Animation Job Applications are a JOKE

don't have five plus years of experience don't have advanced knowledge on a program tough you'll never work again [Music] hey guys it's City compatua and today I'd like to talk about how I feel about animation job applications in general animation work whether it's 2D animation 3D animation storyboarding design vis-dev these are all highly specialized skill sets that require a lot of people to have a good grasp in their overall fundamentals 3D animation for example requires solid drawing skills but a good grasp on performance choreography acting and staging storyboarding requires knowledge on cutting editing timing shot composition camera angles staging as well as many other filmmaking languages these alone should be simple qualifiers to get Studio work or to be eligible for Studio work in the past there were Studios more willing to take in inexperienced artists or artists who have never animated before for an animation position especially in the 80s the culture of mentorship artistic development and training was far more common in the past I mean could you imagine a studio like Ghibli back in the late 80s to the early 90s requesting people with little to no experience to work in their anime Productions so what about nowadays what about the modern world I mean sure some of these major Studios do have a talent development a trainee or internship programs and they cut it off to students only or if you're at a certain age range nowadays there's just a lot of people in the industry there's a lot of artists so the competition pool is also quite High there's also high demand for great content movies or TV shows and it's all happening at Breakneck speeds there's always a new show within a week you know the streaming Wars Studios and Productions are always looking for some of the best artists to make some great content for their platform and Mikey there's a lot more artists in the industry now and there's higher expectations as time goes by so the expectations of skill sets have also increased or they're demanding more but what if it's a little more than just skill sets and I'll get to that soon there's no doubt that students coming out from an animation school or students coming into the animation industry they're getting better and better over time you can tell from some of their student films from their work and just from the expectations of these schools there's way more teenagers jumping into the animation industry starting their experience within anime work so it's common sense that most of these job applications for animation and art look for people who can deliver these standards such as believable performance good staging good design high standards and the best of the best and that should be enough right to qualified for an application well what if they ask for great in-depth knowledge of a certain industry-grade software that is Out Of Reach For Students or someone that is jobless Industry Program licenses are not cheap a job application might ask for people who have five plus years of Studio work I've seen some job applications look for people people of a certain race gender or sexual orientation of an applicant which I personally think is inappropriate but I understand why it happens I'm a person of color myself and I have a lot of opinions about this and sometimes I've seen applications not necessarily job applications but volunteer work projects and they're only looking for artists who are willing to do free work but expecting high standards or high demand so there's this really crappy Catch-22 how can someone who is new and green to the industry gain experience when a lot of these applications can only look for people with a couple of years under their belt and to already have experience with industry grade software and why some of these students really look for internship or training positions to hopefully put their foot within the industry so I did have this experience myself when I applied for a show at Disney TV they turned me down because at the time I only had two years of total storyboarding experience with most of it being featured animation experience and they were looking for people with more TV experience they didn't bother giving a test they just said why don't you try doing a story revisionist role which is an entry-level position I'm personally not against doing something like that but I could not afford it at the time it means a pay cut and of course that would complicate my Visa situation and maybe at that time or maybe they were in a circumstance where they could only look for story artists who could just deliver the work instantly as a new student or someone Green in the industry how can you gain experience when studios are not willing to give those experiences to new timers how can you have software experiences Windows licenses cost so much I mean it makes sense why many students would choose the pirate industry level software or get a really good student discount deal does this mean that you should give up animation work and just look at another field here's what I have to say based on my experience one of the reasons why I got into production was not really because of my store portfolio you know when I talk to my my directors and supervisors about this they said they brought me in because of my personal projects or things that I've worked outside of Industry work when I was still a student I applied for the animation internship for Pixar Animation Studios I got rejected but then I finished my student film tiny Nomad it showed in the producer show and four days after that screening I get a phone call from Pixar saying they are interested in me even though they already said no to me I brought that up and they said well yeah we said no but the supervisors saw your film and we'd like to give you a chance I turned it down because I already accepted an offer from Dreamworks Animation and boy oh boy did Pixar resend my rejection letter although my student film wasn't really a personal project it feels like a personal project to me and that's why I highly encourage you guys to keep investing in your own personal projects there's going to be a lot of story artists who can do exactly what you do as a storyboard artist but there's not a lot of people like you and personal projects can help reflect that I was a part of a miniature series called Pig the dead keeper poems and the reason that they brought me in was because I make short films on my own I know how to start something and end it alright let's say you don't have any personal work but let's say you have a badass demo reel or a badass portfolio for whatever position there's really two things that can happen one is that they reject you because they're really adamant about their requirements such as software and career experience the other path is that they like your work they see you got skills and then they're willing to give you a chance and these chances could look like they're willing to offer you freelance work before they consider you full time or like many other Productions they give you a test to see if you can fit in with the style of the production and then there are other ones where they can bring you in as a mentee an intern a trainee you just have to be careful with those because that's when they can probably take advantage of you and for many this could be your first experience this could be your first time putting your foot in the industry so you can lay a groundwork make connections start building you work for your portfolio and let's talk about your CV or resume let's say you don't have any animation industry experience but what other experiences do you have maybe you worked in retail maybe worked as a barista maybe you worked in other services put that down because it shows that you have worked in a workplace environment you can even put projects that you've been involved with in your resume such as volunteer work collaborations or maybe your own personal projects and describe what roles you had for each of them anything significant is better than nothing okay let's talk about software and software is debatable when it comes to job applications when it's a very skill oriented job I don't think software should matter as much because software can easily be picked up when you already have your skills and Foundation down you could just stick to one software and be a really really good animator good hand-drawn traditional style animator you've only worked in a program like clip studio and you have to learn how to animate in harmony sure it might take time to learn a new program but a lot of the terminology the technique and the practice of Animation should transfer over when I got hired as a storyboard artist at Dreamworks Animation I never boarded in Photoshop which was a requirement for feature boarding in DreamWorks feature animation most of my storyboard work and the story test that I submitted at the time they were all done in Adobe Flash or also known as Adobe animate I didn't start boarding in Photoshop until I got hired into DreamWork and that's where I picked up boarding in Photoshop and the flick system that they were using at at the time also Productions are willing to compromise but the artists with whatever software the artist wants to use as long as they turn in their work in the appropriate format the last production I was in there were storyboard artists using different programs one boarded in TV paint another boarded in storyboard Pro and I was boarding in Photoshop at the time this also counts for anime work too even though most anime Studios use clip Studio I know a lot of animators that use Adobe animate TV paint and tune boom Harmony and they just deliver the drawings in the appropriate format that they're asking for my buddy Nicholas Cole does concept art for video games he just uses his iPad and procreate that's it as long as you can do the work you can turn in the work you can turn in in the appropriate format that they're asking for it's still doable and if you have your foundations and skills down you can easily pick up a new software when it comes to these job applications don't let these high standards scare you from even applying a good job application would look for the type of work they expect other people and then prioritize other things like experience and software later on unless again it's a really specific software related job or a supervision role now as far as applications looking for a specific gender sexual orientation or race that's something that I'll have to share my thoughts in another video I see why it happens I can understand why it happens some points I agree with some points I highly disagree with if your portfolio and reel is amazing and you have some great personal work under your belt that should be enough to give you a chance anyways that's all by interested in learning hand-drawn animation or learning how to finish an animated shot from beginning to end have a look at the store where you'll find the complete introduction to 2D animation video course tutorials and other resources learn classical animation approaches drawing lectures techniques and other process videos visit the store through the link in the description below

Channel: Toniko Pantoja

Views: 61,847

Keywords: Toniko Pantoja, Youtube, Animation, Tutorial, Advice, Lesson, Vlog, Adobe, Photoshop, Animate, Flash, After Effetcts, Premiere, Video, Film, Drawing, Tips, Gestures, tvpaint, toonboom, harmony, storyboard, pro

Id: EdCqrA0daxs

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023