How To Land A Job As An Animator

In a typical animation career you wear many hats. You may have a specific expertise, but chances are that just as often, you’ll juggle many skills and titles from job to job. Animation artists find most of their work via word of mouth. No offense to agents, reps, and recruiters, but to succeed in finding work in the business of animation is to develop and maintain relationships. We are, as Barbra Srteisand sang it, “people who need people.”

The Simple Truth:

The key to finding work in animation is to accept that this is a people-driven industry. People who know people who recommend people who hire people. Those who take a negative view of the importance of relationships to the job hunt boil it down to, “its all based on who you know”. This makes “who you know” sound like some random act of luck. In reality, you are responsible for “who you know”, for the relationships you create and sustain. Relationships require energy and effort.

The business of animation in North America is small enough that even within a few short years, you could know someone connected to every studio on the continent. We’re all six degrees from our animation Kevin Bacons. Simple enough, right? But these truths are not self-evident and if they are, we certainly don’t behave all the time as if we hold this to be true. This simple truth will show up over and over again in this book.

While there’s no guaranteed way to find work in the animation industry, there are a lot of things we can do to create the best possible odds for success. Happily, finding work in the animation industry is something that gets easier over time, as you expand your network of contacts and your reputation open doors for you.

Sustaining Relationships Can Lead To Work:

In the animation industry, sometimes, the most effective job-hunting happens in the most indirect way. Often, even when we make a good connection at a studio, the timing is not right for an immediate job. So, what can we do to “hang around” until something opens up without risking a restraining order? My favourite solution si to stay in touch with people via the ocassional email.

Recently, I was in a producer’s office when he received n email from a mutual friend of ours. “I guess he’s out of work again,” said the producer.  I asked how he knew that without reading the e-mail. The producer replied, “This guy only e-mails me when he needs work.”

People are not keeping in touch with their contacts enough while they are working. We need to nurture our contacts. Periodically send out updates to your contacts. Let them know where you’re working and why it’s a great experience. Either way, your contacts will be tickled that you thought of them. Over the years, I have received a few job offers as a result of mailing out some congratulatory message. While I wouldn’t say sending out email messages and updates should be anyone’s main focus for job-hunting, they are a part of what builds up a career over time.

How To Land A Job As An Animator

Starting Your Own Animation Studios – The 3 Camps

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There seems to be three major camps of animation artists. One camp’s long-term goal is to create, sell and produce their own television series or feature film. Another camp’s long-term goal is to create their own studio business. The third camp consists of people who are happy simply excelling as workers for hire.

No matter what camp you fit into, most animation artists that have worked as off-site freelancers get a a taste of freedom that is similar to what it must feel like to be your own boss. You get to setup with your workday your own way. You can take a double lunch or catch a movie in the middle of the day and have the option to resume work again at night.

Animation artists, by the nature of our careers, sometimes work alone for hours or days at a time to complete a job. It’s not surprising that many of us dream of opening our own studio where we could live and work in the ultimate example of independence.

Paul Fierlinger sums up the allure of owning your own studios: “ I don’t have to spend any time working with people I don’t like; the commute to work is easy; it’s easy to work anywhere from an hour to sixteen hours a day; the pay is anything buy regular; industry news and trends pass me by and I live in fear of where the next job is coming from instead of having to live in fear or when I’ll get sacked.”

Some create their own studio business more our of necessity than from passion. Large studios tend to hire a lot of artists fresh out of school. They seek out this inexperienced youthful labor because they can pay less and expect more time and loyalty in return. Some companies believe that it’s easier to train young workers who are free of the bad habits that years of experience can sometimes bring.

Older workers will likely have family commitments, which pull them away from working late nights or taking on extra work for the weekend. Those who are forty years old and older either gravitate toward studio supervisor jobs or risk competing against an ever-growing crop of recent graduates for some of the same jobs.

To stay competitive, the older people in the workforce must often lower their hourly rates, despite the wealth of experience they inherently bring to each project. It’s easy to see why some older animation artists feel that going into business for themselves would be the best way to continue a career in the industry

How to design your own 3D Animation easily

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Designing an own 3D Animation is good to develop personal skills. Now these days people are very much interested to develop their own skills on 3D Animation designing. Now We will see how to design a 3D Animation for personal interest.

Easy 3D Objects is intended for creation of 3D animations and illustrations. Areas where you can apply Easy 3D Objects: -making 3D GIF- animations for the Web; -making 3D banners; -making 3D illustrations; -presentation materials; --development of creative imagination. ... Program features: -adds to 3D scene the following types of objects: dummy cube, sprite, plane, disk, cube, frustum, sphere, cone, cylinder, annulus, torus, arrow line, space text, mirror; -edits parameters of objects; -rotates and moves objects and groups of objects; -fills objects by color or texture from BMP, JPEG.

SWiSHmax has everything you need to create stunning fully interactive Flash animations. You can create shapes, text, buttons, sprites, and motion paths. You can also include more than 230 ready-to-use animated effects including explode, vortex, 3D spin, and wave. ... You can preview your animation inside SWiSHmax without launching a browser or external player, and live editing lets you make changes while the animation is playing. ... You can create your own effects or make an interactive movie by adding actions to objects.

SWiSHmax has everything you need to create stunning fully interactive Flash animations. You can create shapes, text, buttons, sprites, and motion paths. You can also include more than 230 ready-to-use animated effects including explode, vortex, 3D spin, and wave. ... You can preview your animation inside SWiSHmax without launching a browser or external player, and live editing lets you make changes while the animation is playing. ... You can create your own effects or make an interactive movie by adding actions to objects.

Feature wise, Realsoft 3D is a full featured modelling, rendering, animation and simulation package. It introduces global illumination, multi-wavelength ray-traycing for accurate spectral caustics and other optical effects, sub-surface scattering for realistic human skin shading. ... On the animation front a full range of tools - from easy keyframing to event driven nonlinear animation- is supported. ... Realsoft 3D is a complete solution for high end 3D-production at an unprecedented price. ... Don´t rush to the plugin shop every time you need to create something new - get Realsoft 3D.

Effect3D is a powerful editing tool that lets you create professional looking 3D objects, add animation, and use a wide range of 3D effects. Effect3D's Power Wizard does the work for you, so whether you're a novice or a Webmaster you'll be producing stunning artwork in minutes. ... Effect3D can also create dynamic 3D models by RTS animation so models can move back-and-forth, float, or rotate. ... Over 500 models are cleverly categorized for easy browsing and with over 70 behavioral Bio-Morph animation's to choose from; Effect3D gives you the freedom to create uncompromising images limited

3D GIF Designer produces animated high-quality 3D pictures, titles, banner ads and buttons for your Web page or for a presentation. You can create animations from your own pictures (JPG, GIF, BMP, AVI) and easily add 3D text and shapes. The sprites technology enables to control over ... For quickly getting started, design your own animation from over 30 professional templates (banners, buttons, logos), and then save as animated GIF or AVI movies, or as set of JPEG or BMP files. ... In addition, 3D GIF Designer allows you to animate sprites with several effects such as Swing, Rotate.

Stereogram Explorer is user-friendly design software for creating high-quality hidden 3D graphics, also known as Single Image Random Dot Stereograms (SIRDS) or Single Image Stereograms (SIS) known from the "Magic Eye" series. Stereogram Explorer uses advanced algorithms and can render... Main features: User-friendly interface Random dot stereograms (SIRDS) Pattern or textured stereograms (SIS) Support for many file types including GIFs, JPEGs, PICTs, and BMPs Import 3DS (3D Studio) models Export depthmaps from 3D scene Autocalculated depth coeficient for loaded 3D models .

Pro Motion is a bitmap editor and animation package, ideal for creating pixel precise animations, images or icons used in games or Flash applications especially for handheld systems like mobile phones,gameboy,PDA,Pocket PC and similar. It has a huge number of functions ranging from simple... copied to all equal tiles within the image) - tons of tools including color cycling, onion skinning, masking, symmetry paint, magic wand, tile painting for "infinite" textures-bitmaps and "standard" functions like line, curve, box, circle, fill (pattern, gradients) - lots of helpful animation.

Careers in Computer Animation

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Schools have developed animation courses in early 1980s. Through the years, the demands in the field of computer graphics have grown fast. Skills in computer animation are important requirements to achieve a good paying job. Animation courses have focused on specific roles associated in a certain production, but they have common themes and this is the key towards getting a career in computer animation. These themes include character animation, sound, drawing, 2D and 3D animation, studio practice, film theory and production process.

The schools should maintain the high-tech hardware and software. Once you have finished your animation course, you have the chance to work on the prestigious studios around the world. These studios include DreamWorks, ESC Entertainment, Framestore CFC, Mill and Aardman Animations, and The Moving Picture Company.

Animation companies hire creative people who have extreme abilities in drawing. Such skills may be acquired through schooling. You will need to enroll in an animation course in order to gain skills in computer graphics. If you really want to be a great animator, certain discipline should be considered in computer animation. It is important to enroll in any course because you really are interested in it and not being manipulated by others. You will not learn the principles of animation if you were just forced by others to study it.

Courses in animation are also available through the net. If you don't have the time to go to college everyday because of your hectic schedule, online computer animation school is perfect for you. Online computer animation schools offer variety of related courses in animation. Areas of study include computer graphics, cell animation, 3D modeling, 3D set construction, multimedia, Interactive animation and more. You may choose among these for the specialization that you would like to concentrate on. Numerous online schools may give you proper training to help you achieve your dream of becoming a great animator. The best part about online schools is that you may study right at the comfort of your home.

Different approaches are being taught to students who prefer to enroll the course in a prestigious animation school. The school provides high tech tools and latest learning in computer animation. You will be able to widely apply and practice your skills in large and complete laboratory. Computer animation courses include all that you need in the field to get ahead. You may study programs in software, hardware and technologies in creating realistic animation. Learn to develop your skills in creating backgrounds and lighting effects and story lines, textures and characters. Layering techniques, visual effects and articulation of characters is being taught in animation training. After acquiring enough knowledge in animation course, start setting your work plan. You should enhance your skills in computer animation if you want to excel in the field, and now is the time to prove others and to yourself that you will be a great animator.

Computer Animation in Post Production

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One of the most sought after jobs in the market today is computer animation. The technology of computer animation is getting simpler and simpler day by day; simultaneously, the opportunities for people aspiring to become computer animators have increased tremendously.

The Technique

Traditionally, animation always used to be done in the manual way. The most popularly adopted method was to create a series of cartoon frames, which were then combined into a film. Another method was by using physical models, which were placed in a certain place and the image was captured; the model was then moved and the next image captured; and the process used to continue.

But, the conventional way has been replaced by computer animation. Computer animation, which is a part of computer graphics, is the technique of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is created by means of 3D or 2D computer graphics. Computer graphics is also referred to as 'Computer-Generated Imagery'. An image is shown on the computer screen, which creates an illusion of movement and this is replaced by a new image, which is slightly different from the previous image. Sophisticated computer animation involves moving the camera or the objects in a more refined way, wherein, the law of physics is used for achieving this.

The Software

Computer animation can be created with the help of a computer and animation software. Cinema 4D, Amorphium, Poser, and Ray Dream Studio are some examples of animation software. Many software options are available and prices vary according to the sophistication of the programs.

Computer animators are creative artists who use high-tech tools for achieving their creative perfection, but the ultimate reason for their achievement is their creative vision.

Forms of Animation

There are different types of animation available:

- Scripting Systems was the earliest system used for motion control, where the computer animator writes a script in animation language. One of such scripting languages is Actor Script Animation Language.

- Procedural Animation (which defines the movement over time), uses the law of physics for generating a movement. For example, consider a motion, which is the result of another action, as in the case of a ball, which if thrown towards an object, hits that particular object and causes it to move in the desired direction.

-Representational Animation is a technique, wherein an object changes its shape during animation. This is sub-divided into three categories - articulated object animation, soft object animation, and morphing.

-Stochastic Animation, which controls a groups of objects like fireworks and waterfalls.

- Behavioral Animation, where a group of objects behaves according to a set pattern as indicated by the animator.

Computer generated animation is used in various diverse fields such as films, television, videos, advertising, gaming, website designing and in a host of other situations. Due to its wide range of application, computer animation has seen a spurt in growth in the last few years.

Audiences all over the world, especially young audiences, are captivated by the extreme graphics and sound effects, which have been introduced in television programs, movies as well as in commercials. Use of multimedia makes the presentation even more attractive and effective.

Soar High With Computer Animation Careers

Cover of The Incredibles [UMD for PSP]
Have you ever wondered how the characters in the films Shrek, Finding Nemo or The Incredibles were made? The characters in these films are all products of computer animation. Animation companies hire creative people with a broad knowledge and experience in drawing. This is the reason why animators should have the passion for animation, as well as talent in drawing. During the earlier years in the movie making business, cartoon series episode are done manually or drawn using the artists bare hands. But as technology advances, the tricks of the trade have been developed, which is why the animated films being shown today become more of a visual delight.

Two-dimensional and three-dimensional computer graphics are being used in computer animation. In two-dimensional or 2D animation, separate transparent layers and drawings without skeleton are used. In three-dimensional or 3D animation, the virtual skeleton is manipulated with figures. Just like the U.S., Japan is a highly developed country which has great fascination for animation. They used unique formats in traditional and robot animation, taking pride in products like Voltes V and Gundam. If you want to partake in the success of the computer animation industry, then you need to think about concentrating on computer animation careers where there are a lot of options to choose from.

Today, computers are used to give life to animation. It helps animators perform their tasks easier. If you have enough knowledge in kinematics as well as an extraordinary talent in drawing, then you are the right person for animation. But if you are interested in the same field but you are not blessed with real talent, do not lose hope. There are schools that offer courses in various creative arts and help people with their computer animation careers. You will learn about the fundamentals of artistic designing, coloring, drawing, graphic designs, video designs, cartooning and other essentials of animations.

Computer animation careers are illustrious because most companies producing animated films need creative animators. The beauty of an animated movie lies on the creativity of the animator. Animated movies will look realistic depending on the knowledge and creativity of the animator. If you would like to work as an animator, you are required to acquire a degree in animation. You may find several schools offering courses that teach technical skills and include actual practice. There are also online computer animation schools that offer short courses in the same field.

However, do not expect to become a great animator in just one day. You need a lot of practice and patience to attain the skills needed in animation. In a few years, with your time, patience and effort, you will surely gain the appropriate skills needed to become a successful animator. Animation companies prefer to employ animators with exceptional talent. Also, having a good reference in school is an advantage for future employment. After gaining enough skills and experience, you are now ready to sink your teeth in the amazing world of computer animation with computer animation careers.

Animation Career Paths – The Storyboard Artist

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Image via WikipediaThe storyboard is the visual shot-by-shot translation of a script and is the basis for the entire production process that follows, including design, background and layout, animation, and postproduction. Despite changing technology, storyboards are still mostly drawn by hand.

Storyboards represent the finished product long before great time and expense goes into a project. The storyboard artist, working in the style of the porudction, maintains storytelling continuity, breaks down the script into scenes or shots, establishes the size relationships between characters and props, and indicates the acting by hitting strong poses on each story point. In addition, the storyboard artist is often the first to rough out new background locations, characters, and props. A storyboard artist balances strong drawing skills with a good knowledge of anatomy, acting, directing, staging, and the ability to think creatively and quickly. With such commanding skills, story-board artists often develop into animation directors.

Veteran storyboard artist and co-creator of Frederator/Nickelodeon’s Call Me Bessie!, Diane Kredensor, describes the daily duties of a storyboard artist, “First, you go through the script and thumbnail out your shots. Then you pitch your thumbnails to the storyboard supervisor or animation director for notes and changes. From there, you flesh it out, adding the acting, into a full rough storyboard. Some productions already have the voices recorded and the board artist will board to track. Otherwise, you create (draw) the acting and the voice actor match your board. Once your rough board is approved by the director, you make it pretty, putting everything on model, and then you’re done.

What kind of training and skills does a storyboard artist need to develop to start out and to keep advancing in her career? According to Diane Kredensor, you want to be a good draftsman, able to draw the human figure in a variety of poses. “ Other skills should include strong storytelling, cinematography, staging and composition. Storyboards should clearly communicate ideas to the entire production team, so strong communication skills are an important asset”.

All the experts agree that the most intensive learning takes place on the job. The more experience you have out there working with other people’s good boards, the better your own boards become.

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