The PowerPoint presentation goes over what I concider the key findings in my research and can be downloaded from the following link:
Final Research Presentation
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Advice from Ed Hooks about the animation industry
Earlier in the blog I mentioned that I would be sending email to Chris Williams in hopes that he could get me in touch with anyone from Pixar but unfortunately it lead to a dead end.
Then Siobhan Fenton adviced me to try emailing Ed Hooks and see if he could help me.
Very recently I sent him that email and got a reply. To me, his reply is one of the most valuable pieces I have done during my research and it defiantly gave me a lot of intersting information.
Instead of me trying to explain what he wrote me back I think it's much better to share with you the email between me and Ed Hooks:
________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
ED HOOKS ANSWER
Hello Remi -
Then Siobhan Fenton adviced me to try emailing Ed Hooks and see if he could help me.
Very recently I sent him that email and got a reply. To me, his reply is one of the most valuable pieces I have done during my research and it defiantly gave me a lot of intersting information.
Instead of me trying to explain what he wrote me back I think it's much better to share with you the email between me and Ed Hooks:
________________________________________________________________
MY MAIL
Hello!
My name is Remi Vaage and I'm currently a student at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, UK.
The course I'm doing is BA 3D Character Animation and Siobhan Fenton is the module leader in 2 of my modules; Creative Character Animation (Siobhan told me you worked on this module last year) and Studio Practice and Business.
The reason I'm sending you this email is because I am doing research about the animation industry in my Studio Practice and Business module and I have hopes you might be able to answer a few questions regarding the animation industry.
Personally I am studying to become a 3D Character Animator and my biggest dream and ambitions is to one day be working for Pixar.
The reason I want to work with that studio in particular is not just because of the quality of the films they release. It's also about the working enviroment. I've seen pretty much every Pixar film there is and especially the "behind the scenes" features which reveals what a great working enviroment they have at Pixar which is one of the main reasons why I would want to work there.
The reason why I'm telling you this about Pixar is because that's what my research is about. My main goal/ambition is to end up at Pixar but also about how to get into the industry. How to get that first job.
So here it goes:
So do you have any pointers on how to get a job at such a big studio as Pixar? What are they really looking for in a new employee?
In general do you have any pointers on how to get that first job in the industry? To get noticed?
Is freelancing the best way to go or to get hired at a studio/company?
What do you think is the future for 3D animation (Considering that the technology is constantly getting better and Motion Capture for example is getting widely used)?
I know it's not that many questions but it will still be of great help to get them answered by someone who is as profiled in the industry as yourself.
I would like to thank you a lot for your time to read this email and many thanks in advance for any help you can provide me back.
Kind Regards.
Remi Vaage
Read more about my work at my blog: www.djvaagespb.blogspot.com
My name is Remi Vaage and I'm currently a student at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, UK.
The course I'm doing is BA 3D Character Animation and Siobhan Fenton is the module leader in 2 of my modules; Creative Character Animation (Siobhan told me you worked on this module last year) and Studio Practice and Business.
The reason I'm sending you this email is because I am doing research about the animation industry in my Studio Practice and Business module and I have hopes you might be able to answer a few questions regarding the animation industry.
Personally I am studying to become a 3D Character Animator and my biggest dream and ambitions is to one day be working for Pixar.
The reason I want to work with that studio in particular is not just because of the quality of the films they release. It's also about the working enviroment. I've seen pretty much every Pixar film there is and especially the "behind the scenes" features which reveals what a great working enviroment they have at Pixar which is one of the main reasons why I would want to work there.
The reason why I'm telling you this about Pixar is because that's what my research is about. My main goal/ambition is to end up at Pixar but also about how to get into the industry. How to get that first job.
So here it goes:
So do you have any pointers on how to get a job at such a big studio as Pixar? What are they really looking for in a new employee?
In general do you have any pointers on how to get that first job in the industry? To get noticed?
Is freelancing the best way to go or to get hired at a studio/company?
What do you think is the future for 3D animation (Considering that the technology is constantly getting better and Motion Capture for example is getting widely used)?
I know it's not that many questions but it will still be of great help to get them answered by someone who is as profiled in the industry as yourself.
I would like to thank you a lot for your time to read this email and many thanks in advance for any help you can provide me back.
Kind Regards.
Remi Vaage
Read more about my work at my blog: www.djvaagespb.blogspot.com
_____________________________________________________________
ED HOOKS ANSWER
Hello Remi -
Thanks for writing, and please send Siobhan a cyber hug for me. I will be seeing her - and hopefully, you - during Animex in February.
Regardless of which studio you hope to work for, the key that opens the door is a top-drawer show reel. Or an award winning short. I have not looked in a while, but Pixar used to have a list of attributes it looks for in new animators. Number One, as I recall, was "story telling ability". Pixar, like DreamWorks and Sony, is going to use its own proprietary software, and new animators will have to learn it anyway. So the fact that you may have become expert in using the most popular software will be nice, but it won't land you a job. I suggest you poke around in the Pixar website to see what you can find about their procedures and standards for hire. Do the same thing with Disney, DreamWorks, Sony and Blue Sky (20th-Fox).
Pixar has indeed created a fun and stimulating work environment for its animators. The thing is that, by the time you get your show reel together and wrap up your studies at Teesside, Pixar may not be the most desirable place to work. Even before Disney bought it, Pixar was showing signs of production strain, trying to release more movies in a year than are actually ready to be released. Now that John Lasseter is running Pixar plus the animation division of Disney, there is even more pressure. Go to my website, ActingforAnimators.com, and look at the archived newsletters I have written. August, September and October all had references to Pixar's situation.
Speaking of the newsletters, I am going to take the liberty of putting your address into the database so you can receive it. It is free, and it sounds to me like you really ought to be reading them, if only for the craft notes I write each month.
My advice to you is that you not put all your eggs into one basket that is labeled "Pixar". The situation there is too fluid and, anyway, you will find better odds almost any place else. Your best strategy, in my opinion, would be to land a studio job someplace, any place, even at a game company. Once you have your foot in the door, you can start moving from one studio to another. Further, try to get into a studio that is in a major city, whether that be London, Berlin, Beijing, Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco. Good career-building gigs are hard to find in northern UK, unfortunately, but that might change by the time you graduate.
There is a lot more work to be had in games than in feature films, and it is no longer considered slumming to work there. Bay Raitt, the lead animator for Gollum's facial animation at Weta in New Zealand, is working for Valve Software, makers of the "Half Life" games, in Seattle. I know many excellent animators who pop back and forth between game companies and feature animation.
Which brings me to your question about motion capture. The use of it is still limited in feature animation, largely to Sony ("Polar Express", "Beowulf", "Monster House"). Probably 75 percent of game companies use it because it is fast and because the animation does not have to reach the standard of feature animation. It is conceivable that your first job offer would be from a game company that wants you to clean up and finesse mocap data. That's okay. It is a foot into the door. The job you land first does not have to be the one where you stay for twenty five years.
Once you have a drop-dead wonderful show reel, start going to the big animation conferences. Have some business cards made up. Go to FMX in Stuttgart, Germany. If you can, go to Siggraph in the U.S.. Maybe the Game Developers Convention, also in the U.S. Those events are terrific places to network as well as giving you the opportunity to see first-hand the state of the animation art internationally. Really, Remi, you ought to be planning to compete on an international stage. Animation is global. China is pouring a lot of money into development, for example.
One final bit of advice: Even though you aspire to 3D, learn to draw. Go to as many life drawing classes as you possibly can. Learn how to draw the human body. Keep your best stuff for a portfolio, which you can also show to prospective employers.
Good luck to you, Remi. It is a great time to be an animator.
Best -
Ed
Ed Hooks
Acting for Animators
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Online PR
Of all the companies and studios I’ve been mentioning and talking about throughout my blog, pretty much all of them stick to their webpage to give info to the outside world.
The only company who is actually using more than just their webpage is FunCom which can be followed on both Facebook and Twitter.
After looking at FunCom’s Facebook and Twitter page it seems like they’re using these pages to quickly and easily give news updates regarding their games as well as other publicity events/stories.
Since I do have a Facebook account and was curious if Pixar does have a group or not I did a search and came up with countless results of groups that were “Pixar”.
Obviously all of these groups are non official ones and if Pixar do have an official Facebook group I would expect them to put that on their webpage.
When I looked to other companies that I’ve mentioned in my blog, I found a lot of the same thing. All of them except FunCom stick to their own webpages.
It seems to be more common that new and fresh companies and studios that are still at their starting point make use of Facebook/Twitter in order to get noticed and get clients.
All of the companies I’ve been talking about are well established and have been around for quite some time and probably don’t need to use Facebook/Twitter in order to get clients or to get noticed by the public.
Even though FunCom also is a well established company my conclusion is that they are probably just following the flow and found a use for the new tools.
Sources:
Look in Sources Links
The only company who is actually using more than just their webpage is FunCom which can be followed on both Facebook and Twitter.
After looking at FunCom’s Facebook and Twitter page it seems like they’re using these pages to quickly and easily give news updates regarding their games as well as other publicity events/stories.
Since I do have a Facebook account and was curious if Pixar does have a group or not I did a search and came up with countless results of groups that were “Pixar”.
Obviously all of these groups are non official ones and if Pixar do have an official Facebook group I would expect them to put that on their webpage.
When I looked to other companies that I’ve mentioned in my blog, I found a lot of the same thing. All of them except FunCom stick to their own webpages.
It seems to be more common that new and fresh companies and studios that are still at their starting point make use of Facebook/Twitter in order to get noticed and get clients.
All of the companies I’ve been talking about are well established and have been around for quite some time and probably don’t need to use Facebook/Twitter in order to get clients or to get noticed by the public.
Even though FunCom also is a well established company my conclusion is that they are probably just following the flow and found a use for the new tools.
Sources:
Look in Sources Links
The future of the animation industry
The animation industry is without doubt a growing industry both in Norway and worldwide. You might wish I had an article with facts to prove it but simply it’s obvious that this is a growing industry. If you “do the math” you’ll notice that we continuously see new films and work from new studios on the market every year so I don’t think it’s necessary to go more in depth about that since it should be clear enough already.
Of course since it’s a growing industry the technology takes a leap every year. Most software developers/distributors like Autodesk release new versions of their software packages every year.
Every year our hardware get’s better (the goal is to double the computer power every year) and therefore allowing us to constantly make more detailed work (high poly 3D models for example).
Because of the increasing processing power, companies also develop tools for specific tasks like liquid simulations (RealFlow).
We see our render engines becoming better, getting new features that allow us to produce even better imaginary.
The goal for many is most likely to be able to create real photorealistic renders (especially of humans).
Putting the technical aspects aside and returning to animation more specifically again I would like to mention a project for animators I came across during my research I found interesting.
While I was doing research about the future for animation I came across a project called “Mass Animation”.
The Mass Animation Project is lead by Sony Pictures Animation executive Yair Landau and the society asks for both professional and amateur animators to come together and produce a 5min CG animated short that should be released in theatres.
And where does all of this happen?
Actually it all takes place via a group at Facebook.
There is of course a chance you won’t get your own work used in the project itself but it’s a great opportunity to get some of your own work shown and do networking with other people of the same kind. This could as well be a good resource to benefit from as a freelancer as far as I’m concerned. This section might have gone in on PR a bit but I couldn’t see why it would fit under that subject alone which is why I put in this post (It can also be the future of recruiting animators).
Sources:
Of course since it’s a growing industry the technology takes a leap every year. Most software developers/distributors like Autodesk release new versions of their software packages every year.
Every year our hardware get’s better (the goal is to double the computer power every year) and therefore allowing us to constantly make more detailed work (high poly 3D models for example).
Because of the increasing processing power, companies also develop tools for specific tasks like liquid simulations (RealFlow).
We see our render engines becoming better, getting new features that allow us to produce even better imaginary.
The goal for many is most likely to be able to create real photorealistic renders (especially of humans).
Putting the technical aspects aside and returning to animation more specifically again I would like to mention a project for animators I came across during my research I found interesting.
While I was doing research about the future for animation I came across a project called “Mass Animation”.
The Mass Animation Project is lead by Sony Pictures Animation executive Yair Landau and the society asks for both professional and amateur animators to come together and produce a 5min CG animated short that should be released in theatres.
And where does all of this happen?
Actually it all takes place via a group at Facebook.
There is of course a chance you won’t get your own work used in the project itself but it’s a great opportunity to get some of your own work shown and do networking with other people of the same kind. This could as well be a good resource to benefit from as a freelancer as far as I’m concerned. This section might have gone in on PR a bit but I couldn’t see why it would fit under that subject alone which is why I put in this post (It can also be the future of recruiting animators).
Sources:
- Cartoon Brew (The LA Times on the Future of Animation Production)
- Mass Animation
- RealFlow
Qvisten Animasjon
It is actually kind of awkward that I didn’t mention this Norwegian company earlier in the blog. But, better late than never I usually say.
Qvisten Animasjon AS is an animation company located in Oslo who is defiantly on the rise.
After looking into their homepage and portfolio I realized how much work they have actually done that’s been on TV without me being aware of it’s their work.
Of course during a commercial it’s normal that you don’t get to see who actually made it since the commercial itself is promoting another product and usually during commercial breaks it doesn’t come to my head “who made this”.
It’s very easy to get hung up on local companies/studios like Bug and get knowledge of them and then missing out on such a good studio as Qvisten Animasjon located in Oslo.
Qvisten Animasjon AS was established in 1994 and specialises in all kinds of animation.
In their portfolio you can find a huge list of commercials they’ve done as well as shorts, feature length films and TV series.
Back in 2006, Norway released their first feature length 3D animation film called “Slipp Jimmy Fri”(Free Jimmy) which was produced by a company called Storm Studio.
The film did have a very high budget and faced several problems during the production and did get financial problems since the budget became 3 times as much as the original one (total cost of approx 120 mill NOK).
Because of the problems the film’s premiere was also delayed by 1 year.
The film did actually win the “Amanda-prisen” but personally I think it was failure of a film with boring characters, poor story and a poor look in general.
The time after this there has been released a couple of other 3D films but most recently, Qvisten Animasjon premiered with their feature film called “Kurt Blir Grusom” (Kurt Turns Evil).
Of course if I was to compare with the bigger players in the industry like Pixar, Dreamworks etc. Norway does still have a way to go but, Kurt Blir Grusom is defiantly a step in the right direction.
Qvisten Animasjon is also currently working on a new feature film called “Pelle Politibil” which looks very promising.
That’s just one example that proves that the industry is indeed flourishing in Norway and Qvisten Animasjon is defiantly becoming a major player in the field.
If I was to work in Oslo, Qvisten Animasjon would be without doubt my first choice.
Sources:
- Qvisten Animasjon AS
- Wikipedia
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)