Only recently, as in these past few years, have I been interested in a job in the animation industry, but I have always had a great love for the art. Thinking about my own strengths and weaknesses, I began to research compatible roles I would be especially interested in.
Job Roles in the Industry
Some roles that Alec went through during a lecture were; concept artist, writer, art director, storyboard artist, model designer, background designer, layout artist, rigger, technical director, animator, editor, and many others including roles in the distribution and production management departments. Roles that would be more suited towards entry-level job seekers would-be runners, model/background design, storyboarder, lighting/editing/compositing, marketing, and animator.
A few other roles I read about in my research that were not listed were ‘groom’ artists, a role specially targeted for making 3D fur and hair (though this often falls under modelling and FXTD). Technical Resource Administrators (TRAs) who control the rendering process from anywhere from a few computers to an entire farm and will allocate specific computers to the work (these are often also called ‘render wranglers’!). Texture Artist, who will paint the textures for environments, props, or onto character models and will deal with more complex types of surfaces like illumination and subsurface scattering. And finally, the inbetweener, who will fill in the gaps between keyframes, and is responsible for keeping continuity, although, with the decline in traditional 2D animation productions, this role is uncommon.
Preferred Roles
There are many roles I am very interested in, particularly Texture artist, animator (3D), modeller, and storyboarder. I really enjoy the early pre-production stages, the concepting, and planning, and I believe I am quite capable of these. However, animating is another stage I love, while I’m not great in the stages after sculpting the models I am trying to learn and get better at it! I like the process of making the model but struggle with the retopo, UVs, and rigging, but I really do enjoy animating the rigged model itself and I think I have a good eye for movement (hopefully!). I like animating in 3D and 2D, but I often lose motivation with 2D due to its demand for precision, whereas 3D is easily fixed and gives immediate results.
Although I want to study the technical aspects of production, I think I am more suited to the more artistic side of it.
Skills
During my university course, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to study most of the basic areas in the animation pipeline, and I believe I am getting better with it! This year there is a definite improvement in my models and texturing, which is an area I particularly like. For the jobs I am mostly interested in, skills in 3D modelling, texturing and concept/background art, I am more interested in the art side of the industry and I think I am getting much better in all of these areas. I love painting on meshes in substance painter and I have been getting more proficient at using the workspace. I will continue to practise with texturing! In terms of models, I am still at a very beginner level with them but I do really enjoy it, even if I have to research what the problems are that I face on an hourly basis! But I am much more experienced now in my first semester in second year.
However, as much as I love digital 2D art, and I have over 6 years of experience with it, I do struggle with professional-looking concept art; I am so used to simple sketches and working out the details later, and I am not happy with the 2D concept art I made last year, or even the stuff I have made this year as I kept my haunted mansion concepts to blocking out the shapes, and just modelling the details in Maya instead of planning. This is something I believe I really have to work on, as the professional concept art I see on ArtStation is so clean and primed.
Available Junior/Intern Jobs
I went on to research some available roles currently in the industry from around the world.
“VFX Technical Assistant” in London, for Industrial Light & Magic; an American visual effects company founded by George Lucas, and a division of LucasFilm. The London department has done a range of films and shows, notably ‘The Last Jedi’, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ and ‘Brave New World’. I found this role on Glassdoor, under ‘animation intern’, it is part-time and prefers an artistic background with knowledge of the skills, techniques, and programs used for VFX, it is also required that there is an experience in programming and/or scripting language (like Python or Perl, etc). Although I am keen to focus more on the artistic side of animation, this is a very large company, and getting an internship here could give a lot of experience and provide networking! ILM also has a role for animator open, however, it requires significant experience.
‘Assistant Editor’, in London, for The Third Floor; they do film, tv, commercials, games, VR, and even things for attractions (theme parks, resorts, entertainment centres, rides, etc). This role will involve editorial support to mostly film projects. Requirements are experience in digital editing with ‘Avid Media Composer’, with good communication skills and a passion for the industry, however also requires previous experience. Again, not a very artistic role but would be a great company to work for. TTF also has openings for senior editors.
‘Junior Animator’, in London, for Doodle Productions LTD; This company specialises in children’s educational productions, and appear to be looking for a full team of 3D animators, riggers, modellers, and lighting/compositing editors to ‘inspire young children with a love of science’. The reality of looking for jobs in the industry is that many vacancies will be with smaller companies and not large film producers, and I think these roles Doodle Productions are looking for would be a great experience and probably quite interesting. This is the job out of all the others I would be most interested in!
While looking for jobs on Indeed, Glassdoor, Animated Jobs, and google, most were for experienced individuals, or those that were for juniors also required experience in the industry and with programs, and most were technical jobs.
Artist Career Research
Adisa Kareem – Visual Development Artist (‘adisakareemart’ Twitter)
American freelance illustrator who, during their time as a SCAD student worked on multiple student films (i.e. ‘My Playmate From Hell’, ‘Maii’, ‘So Far’, and ‘Sew Me A River’) making layouts, backgrounds and assets. She graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design, and during this time would also do freelance commission work. She currently works for Nickelodeon, making and painting props and backgrounds for a 3D preschool show. I believe Adisa’s experience with making props and backgrounds for student films helped with getting her name out there, and with all the beautiful pieces in her portfolio plus her experience in the industry probably helped secure a job at such a large company.
Katie Graziano – Story Artist (‘bignosebug’ Twitter)
Also American, Katie is a young storyboarder living in California and was recently working for DreamWorks TV on ‘The Mighty Ones’ season 2, where she wrote and storyboarded 11 minute episodes. She also worked on season one with a partner doing the same thing, and in between working with DreamWorks she worked with Warner Bros writing outlines and storyboarding episodes for Jellystone. She worked on Warner Bros’ Thundercats where she also, with a partner, storyboarded the episodes. Her art style is very distinct and is very clear in everything she’s worked in! She was working freelance for 2 years before Warner Bros in 2018, similar to Adisa I imagine she built up her portfolio and experience and was a unique candidate.
https://www.bignosebug.com/copy-of-storyboards
CV Design
I have a recent CV that I used to get my current part-time job, it is simple and doesn’t have any design at all other than some colour! But of course, for this assignment and with the creative demands of the industry I would have to put more effort into the design of the CV; I have several examples that I liked from searching on Artstation and Twitter (find them here), as well as the previous student examples from Alec. I sketched up a couple of designs, more professional-looking ones and ones that matched the job I was ‘applying’ for (a games company, I had pixel art in the sketch) and just needed to send them to Alec for critique.
My Old CV
PDF Link: CV_DONE
New CV
I had sent in my old CV to Alec during a one-to-one, and he said the old CV wasn’t bad, only needed some rewriting to pertain to the job I was basing my new CV on. I would have to get rid of the skills about cleaning and till operating etc, but would have to add my skills in particular programs and add in any relevant experience from my current job. I think I will use the program logos, for a little bit of colour! I loved one of the CV Alec showed us, by Andrew Cole, who had a very polished and well-designed CV with logos for each of the subjects, programs, and contact details.
This is the work in progress for my new assignment CV, I designed it to appear pixelated like an 8-bit video game, as I was applying for a games company. I made all the little pixel logos, but I will have to sharpen up the program logos and centre them. I also may have to change the text font, I like the highly pixelated font for the headers and I do like the look of the other one, but I feel like its a little hard to read. I will also have to add the links to my showreel and Artstation.
I wanted to draw a profile picture for this CV but have it fit the pixel style, so I made a quick drawing in procreate and used another program to turn it pixelated, I think it looks cute! I also was going to change the colours but I really liked the dark grey with the red hues in the logos
New CV
On the day of the deadline I asked if Alec had any feedback, so I changed my CV accordingly; as suspected one of the fonts was too hard to read so I changed it all to the pixel font however its always capitalised which isn’t ideal, but it reads better. I also had to redraw some of the logos and make sure the alignments were better. All that’s left is to add my showreel and Artstation links.
Cover Letters and Research into Companies
One of the assignment requirements is to hand in a cover letter along with the CV and showreel, but we must find a company that is currently hiring and base the letter off of the job listing that interests us. Multiple listings interested me, as the ones I have written about previously were not available anymore, like this one at NVIS which is open to accepting juniors and has been involved in some huge projects like The Witcher, Annihilation, Jurassic World, and Skyfall (and many more)! But I was a little bit overwhelmed by this company and all its achievements, though it would be incredible to work on some of these projects. There was a listing for a 2D artist for Activision which also looked interesting, I believe I have a good understanding of digital art and texturing, and meet the requirements well enough but I am not confident enough in my digital realism.
After searching through multiple listings, I chose a 3D environment Artist role that also has a company website listing here for the games company Jagex; most known for RuneScape! I used to adore old-school RuneScape and played it often as a young teenager! To see the very company I used to love offering jobs that could very well be attainable in a few years was so exciting to me. There was a listing for a junior technical animator, and even though this role would have probably been more practical for me to apply for, due to it being a junior role, I am more experienced and interested in the art design area of the industry, rather than the technical which I truly struggle with. I believe I would be better writing for the environment artist role than the junior role, even if I didn’t fully meet the requirements for the listing.
This listing, thankfully, was for a fully remote position.
From our class presentations on cover letters it mentioned several things about formatting and conventions, however with this listing for Jagex some things were hard to find; for example, I couldn’t find a hiring manager’s name! So I simply stuck with the common ‘dear hiring manager’ to start off with. I read from the presentation that flattery is good, so I tried to really amp up how much the company’s products meant to me, and how thrilled I was to be applying for it.
The second section of the cover letter would be where I wrote all my qualifications and experience, the slideshow detailed;
“What do you have to offer?
• Outline the specific qualifications you have that make you a good candidate
▫ Make sure you explain how your qualifications match the requirements
▫ Use your best work/experience from your CV with additional detail as examples.
• Show what you have to offer
• Be clear and specific”
So I tried to think about all my experience, particularly with 3D modelling and texturing from my classes and while I am not very experienced in these areas I do enjoy them; plus in the actual Jagex listing, they write, ‘Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application!’ so I felt a little bit more confident in ‘applying’ with this, thankfully the job requirements didn’t mention a timeframe of experience, just that you had prior experience with the programs. They mention wanting experience with 3D programs, Maya, Zbrush, and Substance Painter, and aside from Zbrush thankfully with the course I have had access to these programs and genuinely enjoy working with them.
They also talk about 2D digital art experience, which I have a lot of! The listing asks for experience with Photoshop, I had opportunities to make professional logos and material for videos in photoshop as I have contact with the owner of Pugman Media, and I’m very thankful for the opportunities he has given me. I also used a lot of photoshop for my 2D animation last year, and the designs for this year’s Haunted Mansion assignment.
One thing that threw me off was needing my portfolio to show the evidence and breakdowns of 3D models, and possibly art too. I have some time-lapse videos of my art but I could probably also find some model progress, or include this blog as evidence; “We can only consider applicants who include evidence of their work, along with breakdowns in an online format such as personal website, blog, Github, Artstation or other online albums” I would have to upload these to my Artstation if I bring in my models.
I had finally written my cover letter, included all my experience, meaning my course work and current job/any freelance related work, and used examples of these for my second section. I tried to be as flattering as I could with my first second and simply ended the whole letter with an “I am looking forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your consideration.” This was a good experience with writing something such as this!
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