Reel Great Advice

Written by cosmicfool on the 11 second club blog...

I just finished reading a book titled Writing Movies For Fun and Profit.
Its basically a realistic satire into what the film industry is looking for and how to make it as a writer. With that being said a lot of the wisdom's they offer to writers apply to animators.
So in point form here is some blunt food for thought for the young animators or job seekers out there.

1. Studios are only interested in making piles of money, period.

2. If you know what it is you want to do, and know where you want to work, research it. Live close to it. Tailor everything you do to it.

3. Discipline. This is what separates amateurs from professionals. ALWAYS BE ANIMATING. If you want to work in the industry and are presently not, you should feel compelled to animate everyday.
Why do you need to animate everyday?
1) Most of what you do won't be on your reel.
2) You will improve with everything you do.
3) Animating something becomes easier after you have done it once, imagine after 100 times. Seriously, animate a ball once. Time yourself. Save that scene. Do it 50 more times. Time yourself. Only compare the first and the last. I promise you, not only will the last one look better. It will have took you 1/10 the time.
4) You will have things to show a studio if they ask to see any of your work that is not on your reel, and it won't look like crap. 5)You won't still be in love with the shot that no one but you and your mom like, and you will be more inclined to throw it in the garbage and start something better, or you will be more inclined to take feedback and fix it.

4. Observe things everywhere. Life is one giant pose and character library. A good animator observes how ppl around them move, how they behave, how they hold themselves etc... If your not at home animating, you better be observing things that will help your animation.

5. This is the most important thing in this list. Everything you ever animate, ever, needs to be entertaining. If it's not, stop what you are doing, right away. Unless you are learning a principle, or its a school lesson, STOP NOW. Or unless you are entering some odd film competition, that 95 ppl out of 100 would want to punch you and the films watched in the face. STOP. If you don't know what's entertaining, or how to make a shot entertaining, STOP, ask everyone you know to look at your work and what you can do to inject entertainment into it. If you still don't know, STOP, watch every movie you can. If you still don't, STOP, rethink your career. All humans watch t.v, cartoons, movies and play video games with one purpose and only one purpose, TO BE ENTERTAINED.

6. Don't reinvent the wheel. No one wants you to. There are 12 principles of animation. Learn them, use them. If you are getting feedback and are always hearing ppl tell you that you're missing some of the principles. In all honesty, if you haven't mastered those principles stop doing advanced animation, you aren't ready.

7. Don't waste anyone's time(this goes for yourself as well). If you are seeking feedback to build a reel, and aren't applying what people are telling you, they will stop giving you feedback. This sounds harsh, but I've seen it happen many many times. If your reel is still under construction, you should be devoting the majority of your waking time to it, any other time is wasted time. If you know what you are putting on your reel, you should seek feedback on every shot, until you know how to structure your reel to be as entertaining as possible. Fingers crossed ppl are still willing to help you at this stage. If you are having someone watch your reel, they don't want to see 5 minutes of average work. We all know after 5 seconds if we want to watch your reel. If we aren't impressed at 10 we stop, if we are bored by 20 you've lost us. Think of it this way, two writers who have made 1.5 billion dollars for a studio only get 10 minutes to pitch a new script. How much time should an animator get to sell their reel?

Vivienne To: Words of Advice

I found this post on the blog of Animation Ideas to be very interesting, insightul and useful. In it, the author describes what Vivienne To, a concept artist and illustrator at Animal Logic, had to say about her career from being a student to present day.

Starting off...
Everyone worries they’ll be discovered as a fraud
Doubting your own ability at the start of your career is normal. In fact, it could be healthy.
Vivienne was careful to work as quickly and as hard as she could in her junior roles to help ensure future work.

Working...
Being creative on someone else’s schedule is hard
When you’re a student – you can create whenever you like. Once you turn pro – you can’t wait for the muse to show up. You put your head down and get to work.
Taking all the subjects you didn’t like in art school is great preparation for doing all the unglamorous jobs when you get hired.

Take it to the extreme...
Push an idea too far – and then back off
Vivienne was convinced it was much better to take a concept design to its extreme first, and then come back if you need to.
In her words, you didn’t want to leave a design wondering whether you could have made it more expressive, or more caricatured, or more dramatic.

Working for free...
Do what you can to do good work with good people
When asked whether Vivienne had done work for free, she replied that she had in her early career, but that she always tried to applied a rule to the jobs she’d accepted.

Is the work good?
Are the people good?
Is the money good?
If you can’t answer “yes” to at least two of those questions, then you should carefully consider your next step.

Another Thing They Don't Teach You...

When I graduated from University, I had no idea what the real world of work was going to be like. If there is one thing I would criticise, it is the lack of information for the students about the reality of business in the UK (it doesn't paint a pretty picture); that most of us will at some point be self-employed/freelancing if we want to stay in the chosen industry (on my course this covered CG, Web and A/V). Fortunately, it hasn't taken me too long (approximately 4 months) to land a cushty job as an Animator in a very nice studio in the West Midlands. And there have been quite a few things to learn-on-the-job, one of which has been brought up over on the Muddy Colors blog; INVOICING.

The invoice is very important to any self employed person and this post takes the various sections of the invoice and breaks them down to describe what they actually mean to us.

Tips and Tricks From An Art Slave

Over on the Muddy Colors blog, Eric Fortune has posted a fantastic list of tips and tricks for artists everywhere to improve not only their work but their day to day life. They make a lot of sense and I think I have fallen/may fall into these traps at some point. Heed the warning now!..

1. Get up happy. Say some affirmations. Get rid of the negative chatter in your head-that voice that says things like, “I’m not coming up with any good ideas. I’ll never make this deadline. I’ll never be good enough to do this job.” Instead, train that voice to say something positive. Reprogram yourself. “I am illustrating books that people love. I am happy with my art. My career is going great. I am a successful artist…” This might sound too simple, and you’ve probably heard it before from the self –help gurus. Have you ever actually tried it….consistently over a few months?

2. Exercise and stay healthy. This is not an option. When you feel healthy, you are more open and ideas come more quickly.

3. Sit quietly each day, do yoga, or meditate. Get calm and peaceful so that when the ideas come, you actually realize they are there. Worry, anger, fear, and other emotions actually block the ability to grasp those sparks of imagination. [Spend time off of your iPhone, Twitter, Facebook - a whole day if that's possible!]

4. Create a place and time to be at work. This is important if you are working at home. Your mind needs to understand, “I am now at work. I will now be creative.” So sharpen your pencils, put on music, sit before your drawing table and begin.

5. Don’t talk too much about your ideas; this depletes some of the magic. On a subconscious level, your wonderful idea has become a real thing in the world. It’s not real, and it won’t be, until you do it. So, instead of sharing your magnificent thoughts, go make the work happen.

6. Take time outs doing something you love. Go to a museum. Sit by a lake. Walk though the woods. You must replenish yourself. Fill the well. Don’t view this as goofing off…this time is very important.

7. Don’t be a workaholic. This is difficult, because you won’t know it, until it’s too late. Your friends and family will know it before you will. ONLY YOU CAN CONTROL THIS. Be the work police and set your own boundaries. Make a contract with yourself. “I do not wok on Tuesday and Sunday. I go on vacation without my work. I have lunch with a friend on Friday every week. I only work from 9am to 2pm. “Put up a sign. Remind yourself that you are free to set your own schedule. Work as late or as little or as early as you want, but make sure you’re enjoying the pace.
Remember, somebody you know will be published before you or more often than you. They will be more successful. They will sell more books. They will get more speaking engagements. You think you will never make it. You won’t…unless you stop working so hard to catch up. Find your own pace. Find your own style. Do what works for you. Be patient. Change happens in incremental ways. When you consciously make these daily choices, you will see a big difference in your life over time…and you will be balanced enough to notice!

For Pay or Not For Pay?

I'll keep this short and brief, but it's very important to say and I don't think anyone has said it as succinctly than Harlan Ellison...



Since graduating from Uni and trying to find my first step on the ladder to my career, I am constantly (and not alone with this struggle) faced by people who want me to work for free (this equates to the amount of time spent learning the craft, my time creating the work and the huge amount of money I have invested in both). I have so far had three people; two film-makers and a writer, come to me (not the other way round) asking for animation work to be done for free with the INCENTIVE of great publicity or money later on when investors take interest and capital begins to grow.

Now, I have just read this rule of thumb blog post by Arnie Fenner (via David Martinez), which gives some good advice to artists across the board. The last paragraph though, really stands out for me and relates to the issues artists today face with amateur, young, students doing work for free.

"Don't Work On Spec
That's not the same as doing pro-bono or charity work, both of which can and should be done as you deem appropriate. No, what I'm talking about is when someone has a simply TERRIFIC idea—but no money—and wants the artist to work some magic for them so the entrepreneur will have something to show prospective suckers...er...investors to make the project a reality. These sorts of pie-in-the-sky projects almost never come to fruition or, if they—miracle-of-miracles—do, they virtually never turn into a paycheck for the artist. Work for pay, get everything in writing, and don't fall prey to the shysters. Likewise, if someone wants to use your art, demand compensation of some sort. Harlan Ellison, in an absolutely magnificent outburst in Dreams With Sharp Teeth, talks about paying the writer: it goes the same for artists."

At times, I know it can be very difficult to make that decision; to work for free or not. But even if that free work is going to look good in the showreel or on a portfolio, we have to remember that in the long run it harms the industry for the people at the top, which I hope will one day be me!

How To Approach A Shot

An old blog post by an excellent character animator Nick Bruno, highlights a personal checklist full of useful questions to ask yourself what you need to do and look for before opening the animation software.

The points he raises are:
- Know the character
- Study the sequence
- What is the point of that moment in the shot
- Check storyboard panels
- Look around the set
- Listen to the audio
- Your own personal experience
- Draw thumbnails and experiment
- Act it out
- References
- Revise the 12 principles

There are many more he includes from his own personal experience. Check it out HERE

Via David Martinez