This Semester I was given the opportunity to make a placement for several different Job riles in the animation industry. I focused too much on my other module in Game Development to really give it much thought, but upon realising that fact, I managed to book a placement for a few local animation studios within my area, such as Paper Owl Studios, FlickerPix, and Dog Ears.
My sister helped me out with preparing my placement, sending me an information pack with requirements for the jobs I applied for so I can take a read over them. I actually had experience with trying to book a placement before- I tried to apply to Paper Owl films to be a trainee animator for one of their projects- Happy the Hoglet. I really didn’t understand the requirements for actually booking a place in the animation industry, so I was rejected. This year however, I booked in potential placements for an Undergraduate placemen course so that I can get a taste of what working in the animation industry could look like.
We were also tasked with creating a CV as well. CVs are supposed to be representative of the kind of person you are and someone who wants to work in the profession of your choice. I learned a good deal of how one is supposed to present information that is relevant to the job I am applying for. For example, a CV that has cooking awards in will be good when applying for a chef but not when applying for cosmetology or music making. CVs also have to have the essential criteria that is relevant to the job I wish to apply for, but it must also have short, simple points. I learned that to make a good CV, I had to:
- start with a header
- put a short introduction/bio
- put down my expertise/skills in a brief summary
- talk about my education
- making sure to include GCSEs for Maths and English
and talk about what software I used and any awards I may have gotten.
I made the CV using Adobe Illustrator, which until now I hadn’t used very much, but I did learn a good technique with adding pictures inside circles using masks. I put my education and software skills on one end of the CV, and my about page, hobbies, links to personal work and portfolio in another. I kept my CV simple and concise, so that it would be easy enough to read by my potential employers, and I created my own title in photoshop and my own pictures to the CV so that they get an idea about my art style.
CVs need to be saved as a PDF, and in addition, had to have a style that was all my own. I looked at certain CVs that focused on 2D animation, including one in particular that I liked by Binlang Yiu, who was a proficient generalist animator in many different types of software, such as After Effects, ZBrush, Photoshop, and 3DS Max, along with other pieces of software I have not heard of. I also looked at a CV by Darin Carlin Weber, who lists each of his bits of information in their own bullet point paragraphs that don’t take up much space but are still concise and readable, despite the hand writing being fairly incompetent, and has a wee illustration at the lower corner of the screen. Having knowledge of both 3D and 2D animation, I made sure to include the software I used, such as Blender and Maya for the 3D animation side of things, and Toon Boom Harmony and Adobe Animate for the 2D animation, while also including After Effects and Photoshop. In addition, My CV had to also be grammatically correct, to ensure a professional attention to detail and competence.
My own CV has many different links to a portfolio that I created when I tried to get into University in 2021, as well as another portfolio created ages ago, and even showcasing my education. when I began making it, my notetaker said it had a simple, eye catching art style, so I leaned into that aspect of my CV so that it remains eye-catching while also being minimalistic and simple enough and organised. I even created some original art to go into my CV so that artists can get a glimpse of my art style, following on from Darin Calin Weber’s own style. I also found some templates for other CVs that I could take inspiration from, and apply to my own style. I provided links to various portfolios and showreels that show I am a generalist animator with how I have many 3D animations where I modelled, rigged and textured characters for animation purposes, and how I have created 2D animations for both Uni work and personal work.
Cover emails are meant to be sent to a potential employer for the purpose of applying for a job. A Cover Letter has to be written giving a good reason why you want to work for the job, with points that are relevant to the industry, and is ultimately meant to complement the CV, and act as an insight to who you are and what is important that they should know about.
I created a kind of cover letter while I was applying for the jobs I wanted as I was applying for my placement years. I wrote in the descriptions for each of then how I was a student working at Ulster University, and had knowledge of certain important aspects that are vital to my applications, such as knowledge of the Principles of Animation, and even talking about making a game alongside others as part of my modules at the University. My sister helped me to word it so that I can make it professional and concise, and then word proofed it on Discord to make sure it was all correct.
But since I had to actually submit a cover letter as part of submission, I revised the ones I had created for my placement and created a more focused and researched Cover letter using the knowledge I had acquired about them to create a 300 word one to be sent as a potential application to FlickerPix.
Portfolios are meant to be the summation of you and a showcase of your own work. A grand and expansive display of your growth as an artist.
I looked into the portfolios of the different studios that I was applying for as well to get a sense of the kind of projects that they worked on. I found that Dog Ears, one of these animation studios I applied for, worked on several children’s shows, such as Puffin Rock, which was nominated for an Emmy, won two Kidscreen awards and a Royal Television award, and is being distributed by Netflix internationally and by the China Nebula Group (CNB) for distribution in China, and Saturday Club, which was first aired back in 2019 where it topped charts on Hopster.
Dog Ears were looking for a Trainee Animator who had good knowledge of Toon Boom Harmony and/or other 2D animation Software along with knowledge in 3D software such as Maya, as well as have a passion for character animating and be able to work with others in a team.
Paper Owl Films specialises in producing programs for younger children as well, and are responsible for the creation of Happy the Hoglet, along with Pablo, which is about a little 5 year old boy on the Autism spectrum. The show was described as both award winning and BAFTA nominated. In addition, Paper Owl even worked on a film- Sol, which was a film about a boy struggling to deal with grief.
Paper Owl looked for flexibility, excellent oral and communication skills and advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office and good technical knowledge. They had put out applications for two different jobs, Trainee Editor and Production Trainee.
The last company I applied for a job to was Flickerpix, who have a much more obviously wide range of different projects compared to Dog Ears and Paper Owl, with a wide range of different mediums, such as 2D, 3D, Stop motion and even dabbling into commercial work. Projects include Luna and the Land of Dreams, Mimi Infinity, Progressive adverts from 2006-7, and Zig and Zag for 2D animations, Welcome to Bloomfield and Ollie and the Octaves for 3D and I was a Rat and A Bug Lego Christmas for stop motion.
Flickerpix were looking for the applicant to have strong drawing and design skills, experience in both 2D and 3D animation, the potential for animating in both 2D and 3D mediums, designing and creating assets in Photoshop and working closely with other people on a collaborative project.
Due to focusing more on my other modules, such as Game Development, writing my essay and focusing on personal work on top of that, I found it difficult to fit in much time into my placement. However, I managed to successfully apply for jobs from several animation Studios under NI Screen who might be able to take me in. I also took into consideration whenever or not it would be feasible for me to travel for my job to the studios- I specifically chose jobs around Belfast for this reason. I really would like to be in a placement year so that I can get a taste of the animation industry, and because I would go straight into final year if I don’t.
I realised I needed to make a new updated Showreel incredibly close to the final submission date, so I looked at what I’ve done and realised I had built up an extensive amount of material I could work with for my new portfolio from working in my other modules and from my own personal work, as well, from as early as my first year at Ulster University. Using footage of work from an older portfolio I had created to get into Ulster University, I added almost all of the animations I ever created both from working in my Game development project, along with any 3D Models I made during the game’s development, my character I had created from a few semesters ago and the 2D animations from my previous year, to my showreel.
This is the final result of my portfolio.
Unfortunately, I found out later that the showreel had to be just a minute long, rather than 3. So I created a new showreel with much of the older content removed to focus on the newer content I had created.
I found making the showreel incredibly stressful, not just from crunch time but also from the fact that I had to sort which animations in my portfolio was worth keeping and what would be considered too old or unprofessional to be used in the portfolio. I had to consider my newest work more than the older material.
I feel pleased with the results I have laid out, especially so close to the final submission, and I feel that next year I should spend more time looking into potential placements so that I won’t forget to do them while doing my other modules. I feel I really messed up my priorities this year, but the least I can do is do the best I can and hope that will be enough. If I get into an animation studio then I can focus more on work and not on other things.