So you wanna be an animator huh?

#1

I’m opening up this thread for general Q&A about breaking into the animation industry. I have a lot to say about this particular subject and I feel I can give you some spot on advice. This thread isn’t limited to EI Users, so please, feel free to ask. If you want to know a little more about me, and what I’ve worked on, you can check me out on IMDB. I’ve worked freelance, for the studios, and now own my own business…so here’s your chance. Fire away.

#2

Something I’ve been mulling over recently ever since ILM moved to The Presidio is the high cost-of-living where VFX/3D/Animation companies are located. I really wonder what Lucas was thinking when he moved ILM from one high-dollar area (Marin) to the even higher-dollar area (downtown SF). Employees had to live pretty far out in order to afford a house and now they have an even more horrendous commute…across the Golden Gate :eek: .

Does it seem to anyone else that you can only really work in this business if you’re a starving student or an even more starving recently-out-of-college person and don’t really care about quality of life outside of work?

#3

Hi Brian,

Thanks for starting this! I’m a CG artist trying to find a home in a production studio. After freelancing for six years, I realized the independent thing really isn’t for me. I really enjoy the variety of work but I think I must spend about 1/4 of my time doing what I love (3D modeling, animation and illustration) and the rest trying to find clients, negotiating contracts, writing proposals – generally running a business.

If you wouldn’t mind, could you take a look at my demo reel and website and give me a roadmap of where I could go with what I’ve got? Here are links to my reel and website:

http://www.harrybsmith.com/movie.html

harrybsmith.com

Thanks again, this is just the thread I’ve been looking for!

Barry,

Give me this evening to review your reel and I’ll write something up for you then.

Brian

Thanks Brian! – HBS

#4

Blair,

You would think that studios would choose to set up shop in the cheaper parts of the country, but the problem with that is the simple lack of talent that exists in those areas. You could attempt to pull them in from around the world to live in Podunk, North Dakota (or where ever) but the problem is, most people in the film industry are burdened with the ideas of prestige, glamour, and the rock star life style and would never want to live there. Animators, filmmakers, etc… are creative people. They need to be stimulated and their lifestyles and choice of living locations tend to reflect that. The larger cities are more appealing and the studios have little choice but to accomodate them… unless of course we start talking about sending work out of country. Pay 100k to an animator in the US or pay 30k to an animator in India. Hmmm…

When I worked for ILM, I had to live in Petaluma and I drove an hour to an hour and a half to get to work. It sucked. But my tiny apartment in Petaluma was $1600 a month while the same thing in San Rafael would have been $2200+. Why Lucas moved into the Presido is beyond me. I would have thought he would have moved further north into Sonoma county instead… but perhaps its a status symbol thing too. He is trying to expand his offerings.

As for being a starving student or someone who disagrees about their surroundings…well I disagree. I know several people that make a decent living doing animation and are quite comfortable. Those who can make it in smaller markets in the midwest actually do quite well because they’re the only game in town. Where it gets tough is in cities like Los Angeles where there is tons of competition. However, even here, I’m doing well and can’t really complain. I would like to save more of my money… however, I made the choice to live here because LA is the film community. This, however, will continue to change. Advancements in technology will continue to drive the creative process down to everyone rather than the select few. Viewers today are quite selective about what they want to watch. Formula studio based movies are drawing fewer and fewer crowds because people are bored with the same old thing. The public is drawn to these indy type films until they’ve seen enough “bad” ones. Then they want flash. Fickle.

There will always been the big summer blockbusters…but the time is coming where even the little guy can make it big.

#5

Hey Harry,

I took a look at your reel… I’ll try to get you some feedback soon. Probably after I get home from work.

Brian

#6

Brian, if you have a few minutes and are in the mood to look at yet another flying logo reel, I’d be very interested in your opinion.
http://homepage.mac.com/b_dismukes/iMovieTheater5.html
Thanks!

#7

Hi Harry…

Ok…here we go. I may be blunt, but I’m gonna give it to you like I see it. I’m judging you as if you were applying for a job at my company in LA.

  1. Reels that show multiple disciplines aren’t usually well received. They seem like a good idea, but you should focus your demo reel towards the job you’re applying for. Research the company or studio you wish to apply at and then cater your demo reel towards the discipline you wish to work in. Cycles for animators, turn tables for modelers, motion graphics for broadcast, etc etc etc. Unless you’re a generalist who wants to work in a smaller firm or in a job that requires a jack of all trades…stick to one thing.

  2. Ditch the intro and end live action tag lines. The comedic element doesn’t work and they have little to do with getting you a job. Not trying to spoil your fun, but things like that rarely work and your demo reel is remembered for that, not your animation.

  3. Length of reel is too long. Trim it by at least a third. Start off with a strong piece to capture your viewer’s attention. Studio HR personnel have short attention spans and they look at hundreds of reels. If you were applying for an animation position, they probably would have ejected the tape during the new media segment and stated, “not an animator”.

  4. Get a new intro/contact slate. The western style font is difficult to read, and the bars and tone background plate is used. There’s so much color and contrasts going on, I have difficulty looking at it.

  5. Now your animation reel is starting to show promise. You seem to have a decent grasp on camera animation and your timing seems fairly good. The editing on this segment could have been tightened up a bit. We don’t need to see entire animations play out. Animators that don’t have a large amount of animation in their portfolio can make the mistake of wanting to show everything. I’d rather watch a 60 second demo reel that smacks me in the face than one that makes me want to press fast forward.

  6. Limit the use of wipes. Stick with cuts and cross dissolves. Only use a wipe if it serves a distinct purpose.

  7. Find new music or try to variate the tempo with other cuts to add musical variety. Sound is really important to a demo reel. It sets the mood and can be used as an effective method of providing a strong cutting template.

You obviously have skills, its easy to see, but you’re suffering from freelancer’s syndrome. What is that you ask? You’ve reached a plateau and you need to be challeneged by someone who is better than you. Working in a studio does just that. Suddenly you realize that there are some extremely talented people out there an you have to step up your game.

Don’t get discouraged. Your work has lots of potential. Study and find ways to push the envelope.

As for a road map, a lot depends on the direction you wish to take. Think it over and tell me what discipline you wish to pursue and I’ll give you a strong course of action.

#8

Thanks Brian,

This is just the kind of feedback I was hoping for! You obviously put a great deal of effort and thought into this critique and I certainly appreciate it. I’ll work on putting together a reel that more specifically relates to my modeling skills (that’s what I’d like to do most and where I feel I can make the best contribution). As for the “jack of all trades” thing – that pretty much describes my freelance career.

You’re right again about my feeling like I’m stagnating. I think one of the best things a studio can offer is cross-training by association. I used to work in a design firm with a great group of designers and artists and our creativity exploded when we worked on a project together. There’s something that happens when we collaborate artistically – something almost spiritual. It’s as if there’s already the artist you’ll become ten years from now burried in your head somewhere and working in a team manages to bring that out. I’m looking forward to that again.

Thanks Again!

#9

You’re up next Brad… I’ll get to it when I can.

#10

Hi Brad,

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I’m posting things publicly for everyone to benefit. Hopefully you don’t mind ok?

First off, let me begin by saying that its obvious that you already possess a certain mastery of the subject. There’s is no doubt in my mind that you can fly logos with the best of them. Animations appear clear and follow the basic rules of motion graphics. Where can you improve? Here are my suggestions.

  1. Motion graphics, if that’s what you want to do, thrive on impact and wow factor. Your overall reel left me feeling a little lethargic. That would be because of two accounts. One for the choice of music and the other were the visuals themselves. Both were ok on their own, but not good together. If becoming a motion graphics designer is your ambition, you’re going to have to step it up a notch or two. There are only so many ways to fly a logo in from off screen, so you really need to find more unique ways of doing things. Right now, you’re only using 20% of your capabilities.

  2. Your work area seems flat. Even though you’re working in 3D space, the bulk of your work doesn’t take advantage of the camera or any sense of power and speed. Don’t be afraid of getting gritty with the camera. Work on new methods of moving the camera through world space showing new and unique angles on your subjects.

  3. Your logos seems generally stiff. There’s little life in them. Invest in some plugins and start deforming your shapes and take advantage of the deforming capabilities within EIAS. Flexpath or Contortionist would be good investments.

  4. XXI Century Design is probably your best work on the reel. Why? It holds your interest. There is multiple actions occurring at the same time and you have more than one center of interest. It keeps the eye scanning the entire work area, but not in a bad way. You’re also using a camera move which assists in drawing the viewer to the design. Polaris, on the other hand is your worst design. Simply remove it from the reel. It does nothing for you other than making the viewer say blech.

  5. Work on your compositing skills. Integrate some roto in there. More layering. Explore your texturing capabilities. Think like a designer first and conceptualize new methods of exploring a hard surface object. Use objects like transitional elements. Move the viewer along and build his anticipation.

  6. Lighting. Again… you’re using pretty standard setups. Lighting creates mood. Lighting can be used to fool the eye that there’s more there than there really is. Your lighting is flat and uninteresting. Decay, falloff, gobos, use em.

So… there yah have it. You’re doing quite well so don’t feel discouraged. You have the foundation laid for a even greater visuals. Just think outside the box.

#11

First: Thank you so much for your time here. I know we all really appreciate it and especially for taking the time to review my reel.
Next: Oh boy have I been a rut and your suggestions are right on the mark. The reason XXI Century Design is better than all the others is because it was a job that became a vanity project and I got to spend a lot more time on it. As for Polaris, it’s my Uncle’s compnay and well
In any case, it’s coming out of the reel NOW and from now on, when a client says “Just keep it simple” I won’t. Staying within the budget of course.

But thanks again. I really need the push.

Now I just have to find some music I like better.

#12

I’m not sure this is the right place to post this, but: Harry, how did you integrate the vehicle into its environment on the “bus-train” segment of your reel? I’ve looked at it over and over and I can’t figure it out.

It looks like the background is a cubic map of some sort…how exactly did you create the maps and how did you get it in place?

Please advise,

GM

#13

Hi Giacomo,
I’d be happy to tell you. I’m not sure this is the right place either but here it goes: Both the briefcase animation and the rail bus animation DO use cubic maps as background elements. Both are equirectangular maps wrapped to either a cube (in the case of the briefcae) or a sphere (as in the railbus case). I took the VR of the townhouses in Phoenix myself and repurposed the VR for the rail bus background. The background for the briefcase came with a sampler of the Reflection Toolkit that shipped with the 3D Toolkit from DV Garage. The three brass “target stands” in the briefcase animation were put in just because I wanted to see what would happen and I wanted to make the floor reflective in the center. I had to build a reflection plane object for the support post (the one with the plaque) to get an accurate reflection on the floor, but the cube environment matched the lobby almost perfectly from the get-go.

How it works is you map an equirectangular image (horizontally flipped) onto a huge sphere (spherically mapped) into the luminance channel with the normals reversed. The size of the sphere is not really important, just as long as all your scene elements fit inside the sphere. The same equirectangular image (NOT flipped) can be used as a map for illuminators or you can use LightRig (if you have it) to set up believable lighting right from the sphere. Naturally, the same equirectangular image can be used as a spherical reflection map too. The shadow is just a semi-transparent plane with a Payne’s Grey color with specularity set to zero (darkened all the way down) with the object set as “shadow mask”.

Please note that this setup only works while orbiting (also called tumbling) the camera from the origin by pulling the reference arrow. No dollying, no tracking, just animate the REFERENCE from the camera only. This setup, while restricted in some ways, is very fast and relatively easy to set up. I’ve used this several times in production and rendering is very fast.

For lack of a better description, I’m calling these kind of scene rigs “Tumble Spheres” because that’s pretty much all you can do with the camera. I hope this helps.

#14

Hello Brian:

First, thank you for taking the time to do this. Currently I’m a freelance storyboard artist, and I’m starting to get into conceptual creature/character artwork. Eventually I’d like to get into CGI (I’m unsure if I want to be a modeler or character animator yet). This is my problem. I’d like to attend Gnomon but due to the cost it’s out of the question for now (unless I can get to the point where I’m storyboarding union scale). I was debating trying to train myself via their online program, but I’m worried if that wont be good enough on a resume when it’s time to hunt for work.

I realize that ultimately it’s the quality of the work in the portfolio/demo reel, but isn’t education still a key thing companies look for?

#15

Seansea,

First off: Gnomon. Wonderful school, wonderful people. I went there myself for two semesters before getting hired on at Lucasfilm. It can be a bit pricey, but when compared to other schools of similar offerings, its not too bad. If you’re just starting off, it can seem rather daunting. Will the investment in education pay off? Usually it does. But is education everything? No. Don’t get me wrong. I personally believe that everyone should obtain some higher education in the field of CGI. There is just too much to try to learn on one’s own. Being in an environment like Gnomon, or any other creative art school, energizes one’s perceptions about what can be attained in this field.

Being self trained however, isn’t a bad thing. I survived for years with my own business on self training. However, I eventually reached a plateau. I couldn’t progress any further because I wasn’t being challenged enough by people who knew more than me.

Can you obtain an animation job without a degree? Yes. I’ve met several who have. Even some of the big time artists up in Lucasfilm only have a high school diploma. But the difference these people had were an abundance of talent and a lot of drive. Makes up for education nearly everytime…but not all the time.

My advice is to take some classes somewhere. Gnomon would be great, but even your own local collage would be helpful. Brush up your skills and start putting together a demo reel. Show your work here. Whether you use EI or not, the community here is more than willing to provide you some feedback. Then start targeting companies you want to work for. Analyze what they’ve done in the past and start gearing your portfolio with related work. Choose a specialty and then put that kind of work into your portfolio. Don’t make the company try to figure out what you want to do. Tell them. A lot of people will tell you to take any job to get your foot in the door. I can somewhat agree with that because everyone needs to earn their licks… however, don’t compromise too much. Set your eyes on your goal and take action. Life is short. Don’t waste it.

#16

>I took the VR of the townhouses in Phoenix myself and repurposed the VR for the rail bus background.

Thanks for the explanation! Just one question, if you don’t mind…how exactly did you set up the camera to shoot the photos that were used for the maps? Was there any special software involved?

Please advise,

GM

#17

Hey guys… lets try to limit the discussion in this thread about becoming an animator and getting into the CG industry. Finish up soon or transfer to the techniques sub forum.

Thanks.

#18

Hi Brian:

Thanks so much for the advice. What you said definetly made me pause to reflect. Although I said I am interested in modeling and character animation, I think I’ll need to do some more research on all types CGI jobs so I can narrow exactly what I want to do. Then things will be easier when I go to Gnomon (you only live once, so I’m goin’ for it). Right now it feels like I’m all over the map but I think that’s because I’m looking at it from the outside. Sure it would be great if I could walk up to a recruiter at Siggraph and say “I can rig, previs, texture, shade, etc.” but their response would be “That’s great but what do you wan’t to apply for.”

In the meantime, besides interning, do you think it’s realistic to “get my foot in the door” by doing conceptual art? Would an FX house even utilize concept artists? I’m assuming that’s done all before a studio gets to do FX work. I’ve got the drive, I just have to make the right decisions to attain my goal.

#19

Seansea,

Well let’s see here. Being a conceptual artist is an entirely different track in the film industry than the typical CG artist. Its a niche profession and pretty difficult to crack into, though the rewards are usually pretty great. Concept artists are typically well paid and sought out after if they’re really good. Just take a look at the Ryan Church, Feng Zhu, Erik Tiemens and Doug Chang types out there.

At ILM we had a dedicated art department where these type of guys came from. They’re more classically trained and don’t really focus too much on the 3D stuff unless called for. Most of their work is done in Photoshop, Painter, and other programs like that. If they use a 3D package, its usually used as a foundational layer to be later painted on with Painter or PS. Artists at ILM would apply with their portfolios and show human figure studies, character designs, mechanical illustrations and so on. Really tough to break into. If they were lucky, they usually started off as an intern. Their career track doesn’t take them to the CG side of things usually. Normally they’re groomed to become Art Directors or Production Designers of some sort, not modelers or animators.

The ILM art department would work hand and hand with the VFX supervisors and director and concept artists would produce imagery before and during the preproduction phase. If you wanted to become a modeler or animator, there are a number of various fields you could do to break in.

  1. Roto
  2. Dust Busting
  3. Tracking
  4. Integration
  5. Previsualization
  6. Layout

However, the previs and layout tracks are a type of hybrid career track. They share a lot of traits of the directing profession because previs and layout artists are so directly involved in the storytelling process.

My suggestion would be to also check out television studios and do a little work in broadcast design. Its a fast paced field, but it gets you rapidly familiar with animation and modeling and it requires good work. The problem is, however, staying in it too long may pigeon hole you. It used to be difficult to jump from Games, to Broadcast, to Film. Each industry kinda sees the other as less then them… with the film community usually being the most snobby.

Just keep your chin up. Don’t take no for an answer. But if you cop the attitude, so to speak, you better be able to walk the walk. Practice, practice, practice.

#20

Sorry Brian. We’re done.