Animation Career Pro

Pounding The Post Office

Chris — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:52:47 +0000

There’s a number of ways to look for work as an animator. Using the mail is a great way – that’s right snail mail…but it still is a very effective way to send out your material for studios to review. It’s how I got my first job.

It’s effective because your sending out hard copies as [...]

Animator Resume

Chris — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:28:58 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, when you’re looking for work as a character animator your demo reel (or show reel) is most important. But you still need to have a resume to show – you are applying for a job after all.

From my own experience (while being interviewed), the interviewer will usually look at the resume [...]

Animator Art Portfolio

Chris — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:21:40 +0000

If your applying for a character animator position you should think about submitting an art portfolio with your application. But it’s not always necessary or even appropriate to send in an art portfolio these days…I’ll explain…

An Art portfolio is a collection of your art work. You can use it to display your drawing skills, [...]

Animator Demo Reel

Chris — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:39:24 +0000

Your animation demo reel, or “show reel” is a video which displays your best animation work. If your looking for work as an animator (especially a character animator), It is without a doubt the most important piece of material you’ll use to get a job. Even more important than your resume and cover letter.

Do Not’s I’ve [...]

Straying From the Principles Trap

Chris — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:57:08 +0000

As you probably already know, animation principles are the backbone of professional quality character animation. How you use the principles and apply them is just as important.

When you begin to animate with computer software, especially in 3D software like Maya for example, it’s very easy to become so dazzled with how cool 3D objects [...]

Critiquing And Direction – Retakes/Revisions

Chris — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:22:46 +0000

To be completely honest, retakes (sometimes called revisions) are the least fun part of the job of an animator, but they are always a part of an animators job. No matter how talented and skilled, every animator gets retakes.

Retakes and revisions are changes that you have to make to your work. Sometimes it’s changes to [...]

Realizing the Vision of the Creator/Director

Chris — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 03:59:00 +0000

In any animated series or feature film, the director will have a pre-concieved vision of how he/she sees the story play out scene by scene in order to be sucessful as a whole piece.

This is why Animators are provided with support material such as liecas (or animatics), storybords, reference videos, and other support material – [...]

Work From Home vs. In Studio

Chris — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:05:00 +0000

Animators work on computers all day. At least most do today. With FTP sites, web based production management systems and easy file transfering, there’s no real reason why we can’t do our work from anywhere in the world and not have to commute to work every day if it isn’t conducive with your life situation. [...]