I sent emails to practitioners in the animation industry asking some of the questions I had about working as an animation professional, asked people in different careers in the animation industry, and through their replies I gained a clearer understanding of the inner workings of the animation industry. The insights of these professionals reveal the nuances and requirements of this dynamic field.

Practitioner working as a 2D animation cleaner, who is from Lupus Films, mentioned in her response, emphasising the importance of traditional hand-drawn methods in this role, that Lupus Films is a very traditionally hand-drawn based animation studio where everything is drawn on 2s, sometimes even 1s if it’s quick movements. After finishing everything pre-production, they get a team of animators in to animate the movements and when some shots are approved, they move onto clean-up.

According to her, the animation process follows a meticulous assembly line – from pre-production to animation, clean-up and artwork – and the project team expands as the project progresses. The distribution of their personnel was like a pyramid, with a lot of repetitive work requiring more personnel. The clean-up team is bigger than the animation team, and the artwork team is bigger than the clean-up team.

I also asked what we as graduating students need to do to prepare for the job search. What skills, qualities and job competencies do companies look for in job seekers? She told me a strong showreel. It is an important factor in your success in securing a position and also that I need to tailor my CV to the job I am looking for. Therefore, I will probably not get the job if my CV is different from the position I am applying for. Therefore, we need to be clear about what we are looking for in a job and prepare the corresponding work in order to have a good chance of winning in the job search process.

I think the most important thing that my teachers at school keep mentioning is to run your own social media, so that you can quickly build a network, reach out to more professionals, and say hello to them at animation parties. Show them your work and find ways to connect with them.

Based on the replies in the email, I have summarised the following tips that have helped me in my job search.

1. a strong portfolio is very important for our job search

2. social media presence to keep in touch with people in the industry

3. professional animation skills

Interviews with professionals have helped me to be more clear about my career path, alleviate my fear of the unknown, and prepare early based on practitioners’ advice.

I found it representative and beneficial to learn about two industry professionals’ talks this semester: animators Sacha Beeley and Abigal Addison, both of whom are very good animators, who shared their experiences in the industry and their own experiences with us!

About Sacha Beeley, she is an animator and filmmaker as well as a csm animation alumni, I really enjoyed her animation and she showed us her creative experience and work. She told us how she explored her own unique creative style and she told us to think about the characters in our project. How do you want them to move what happens in the film before you start designing? What is your personal animation style? Is it kind of melting, stretching, dancing or more realistic? So design-wise, think about what’s happening in the action and how the character looks rather than just the character design sheet. Just like what happens in a film where someone can pose really nicely in every shot. And of course, consider how much detail you want to add. So obviously very detailed characters will look beautiful, but animation takes a lot longer.Sacha Beeley says that drawing humans is not her strong point. But if there’s a commercial product coming up, there’s often a need to draw a human character. There’s no avoiding that. So she tries to add her own style of animation, which is very wavy limbs, like curved limbs, no joints in a style that’s more orientated towards big limbs, characters that usually have four fingers rather than five. So it’s not the perfect more anthropomorphic characters that are popular, you don’t need to be able to challenge yourself in areas you’re not good at, if you don’t have a good perspective then draw something flat, focus on expanding your strengths, combine your strengths with your style of drawing and then form your own unique style.

Regarding her work experience, she shared with us that she signed up as a freelancer with an agency, which provided her with projects, which had both pros and cons, the pros being that she didn’t have to worry about any communication with her clients. She can focus entirely on the creative side of things and is able to organise her working hours more freely, with the option of accepting or rejecting projects, resulting in a better work-life balance. But the worrying thing is that she never knows when another business project will come along. So the next project could be months away. This uncertainty can be financially stressful for the worker, so in the meantime, she needs to find freelance animator work, such as some clean-up work. In between commercial projects, as a freelancer she is able to work on different types of projects, thus broadening her skills and experience. She will be involved in a variety of areas such as advertising, film and television. By taking on multiple projects there is an opportunity to increase your income, especially on some of the higher-end projects where you may be paid more. But freelance income is usually more unstable and lacks the benefits offered by traditional companies, such as health insurance and pensions.

So the pros and cons of this type of work situation need to be considered in the context of our own career goals, lifestyle, personality traits and status.

Another animator, Abigal Addison, who I think is more of a hirer than an employee, gave us some information about the animators and work she tends to choose from the perspective of a studio manager. She co-founded a studio called animate projects with a colleague. They have been working together and doing internships since 2007, and in 2012 they started working remotely and taking on interns. The project she is in charge of has received funding from the Council and the BFI, and she suggested that we could apply for funding from these organisations if we were starting a business. She then talked about who they would like to work with, the style of the films, and also felt re-assured that the films were mainly 2D, and that she, like Sacha, had chosen 2D animation, which made me feel that the audience for 2D animation hadn’t been completely knocked out of the game by the development of 3D. Since I’m leaning towards choosing to pursue a career model in 2D animation or stop-motion animation, this totally restores my confidence.

She gave honest and effective responses to some of the questions we asked, she is totally open and tolerant of any creative types, but at the same time she has her own strict requirements, as it is not an easy task to lead an entire studio. Building it, developing it and enhancing it all require decision makers to make the right and effective choices.

According to the introduction of the two animators’ lectures, I gradually changed from the students’ point of view to the job seekers’ point of view, and they provided me with a lot of space for in-depth thinking, letting me know more clearly what abilities I need, what kind of work I am more suitable for, how to give full play to my own strengths to form my own style and so on, and in the next step, I collected more information on the requirements of the industry and what kind of talents they tend to choose. In the next step, I collected more information about the requirements of the industry and what kind of talents they tend to choose, and what kind of work my ability is more suitable for, and I will make further elaboration.

At the beginning of the semester, we visited the animation studio NEXUS, a creative studio based in London, UK, focusing on the production of animation and visual effects. As an independent production and animation studio, their work is highly acclaimed and makes a positive contribution to cultural exchange. In addition to London, the studio has opened studios in Los Angeles and Sydney to achieve a global, international reach. The studios in each country are able to produce interesting content for an international audience, where different cultures and aesthetic elements are exchanged and blended to provide a wider range of choices for the audience.

They move seamlessly between entertainment, branded content and technology. The studio covers a wide range of areas, whether it’s 2D, 3D or stop-motion animation, and even experiments with AR\XR. Working with real-time technology is both technically and creatively groundbreaking. Nowadays, with the advancement and innovation of technology, computers and artificial intelligence have been widely accepted by the public, animation is not only limited to traditional animated film and TV programme production, it has penetrated into many fields such as advertising, game development, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications, medical and scientific visualisation, education and so on. This diversification has made the animation industry very dynamic, so when I watch film animation projects from studios and some commercial collaborations, I find that the number of 3D animations is much higher. I think this is an inevitable choice of technological advancement in our society nowadays, as 2D animation has a longer and more costly production cycle, and 3D animation is able to produce more exciting, realistic and exaggerated effects in less time.

When I visited the staff production area, basically all the staff were working with 3D software. After I listened to the studio head’s introduction of the animation production process, I was deeply aware of the complexity of the running process of a truly mature animation company. From the initial concept to the production of the final product, many different aspects and expertise are required. 3D animation production usually requires large-scale teamwork, including animators, modellers, programmers, artists and sound designers. After the tour I gained a deeper understanding of how these professionals work together to create high quality animation. At the same time, there is another layer where the project matching staff work, they need to match the project with the A company, understand each other’s needs and convey the needs to the animation team; then screen the animation team’s proposal and communicate with the A party to finalise it, and control the overall progress of the project tempo and operation, which is a very important part of the project.

There is a delicate balance between creativity and technique in animation. Many of the animated films I watched were mv animated for music, which is imagined based on the music, not unfounded images, they need to echo the animated images based on the composer’s story, the mood and tone of the music rendering. The studio handled this aspect of the balance very well, not only echoing the music but also immersing people in the animated performance. It inspired me a lot on how to combine creativity and technology in animation.

At the same time, after visiting a real commercial studio, I also felt the challenges and competition in the industry. The competition in the 3D animation industry is fierce, and there are often many companies competing for a single project, which means that studios also need to keep improving and upgrading, to gain popularity and show strong strength, and studios also need to submit animations to animation festival competitions, and winning awards is a reflection of the entity of the animation studio. If you want to stand out in the industry, winning awards at festivals is a good way to do it. There are many collaborators and industry players at the festivals, which increases exposure and attracts collaborations, and NEXUS Studios have gone from winning BAFTAs and Cannes Grand Prix spots to Oscar-nominated shorts, thanks to their technical expertise. Oscar-nominated short films, to Grammy-winning music promos, animated series and groundbreaking title sequences. Their achievements have also inspired me to become more involved in animation research, as I have seen first-hand examples of success and learnt that hard work and continuous learning are the keys to realising your animation dreams.

I am very grateful to the school to provide us with such an opportunity to let us really contact, understand the real animation industry how they run, how to develop and progress. It gives me a better understanding of the future employment and development direction, and a clearer understanding of my future career development plan. At the same time, I still have a lot to learn and understand, and have a developmental and diversified attitude towards the learning of animation skills.