Where Animation Jobs Exist

A career in animation will usually dictate where you live. Animation jobs exist all over the world, but studios are usually concentrated in big cities. Depending on the type of lifestyle you enjoy, this may become an issue.

It’s amazing how many animation students and grads I’ve met that know they will have to leave their home town but can’t bring themselves to take the plunge when the time comes. If your planing on an animation career and you live in an area that has no industry – you will have to move.

If you prefer to live a more remote, quiet lifestyle like living in a town, village, or smaller city away from all the hustle and bustle of a big city, remember that animators generally work in busy cities. You’ll be faced with the decision of either living in the city or paying to commute from the outskirts.

It’s a common issue with many animators that prefer small town living – often moving to the outskirts of cities where they work, and commute one or two hours into work every day (each way) so they can have the preferred house and neighborhood. Usually folks with families and kids.

But if your young and single, you might enjoy living and working downtown – taking in the nightlife and excitement. (for a while that is) >

Since most animators work on contracts it’s ideal to be in an area with a high concentration of studios so you can bounce from one studio to the next and stay employed throughout the year.

In Canada the main cities that have a high concentration of studios are Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. All three of these cities have lots of studios that produce animation for TV series, feature film, vfx and gaming, and are great places to live and maintain an animation career.

Other Canadian capitals include Ottawa with a hand full of studios. Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Charlottetown and Fredericton have some, but very little animation work.

In the United States the hot spots are Los Angeles and New York. Other places through out the world have animation studios. An interesting one is Weta Digital in New Zealand (An island country in the Pacific Ocean) they do high end feature work – that’s an example of a large successful studio, not likely to shut down any time soon.

There are smaller studios all over the place, but they can start up and shut down frequently so it’s not easy to keep track of where they are. A good place to find studios is Mandy.com, Animation World Network (aidb.com) or do Google searches similar to this “winnipeg, animation studio”. (ie .the place, and “animation studio”) will bring pretty good results.