Author: Hannah Fisher

You can learn anything as you go
Software, is just software. If you have something you want to try and achieve, something that you think is cool and will excite you, don’t let not knowing how stop you. You can learn anything online or by asking those around you, and even if you don’t, you can find your way there through experimentation and play. There are fundamental practices to animation yes, but also there is no one right way to do it. All animation is viable and all routes to an end point are valid.

I often worry that not having an art background will hinder me, but I I feel more empowered now to use this as a strength and not a weakness. I can learn technique and I will get better at animation the more I work at it, but it’s all the extra skills and experience I bring to the table that will make me unique and employable.

Just make the damn thing and put it online

I get bogged down in “should I” a lot. Turns out I should just do stuff. Its easy and hard both at the same time. As someone who works alongside studying, the concept of having time to just make art that I want to make feels quite unachievable, but I’m not going to pressure my self. I’m going to focus on the grad film and do my best up until that is finished, then once we graduate, If I get a job straight away, fab. If not I will be kind to myself and continue trying to exercise my creative muscles alongside working elsewhere.

I have a couple ideas for small films I would be interested in making, but I think almost more valuable in the early stages would to just be practicing animation exercises and fundamentals, go back to the core principles we explored at the very beginning of the course and apply all the knowledge and skills I have accumulated since them to create bigger and better versions.

I’m so glad I went to CAF, it feels like an invaluable step in the early stages of my career and felt hugely validating in this life changing decision I made. Having the film screened, talking to young queer people about my work, being a part of the Skwigly filmmakers talks and having the opportunity to meet so many incredible filmmakers made me so excited to continue down this path that I have only just begun walking down.

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Skwigly Podcast – https://www.skwigly.co.uk/podcasts/skwigly-caf-2024-2/

I have been making an ongoing list of studios in and around London who I may try contacting for work/internships. I’ve made note of specific people to contact as well as the type of work each studio specialises in.

I’ve made note if certain studios offer internships, work experience or any other training opportunities/support.

At the moment the studios I’d be most likely to approach are: Passion Pictures, Ritzy, A+C, Blindpig, Not to Scale, Lupus and AKA. While I don’t feel like i will necessary get work at any of the above, it cannot hurt to reach out!

Business Cards, Stickers, Showreel, Website and Social Media

Self-promotion is an area I struggle with quite significantly. Whilst I find conversation and communication simple, things that require regular planning and attention, I find doesn’t come easily.

From both visiting lecturers and from events at Cardiff, I really found just how important it is to have strong promotional materials but also to maintain a consistent and effective presence online. Every single person who I have met working in the industry has expressed this, and not only that but whenever I see someone who’s work I admire, the first thing I do is look them up on social media. After taking part in the Skwigly animators brunch at CAF, people came up to me after the fact and asked where they could follow the film or my work and I felt immediately that the content and resources I had to offer were not up to par.

Currently in my arsenal I have business cards, stickers that we made for Disparate Threads, to hand out at Cardiff, a LinkedIn page that I made at the beginning of the LIAF project and a dedicated art Instagram that I do not post regularly on.

By the time the showcase comes about I have a five point plan I want to implement:

1. Seasilk specific business cards to display
2. Seasilk specific stickers to display – in conjunction with Isobel and Eleonora
3. An effective showreel of approximately 25-30secs, focussing on character performance and movement
4. An updated LinkedIn page, containing the showreel as well as an updated CV
5. An instragram presence with far more animation work on, rather than just illustrations from over a year ago.

The most important of these undoubtedly being the showreel, as this will form the basis for any work I am able to get in the future. I have never made a showreel before, but feel like the editing skills I have been developing, especially over the course of making Sea Silk will really benefit this process. I also had a short tutorial with Rory about selecting certain shots from my previous films that would help support my initial handshake with the industry.

I was initially worried that my work would not have enough substance or variety in order to make an effective reel, but even in just collating clips for the presentation, I feel more confident at the shots I have at my disposal. I’ve been investigating music options that will help sell the work and hope to ask, Olivia Underwood, the composer I collaborated with both for the final film and for my writers project, if she has any music that I could use.

Once this has been made, I plan on building my LinkedIn Page around it, along with some skills and career information, transferring my relevant experience from theatre. I hope to make the page for more indicative of my current skillset and use that as a primary reference page for potential employers.

I do not want to be a producer, I’m pretty certain on that. Having worked in production in theatre, which albeit having the same name is actually a slightly different beast, I know that I have an abundance of transferable skills that’s means if I wanted to I could have quite a successful career in it. However, one of the reasons I started this masters was because I wanted to move away from more production and practical based work and more into creative storytelling.

However, saying that, the thing that is the most important to me right now is to continue to learn. To learn about animation process, filmmaking and about the industry as a whole and whilst I would be most keen to begin working in a creative field, I would be incredibly content with taking my first steps in production in order to better learn about this industry. When chatting through my CV with Cecilia Hay from Passion Pictures, she joked “are you sure you don’t want a job in production” and I immediately said I would do it. While she was not offering me a job in the slightest, she did take my card in case any running or production assistant jobs came up in the future and I would be more than grateful for any opportunity that arises.

So while I do not want to be a producer or necessarily work in production, I would absolutely pursue it as a way to improve my own skills, learn more about the industry whilst working in it and using it as a platform for getting any creative opportunities and making as many professional connections as possible.

In my initial stages for job searching, post-graduation, I will of course be apply for and searching for creative animation roles, however I also plan on dropping round London based studios, CV in hand with a decade of production experience under my belt. Something that every single professional has instilled upon us, both during the course and during talks/networking opportunities at Cardiff Animation Festival, is the importance of ‘soft skills’ and I absolutely intend on using my experience in theatre, my confidence and my ability to communicate effectively to make myself far more enticing as a potential employee.

In my time working professionally in theatre I have: managed teams, created production schedules, managed budgets, overseen practical builds and installations, sourced materials, managed hires and purchases on a large scale, been responsible for buildings (opening and closing), managed email inboxes, acted as a company liaison, managed events and been involved in recruitment, to name a few immediately transferrable skills.

In addition I am also trained at working at height, hold an IPAF certification, am trained fire safety, first aid at work, disability awareness and hold a qualification in British Sign Language level 2. All of these will assist in my employability within production should it be an avenue I choose to pursue.

Something that has been hugely beneficial in my consideration of my future in animation was the chance to go to Cardiff Animation Festival in April. My LIAF film, Disparate Threads was selected as part of the Slice of Life screening.

Having the chance to have any film, let alone the first film I ever made and directed, was an incredible opportunity and I was humbled by the wealth of talent I was programmed alongside.

I took away so many things from the festival, but four in particular stood out.Networking

Networking

It seems so obvious, but it’s so important to do. Even as someone who is extroverted and used to communicating with people, I find networking difficult as it’s easy to feel like an imposter with nothing to offer. During Cardiff I really pushed myself to speak to a variety of different people; professionals I admired, fellow filmmakers and other attendees, and when the first two people you meet over lunch are the festival director and Joanna Quinn, it feels like a strong start.

We went to quite a few networking events at the festival and using those as a basis kept up with several industry professionals over the course of the four days and then subsequently on social media. People such as Steff Lee, Nia Alavezos, Matt Partridge, Tina Nawrocki and Harriet Gillian, are just a few examples of people I spoke to regularly across the four days and have caught up in the time since. Having just had the talk with Passion Pictures and expressed interest in working with, I’m hoping to follow up with Matt Partridge who works as a director there.

It was also really exciting to meet with other filmmakers, learn about their processes and inspirations and what drives them as artists, it was especially comforting seeing people who have only been in the industry for a short time but are making work they are proud of and passionate about. I especially got on with Nam Crame, who directed a short documentary ‘Rainbow Junktion’; we bonded over making work about underrepresented communities and queer art.

Everyone has imposter syndrome, but we are all just animation fans who love making cool stuff

I’ve learned that imposter syndrome never really goes away, especially as you take steps into the next stage of a career, but people around so many people across the four days made me realise that that’s okay. That people will see my work on its own merit and not whether I’ve completed the correct steps to get to where I am. Seeing people be so excited about animation and films really inspired me to just keep on trucking. We were all a bit worried about taking four days away from the grad film practically, but I am so glad we did. I came back to it feeling motivated and inspired by everything I had seen and everyone I had met. Every single person at the festival was just so excited to be there and share the joy of animation and this really bolstered me to push through feeling like an imposter and to just enjoy all that I can.

In speaking with a few people in the industry as well as ruminating over what it is I have enjoyed over the course so far. I think the thing I would like to try upon graduation, at least at first, is working as an animator.

Whilst the ideal would be to work in short form television, I think the best thing for me as a practitioner right now would be to continue developing my skills and knowledge in a studio environment.

I would love to get to a point of being able to tell my own stories and make work that I am passionate about, but I think more than anything right now, I just want to become the best animator I can be and learn from those doing it.

Having seen some of the professional submissions for LIAF, I was blown away by the creativity and skills of the makers. In the Animated Documentary programme, the programme that I directed the sting for, Our Uniform by Yegane Moghaddam (2023) and The Waiting by Volker Schlecht (2023), really inspired me in terms of the quality of their animation, but also the creative choices they made to make their films unique and make the subject matter soar.

Chatting with Eugénie von Tunzelmann, she gave some amazing advice when considering being freelance or working in a studio:

“you will be surrounded by so many amazing people. If you want to speak to a world expert in a specific field then, you know, they probably work with you. An example of this is when we started working on Interstellar, and we wanted to simulate how light moves near a black hole. We had a guy on the team, a hugely experienced programmer with a degree in physics and a masters in lensing of light, so he wrote the code. In some ways the fact that he was on the team was a huge stroke of luck, but that’s the advantage of a big studio – there’s likely someone there who’s got the skills, and you can learn from them.”

This idea of tapping into the talents of the people around you, expected and unexpected, is really exciting. The LIAF project was great because I was able to learn from the people around me, appreciating their individual skill sets and contributing my own. This most recent project, whilst I enjoyed learning new skillsets, felt much lonelier as a process.

ScreenSkills describes an animator as such:

Animators create still images that are played in a rapid sequence to create the illusion of movement. They are artists, actors and storytellers. They know how characters show emotion and have a good, technical understanding of the way things move. They make a believable world through the blend of realism and artistry.

This idea of being an artist, actor and storyteller, really speaks to me. It is something I am passionate about and animation, is the most exciting way I can think of for storytelling. Based on my research over this term, I think the next thing for me to do is network within the industry. Speak to professionals, visit studios, learn who is who and what skills I have that can benefit the industry. Whilst i’m pretty nervous about my next steps in the industry, especially after graduation, I’m also excited to see where I go next and what kind of animator and artist I have yet to become.

If you had asked me before the course even started, I probably would have said that I most likely didn’t want to be an animator, and while I didn’t know what I did want to do, I almost certainly would have mentioned Storyboard as an area of interest. After, our albeit short, introduction to Storyboard, I know feel rather daunted and to be frank slightly put off it as a career in terms of my current skillset and what I have enjoyed on the course so far.

Initially I expected that to succeed in Storyboarding, what you needed was a strong idea of story, narrative and performance. And while all of this is true, the thing I didn’t consider was a strong understanding and application of film language and techniques. My understanding of story very much is rooted on paper and on stage, and while I am a big appreciator of filmic techniques, it is not something I have ever studied nor really spent much meaningful time considering critically.

In our classes with Bianca, and in my storyboarding work required for this latest project, I really noticed that I was reticent to use the ‘camera’. That instead I was casting my characters upon a stage with fixed perspective, rather than focussing on dynamic camera movement, this I think comes from a lack of film experience which really gave me a moments pause about Storyboarding. While I’m not excluding the possibility of storyboarding, and I would gladly do the work if the opportunity arose, I definitely think its an area where I need to do a large amount of skills development and contextual study.

Based on the Screen Skills website, it says that Storyboard Artist is an entry level job. But based on the classes we have had with Bianca as well as visiting lecturers I don’t know if this feels necessarily true? Here is what ScreenSkills and CG Spectrum describe the role as:

Storyboard artists help the head of story create a visual representation of the animation’s narrative. Storyboard artists translate the script and the director’s vision into pictures. They produce a series of panels of images to plan the shots and ensure continuity between them. These form the basis for the animation in the next stage of production.

A storyboard artist is a visual storyteller who converts written scripts into a series of 2D images, commonly known as a storyboard. Images are created by hand or computer to map out the action, framing, and key scenes in a script, acting as a visual guide for how live-action is shot and how the animation will play out. 

From this it seems that there is a difference between Storyboard Artist and then a more senior supervisory/directorial role. To look at the difference I’ve research a few vacancies for the roles to see what sort of skills are required by an employer:

https://animatedjobs.com/jobs/storyboard-artist-5/?utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

https://www.showbizjobs.com/jobs/dreamworks-animation-feature-head-of-story-in-glendale/jid-d8vj7q

Based on these job advertisements, as well as similarly available ones, it seems that the storyboard artists are individually responsible for their designated scene(s) and the director is in charge of managing the team and ensuring consistency both visually and narratively.

I do think that story and coming up with narrative ideas, is a strength that I have, and so while I do find this area daunting it may be something I look to in a few years time. At the moment I am very much enjoying animation itself, learning to evoke who a character is and how they move, and I think that right now, storyboarding might be a little to far away from that me.

I have found this process of considering my future, quite difficult. As someone who is knew to the industry, try to understand my own ability, let alone the industry around me has felt daunting.

This blog is meant to be a pathway into considering what career we may want in animation, but I still feel a long way off from understanding myself within this art form. So far I have been responsible for the outcome of two films, having directed the LIAF project I was a part of and then individually made the Reflections on Reality film. I have as yet, to be a worker on a project that I am not in charge of. So, for this post I thought I would start at the beginning. take away the comfort of the university format and see what it is I might be in for directly after graduation.

This will include internship opportunities, mentorship opportunities as well as entry level creative positions. While not adverse to project management or assisting, this is something I was very used to in my theatre career, it is not something I am currently intending to pursue.

Internships:

These websites has been especially useful in terms of my initial internship search:

https://www.thesecretstorydraw.org/opportunities

https://www.screenskills.com/training/apprenticeships/where-can-i-find-an-apprenticeship/

Using it as a base i’ve been looking into a few options which feel they may be suitable.

Art & Graft – this was made known to us as part of our studio tour at the beginning of term. Art & Graft seem like an exciting studio who a focus on stories and mediums that inspire them, with a good mix of artistic and commercial work. As someone that is primarily focussed on 2D animation but hopes to explore a variety of styles and mixed media mediums, this feels like a solid option, although if i were to be able to choose the type of production, I would be more interested in TV work rather than advertising, but this is not something I would necessarily expect to be able to work in right away.

Fourth Wall – although based in Liverpool, Fourth wall focusses on impactful tv animation for children, something that I would be keen to pursue longterm. Remote working or temporary relocation would be possible, especially for the kind of studio that I would be passionate about the work. Fourth Wall also have a great focus on 2D as well as 3D which would align with my current skillset.

Wildchild Animation – whilst this studio most closely aligns with the kind of work I would be keen to do, it feels like it would be quite a reach with my current skill level, especially as the studio is based in Scotland and their internships are currently on for 3D and local practitioners.

Blue Zoo – I know that Blue Zoo has a good CSM track record, with graduates working there regularly and as a studio it definitely suits me in terms of the output of work and mediums used. As they have a studio in London, I would be inclined to email and ask to visit, although this may be a faux pas! They currently do not have any internship vacancies, so the need to be proactive may arise.

Factory – Factory looks cool as hell. They do everything and I want to do everything. They are Manchester based, but this is definitely the kind of studio that I would strive for. Their work is varied and exciting and their cross medium work as well as focus on all round in house creativity is very cool and really reflects the way I would want to work. I cannot find internship info on their website, so will certainly be emailing them directly in the new year.

Blink – Blink seem fun, their website is cool and I like their vibe. They are also the studio that developed one of my favourite shows Dead End: Paranormal Park, something that perfectly encapsulates the kind of show I would want to work on. They do not currently have any internships or vacancies, but similarly to Factory, I will actively approach them in the New Year.

Mentorship schemes:

As part of the She Drew That facebook group, I noticed that there was a specific mentorship scheme for female and non-binary animators early in their career. Whilst unfortunately I am not a suitable candidate for that specific scheme (minimum of three years experience required) it did get me thinking about other schemes that may be suitable.

Women In Animation – this is another program specifically for women and non-binary people in animation. On its website it clearly states: “WIA Mentorship is not a student program; it is a professional program; Mentorship is not meant to teach the skills required to get into the industry but to hone already established skills, bridge gaps, and remove barriers of entry into the industry.” however it does say that it accepts students in their final year of study and is a program focussed on skill development and industry contacts. I will look into their mentorship scheme for next year when applications open in Feb.

Entry level work:

Based on the career survey on https://businessofanimation.com/, it said that my career ideals would work well on site in a studio, which I feel aligns to not only the kind of work i want to produce, but with my skill set and working methodology. I am someone who prefers collaboration to solo work and works better when working to a set deadline/project goal. Using the career pathway guide on screen skills, I definitely think I would want to start in animation or clean up. I think my skills are based in story and performance and so would want to use and develop these skills to help characters give the best performance they can.

https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/production/animator-animation/

https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/2d-animator

I do suffer from quite a bit of imposter syndrome when it comes to my own ability and readiness for the industry, but I am hoping with a good show reel and a dash of bravado I’ll be able to find the confidence to apply and approach studios for work. I think something that will benefit me greatly in the industry is my strengths as a communicator and my experience in working professionally in a creative field. These established a honed skills will only be a strength when in comes to applying for work.

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.