At the start of this course I did not have a clear understanding of professional processes in the industry, let alone what roles where available within these. Since the completion of the LIAF project in particular, I feel I am closer to understanding exactly what and who it takes to complete a project, but don’t necessarily know where I would ideally like to be sat within that.
During the LIAF project I acted as director, an opportunity I did not anticipate for my first ever full project. Due to the limitations of the project, this meant that I really got an in-depth experience to essentially every part of the film making process and was able really have a go at things cross departmentally.
I felt that my strongest areas, ones that I felt most comfortable in, where those in production itself, animation, clean up and movement, although working on my own idea in my own style would have made this a much easier task from the get go. I felt weakest most certainly in post-production and in producing/marketing and relied heavily on my team in these areas.
In my career outside of animation, I work in theatre in practical technical roles or in production management. I am used to organisational skills needed to develop time sensitive projects and so because of this experience, I really want to focus this research into roles I am less familiar with or feel I have a skill deficit in and then roles I feel I may be more likely to try and pursue professionally.
Roles I intend to research in more detail, at this current juncture, are:
1. Editor
2. Story/Art Director
3. Concept/Character Art
4. Animator/Clean up
5. Layout/Background
This may change as my research continues but at the moment, I feel like these are either the direction I would be most likely to move towards or have some significant lack of knowledge in, or in some instances, both! I have been using the Screen Skills, animation jobs tree in order to track this and figure out exactly where I would be interested in learning more.