Why Animators Need to Apply Widely

Landing that first job in the animation industry isn't easy.  But what many graduates forget is just how many opportunities are out there. 

Alongside the world-beating UK animation companies like Aardman Animation, Blue Zoo, Framestore and DNEG are hundreds of small companies that are much less well known. 

There are almost 500 animation companies in the UK with at least one employee (ie not just a one-man-band) and this creates a huge opportunity for an animator with the patience to look beyond the famous names.

How Much Animation Do Studios Expect?

How many seconds?

How much animation does a studio expect an animator to deliver each week? The answer depends on the studio, and what kind of work is being expected. On a high-end feature film such as the kind made by Disney and Pixar, an animator might be expected to complete around five seconds of animation each week - and sometimes even less.

On a TV series where budgets are tight and deadlines loom, an animator might be expected to complete as much as 30 seconds of completed animation each week.

Blue Zoo To Keep Remote Working Post-Covid

Tom Box (right) with animation students

In a recent interview at Cartoon Brew, Blue Zoo co-founder Tom Box explains why remote working is here to stay.  Since Covid-19 broke, around 700,000 people have left London, and this change is reflected at Blue Zoo animation, where many of their team have left the capital for good.  

According to Tom: "Blue Zoo is no longer really a London based company, even though we have (empty) offices there. Now, just 30% of our team live in London. Over last 10 months lots of staff relocated across the UK for a better work/life balance.  London has changed forever".

Is 2D Animation Making a Comeback?

Is 2D Animation Making a Comeback? It's a question I get asked a great deal. It seems that in recent years the answer to the question is - at last - "yes".  2D Animation is booming all around the world, with studios such as Blue Zoo animation in London setting up a whole new 2D Animation division, using Toomboom Harmony for their pipeline. Nonetheless, in the end, it's all about getting the right skills. To be a successful animator, you need to learn how to animate.

10 Rules to Survive Animation Dailies

Moviola

Animation dailies take place each morning, when artists working on a project meet-up to share their work in its current state. The purpose is to make sure everyone is moving in the right direction and to get feedback from the director, client, producer or supervisor. Think of it as a critique session where everyone watches everyone else's work.

Dailies can take some time to get used to. For newbie animators, having your work critiqued on a big screen in front of all your colleagues and peers can be very intimidating.

Your first instinct will be to hide under your chair, and say nothing. But to thrive and prosper, animators must learn how dailies work, and how to make the system work for them.  Below are our tips to get the best out of animation dailies.

Star Wars Rogue One at the VFX Festival

This past week the Rich Mix arts centre in Shoreditch played host to the London VFX Festival, and ILM's presentation of The making of "Star Wars Rogue One" was - unsurprisingly - one of the most popular events.

John Galloway - compositing supervisor at ILM, and Steve Ellis, CG Supervisor, were there to introduce the "Star Wars Rogue One" story, one of 2016's most successful VFX movies.

So, how did the London ILM team help to create such an impressive film, and how did they meet the expectations of the legions of Star Wars fans?

Govt Industrial Strategy Highlights Creative Industries - Good News for Our Students

Support for "Creative Industries"

Theresa May's Government recently released an Industrial Strategy that highlights a number of sectors that they believe will lead to new jobs and growth in the future.

Among these are listed the creative industries, suggesting that our Government will continue to offer support to the business of - among other things - animation, games and visual effects.

Time to Register for BVExpo!

Time to Register for BVExpo! BVExpo is an annual event that describes itself as "the UK's leading entertainment and media tech event".

The Expo takes place from 28 February until 2nd March at the ExCeL London and - best of all - it's completely free. As ever, we recommend that our students attend events like this - it's a great way to keep up with the latest trends in our industry and find out where future opportunities lie.  It's especially interesting for animators interested in broadcast graphics.

Animated Women UK launch "The Achieve Programme"

This week, Animated Women UK launch "The Achieve Programme" - their first ever programme focused on helping women in animation and VFX to achieve their full potential.

Official sponsors of the programme include Creative Skillset, Disney, Turner, Escape Studios and The Mill. For any of our students in the London area, this could be a great opportunity to break into the industry, and make connections with leading companies.

What Is "Safe Title" And "Safe Action"?

Red is unsafe. Safe action is in yellow. Safe title is in green.

What Are Safe Title and Safe Action?  And why do animators need to know? The answer is that an understanding of the language of cinematography and film is part of what our students learn on their professional journey.

After all, animators are film-makers, and we need to be familiar with industry standard terms. We need to know not just about animation but also about cameras; how to use them and what to do with them.

So, what exactly, do the words "safe action" and "safe title" mean?

Six Leading Animation Directors Interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter has interviewed six leading animation directors: Pete Docter (Inside Out), Pete Sohn (Good Dinosaur), Richard Starzak (Shaun the Sheep), Steve Martino (Peanuts Movie), Charles Kaufman (Anomalisa), and Roger Allers (The Prophet). The directors talk about their shared journey bringing animated films to the screen, and the many challenges they had to overcome along the way. The panel discussion is one hour long.

Cinematography, Stanley Kubrick and One Point Perspective

Kubrick // One-Point Perspective from kogonada on Vimeo.

This excellent 90 second video is titled "Cinematography, Stanley Kubrick and One Point Perspective". It's all about the work of legendary director Stanley Kubrick, showing how Kubrick uses camera angles with single-point perspective to enhance the story telling of his films. Cinematography, of course, is a whole discipline it itself, and can involve a lifetime of study to master. But animators need to understand at least the basics of cinematography, knowing how to compose a shot and get successfully from one shot to another. The camera can, and should be, a part of the storytelling process.

How Framestore Brought "Pan" To Life

At the recent BlueGFX Expo on London’s South Bank, students of animation and visual effects were treated to a wide variety of lectures and workshops - all of of which were completely free.

One of the most interesting talks was by Stuart Penn from Framestore, where he explained how the visual effects house pulled off the exceptional challenges of creating the animation and VFX work for Warner Bros’ latest blockbuster fantasy adventure: Pan.

Events like BlueGFX are a great way for students to get a deeper understanding of how the industry works, and to stay on top of the latest trends and technology.

Amazing! Fantastic! Incredible! - The Biography of Stan Lee Is Out!

Amazing! Fantastic! Incredible! - The biography of Stan Lee is out! Titled "A Marvelous Memoir" (Geddit?), this new book chronicles the extraordinary career of comics legend Stan Lee.

In fact, Lee was on Radio 4 this morning, talking about his career, and telling great stories (clearly much told, but with no loss of enthusiasm) about turning points in his life like the birth of Spiderman.

Spidey and the other Marvel characters have since gone on to found what is apparently the most successful film franchise in history, bigger even than Harry Potter or James Bond.

So what about the royalties? Mr Lee must be rolling in gold, right? After all, he created the characters. Well, apparently not. Stan Lee was, as he put it: "a writer for hire". It was the company he worked for that got rich on the royalties, not him. And this is an important lesson for all our students:

Don't sign away the rights to your creations, unless you absolutely have to. 

Remembering The Iron Giant

In this excellent blog post, animator Stefan Franck reflects on  what it was like to work on The Iron Giant under the leadership of the supremely talented Brad Bird.

Iron Giant has just been re-released in theatres in the USA, a fitting tribute to a film which under-performed at the box office when it was first released in 1999.  For those of use who worked on the film, this was a huge shock. How could such a great film perform so poorly? Why did no-one want to see it?

Conspiracy theories grew. The studio wanted to kill it (because giant corporations love losing money!). The marketing department screwed up.  "They" wanted to close down Warner Bros Feature Animation. "They" wanted to teach Brad Bird a lesson.

Cinematography with Ben Davis at BAFTA

One of the best things about BAFTA is its focus on regular lectures and seminars on filmmaking. 

A recent event at the Picture house Central on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue featured an interview with Cinematographer Ben Davis, whose screen credits include Kick-Ass, Before I Go to Sleep and Guardians of the Galaxy. But why should an animator need to know about cinematography? Because animators are film- makers, and anything that helps you to understand the art of visual story telling will make you better at your craft. And who better to learn from than one of the UK’s best cinematographers?

Annecy Survival Guide - How To Navigate the World's Biggest Animation Festival

Annecy - an ancient medieval town in the French Alps

The International Festival of Animation at Annecy is the world’s biggest animation festival. It can be a slightly overwhelming experience; there are so many things going on at once that it can be hard to feel like you really get to make the most of being there. Alongside the film festival is MIFA – the world’s biggest animation marketplace, a brain-boiling congress of industry types furiously buying and selling. But Annecy is an event that every animator should go to at least once – if only to get a feeling for the sheer size and diversity of the modern animation industry.

Performance Capture in The Hobbit

Motion Capture, nowadays often called Performance Capture, gets bigger all the time and is increasingly used as a part of the animator's toolkit. In the excellent video above, animators from WETA Digital who worked on The Hobbit explain how MoCap was used to create the barrel ride sequence in the second film in the series. It's a fascinating insight into how MoCap can be incorporated into the production pipeline, used creatively by the animators to improve and polish their performances.

What Is Transmedia?

The Internet. Image: Wikipedia

Once Upon a Time there was Media. Then, there was Multi Media. Then, there was New Media. Later, there was Cross Media, and eventually 360 Media.  But nowadays, it's all about your TransMedia strategy. And yes, you really do need one - at least, anyone with a product to sell. At a recent conference on the business of making animated films, Mahesh Ramachandra, Transmedia Producer & Strategist, explained what a Transmedia strategy is, and why we all need one.

Marc Godfrey Animator at Blue Zoo

Blue Zoo animation

Marc Godfrey is a talented animator who was one of the first students to sign up for the course at Animation Apprentice.

He is also one of the most dedicated, and we are proud that his dedication and commitment to the craft of animation has been recognised by the industry in the form of a job Blue Zoo, now the UK's largest independent TV animation studio.