio to have an efficient workflow because without that many things can go wrong, simple mistakes can end up going unchecked, the team won’t know everyone’s coming along with their progress of work and the animation director might end up asking to make changes to work that’s ready or already been pushed onto the next stage of development when it could have been changed at an earlier stage wasting less time overall.
Part 2
When applying for a job such as 2D traditional character animation or 2D rigged animation it’s important to make sure that everything put in a portfolio or show reel relates to that somehow, meaning that shouldn’t add in things that are mostly 3D CGI works, while 3D character animation can show a good understanding of how people can move, how they act, showing expression etc. it doesn’t really translate well into a 2D skillset. Instead it would be better to show examples of hand drawn characters moving in a 3D space or perhaps show different types of characters doing various different facial expressions, in addition if people wanted to show a that they have a diverse range of 2D skills, adding something such as an environment animation piece with some subtle character animation interacting with the world somehow wouldn’t hurt them as it might show their ability to move complex objects in a 3D space.
Depending on the type of work being offered 2D animation might require some previous experience and a solid portfolio in order to get a position, an example being a 2D traditional animator, their job will require for them to be very skilled at drawing and have an amazing understanding of the 12 principles of animation as they would be responsible for creating clean keyframe poses used as the foundation of a characters movement. However a position such as an 2D assistant animator won’t require knowledge as refined as the 2D traditional animator as their duties will mostly be delegated to either doing the in-betweens or clean-up, which while they do require a decent amount of knowledge to do correctly and efficiently are not as vital to the movement to the character as the main key poses because if they key poses are bad, the animation falls apart.
For this part of the assignment we were asked to do some research into various different Studios we were interested in and see what kind of requirements were needed in order to apply for a job there.
For me personally I have fondness for 2D animation and the majority of my animation skills and knowledges is based around 2D art and animation, so I decided to try and find some job openings for some 2D animations roles confided to both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In the beginning it was a bit troublesome, I couldn’t find very many job offerings for 2D related work and was debating if I should change my search to a 3D related job. However after doing some more digging I saw that Studio Meala had posted on twitter that they had some job offerings for 2D frame by frame animation!
From there I clicked the link and was transported to their website where they had their job listings and requirements for those roles. The two that they had available at the time was a 2D frame by frame animation role and a Clean-up artist role, while looking over the requirements and responsibilities for the job position I noticed that there wasn’t all that many outside of some preferred software they like to use, that being TV Paint and Toon boom harmony as well as needing to be living in, or willing to relocate to Ireland. This overall made it seem to be a very accessible job for animators with very little or no experience working in a professional environment, and might provide a great point to start the launch of someone’s professional career as a 2D animator.
I have been a fan of the work produced by Studio Meala for a while with the music videos they’ve done for artists like The Living Tombstone and personal projects they’ve made. I really enjoy their stylised character designs, their bright saturated colour pallets they use as well as the smoothness and flow of their characters movements! even before the studio was created I followed the work of Sean Cunningham, the co-founder of Studio Meala, and was taken back by how high of a quality his animations were with shorts like “Devine Intervention”.
Assignment 2
CV
When creating my CV I first started off by gather a couple of examples to get some inspiration, while the university did give us a varity of options to use an examples I didn’t just want to take inspiration from them so I looked online and found a CV design that had some elements that caught my eye.
In the end these were the two CV’s I used to as inspiration, I was a big fan of the layout that Chole had used and so I thought I would use that a the foundation my CV, when it game to the design of the CV, I really thought the idea of having my text not sit solely on a white background was interesting so I took elements from the Kes Jones CV and along with my own CV came up with a design using the shape tool and text box features within the Microsoft Word application.
CV Draft:
This here is the version I came up with in time for our professional practice feedback. During the feedback session I was given some very good criticism on my CV, for example when showing the logos of the software I have some experience with I was told that I should put them in a hierarchy of best to worst as a way to let my protentional employer know what software I have more experience with and am more confident using. Next thing was changing the layout of my contact details, I was told that when looking at a CV an employer will want to see your contact details in a clear spot due to the fact that they may not have time to fully read everything and might just skim through the CV, and so it was suggested to me that I should move my email address under my name and title. After that I was reminded that I didn’t actually put in my education, which while not exactly important for an artistic role, is good to have to show your employer that you have some form of formal art education. Finally there was a typo pointed out to me which I simply just corrected.
Final CV:
Here is the final version of my CV, after taking the feedback I was given I made the changes that I thought were necessary and also added in some more design elements to make the CV stand out more. Above you can see that I moved my mobile number and email address under need my name and title in clear view for an employer to see, next I added in my education where my contact details used to be, after that I changed the position of the software logos as well as that I took out the Maya logo since that didn’t have any major relevance towards 2D animation unlike Blender which actually does have a functional 2D animation segment.
Show reel
For my show reel I wanted to make it based around 2D animation due to the fact that all my work leading up to this so far has been based around 2D animation, researching the role of 2D artists and looking at studios that specialise in 2D, that and I believe my 2D skills are a bit better than my 3D skills, after finding the song I want to use for the show reel, I went into After Effects to make an intro to match up with the beats of the song, making sure to include my name, role and some contact information, in addition to that I had also made an outro just saying “thankyou” . After exporting those clips as MP4s I went into Adobe Premier Pro and imported my assets so far, then went off to search for clips to use as part of show reel, after that it was just as simple as adding in clips and making sure they were lined up with the beat. After everything was put into place I made my first show reel before it was given feedback.
First show reel:
After I had my one on one session I was given some good feedback about the show reel, thankfully not much needed to be said however it was pointed out to me that Ineeded to make sure that I had my contact details at the very end so that employers wouldn’t have to go back searching for a way to contact me. I was also told that one part of my show reel stood out as being weak, and I had to agree, the clip that was used was a couple years old and didn’t really reflect my ability today.
Post feedback:
After given my feedback I had made a couple of changes to the show reel, for one I changed the outro to also include my contact details along with the “Thank you for watching” message, in addition I had also swapped out one of the weaker scenes in my portfolio for something that was a bit more clean and had a bit more movement. I do feel however I could have done a bit more to the show reel if I had some more time, for example I could have gone back over some of the more sketchy clips and cleaned them up to make sure they looked a bit more presentable to the viewer, that being my protentional employer, overall thought I’m still fairly happy with the outcome.
Cover Letter:
For my cover letter I had chose to write it as if I was contacting Studio Meala about the previous job offerings that I had previously researched.
Link to my cover letter here: Cover Letter
While I was writing I had made sure to meet the points stated previously when they made their job listings, however since there wasn’t very much to go off, I delved deeper into some of my experiences doing animation related work, both with working in a school / university based environment and a more freelance environment when creating my own works in collaboration with developers across the globe. When making my first draft I wasn’t able to get it fully completed before I had my feedback session, however I was still able to get some good criticisms about it. An example being that when addressing the cover letter, to make sure to address it to the person overseeing the employment if you can, while no such details were given in the job notice, I was able to learn that the managing director was Stephan Fagan and so I had addressed the cover letter to them. In my cover letter I had also mentioned that our course was primarily focused on creating 3D based works but that I was doing extra work on top of that for 2D animation, but I was informed that when making a cover letter you need to make sure you’re always on the topic of the role you are trying to apply for, which made perfect sense to me so I had ended up removing any mention of 3D animation from the cover letter.
https://studiomeala.com/about-us/