There are a lot of variables. I assume that you are interested in learning character animation position, and entry level. This is not really my area to speak to. I don’t think we often hire talent straight out of school for character animation positions. Someone who comes out of school with tremendous ability for acting and timing, and a reel that can show it may be able to land a junior position. On our show we did something unique and hired two junior animators to work as “crowd character animators”. This meant that they animated the cycles for our crowds as well as what we call “hero background animation”, where we want to keyframe animate one of the crowd characters to make the crowd as a whole feel less, well, “crowd like”.
For other positions we actually do try to find talent out of schools. On the technical side we pursue finding technical directors. We actually collaborate with certain schools to make the schools aware of what we are looking for in their students.
In “asset creation” positions like modeling and surfacing, it’s about what they can show us they know creatively. For Character TD’s we look for very technically skilled people as our propriatery process demands that.
For students straight out of school it’s also important to see their ability to function in a team environment. That they are positive about continued learning. Great personality. We often assume that they start almost from scratch with us, but that they’ve learn the process of learning so they will adapt quickly to a production environment which is very different from the educational environment.
When I came into the industry the path of how people arrived was much more arbitrary than it perhaps is now. I had a dance background before getting my M.Sc. degree. I did some work in graphic design in Boston, yes, but that was temporary more than a career choice. What I wanted to pursue was animation. To be able to do character animation in those days I pretty much had to learn how to do it all. That’s probably a big part of how I ended up doing what I do today.
Do you mean graphic design as in design, or are you generalising it to computer graphics?
On the question whether it’s better to specialize or not in our industry I would say it depends on what you are talented at. I think a lot of companies look for people who they can see can arrive at their company and be useful fairly quickly. For that reason I think specializing is helpful early on. Knowing a little of everything may not help you.
If you are in an area where there are mainly small companies and everyone at the company pretty much has to do everything, well, then I think it’s worth not only having one specialized area since it will be difficult casting you as an artist.
Also, depending on what area of computer graphics you will focus on - feature animation, commercials animation, feature visual effects, commercials visual effects, commercial still art work, product development/design, architectural visualisation, … - they all have a slightly different focus and skill need.
My general advise is understand the whole, but get good at one part where a potential employer can see that you can be of benefit to them almost immediately.
Listening skills. You will learn how to take direction as part of being in a production environment, but you need to come to it with listening skills. That way you will be able to learn quickly.
If we are talking about a character animator I used to look for people who had the fundamental understanding of acting. They were able to have a conversation about what a shot delivered emotionally and why. I looked for the more traditional aspects, do they understand weight, do they use timing to their advantage. My personal preference for animation has always been a little off the beaten path, so I always looked for animators that didn’t do the “traditional” poses or expressions. Who clearly were able to experiment themselves, using their own expressions and behavior as a guide. But that’s just me personally.
Hm. When I started out I had real issues with the technology. There wasn’t an easy way to generate character animation technically with the tools I was using at the time. So building a work flow/process was part of my challange. I don’t recommend people to try to learn all that these days.
On the creative side I went through a process of learning character animation from the references I could find. I was a students many years after I left school (still am I would have to say). I gulped up any animation book, watch and re-watched, frame by frame every animated film I could get my hands on. Learned about the masters and the choices they made through reading and watching. I found myself particularly drawn to stop motion animation early on. Being on my own was probably the most difficult aspect of learning at that time. These days with AnimationMentor and the rich access to books and DVDs on the topics I had to learn by trying, well… I don’t think it’s quite the same. In a good way.
The best part of having to learn it myself is that I became very aware of every choice I was making. I didn’t do anything arbitrarily or because someone else did it that way or told me to do it a certain way. I like that aspect of the challange.
One of the most difficult things to master is proper self-evaluation. The tendecy is that because you start with something so rough and it improves from there on, there’s a potential risk that you stop at a point when you’ve seen the relative improvements and think it’s great, when it really isn’t good enough. Learning how to push your self is an invaluable skill.
Having had my artistic aspirations more or less fail in my teens (I was an aspiring dancer/choreographer) I went to school to get a “proper” degree. My education was very challanging but I was tremendously bored. When I discovered animation at UMass Amherst it was if the two sides, the artistic and the technical, found a perfect mix. It inspired me to seek the opportunity to learn more, and I got lucky that a few people around me at that time thought it was interesting and, I assume, saw that I had some talent for it.
From then on it was a constant choice to keep focusing on animation, avoid the trap of “getting a real job” (at the time it was difficult at best to make a living as an animator in Stockholm, Sweden). Persistence and passion was what enabled me to keep doing what I loved. I am very ambitious.
Did I dream that I one day would be on the other side of the world, working in Los Angeles for a feature animation studio, having significant contribution in a feature animated film. It actually seemed almost impossible at the time, but yes, I did dream.
