The Animation Student

27/6/2017

STORYBOARD ARTIST FIRST STEPS (5 /8) : As a Student and as a Storyboard Artist

The main issue with wanting to be a storyboard artist is that getting started with storyboards is not exactly easy, since there is not just one way to do storyboards. They are made for the production you are in and they all change with the type of production. Between books like Cristiano, G. (2008) The Storyboard Design Course where he approaches different points about many different aspects of storyboarding such as director notes and the difference between storyboard for animation and shooting boards.

One of my principal fears of going all the way into storyboard from the beginning was the professional opportunities that it has in the local animation industry and in the international one, as I also have to keep thinking on where i am going to be in the future and what is my professional projection.

In general, looking for professionals currently working in the industry has been very enlightening and useful since I decided to focus on storyboard: getting in touch with people working on the field I am interested in is the best way to know what to expect and how to prepare myself for it.

THE RESEARCH

The interviews I have conducted through my research have influenced widely my approach to storyboarding, because the different artists I have spoken with have told me about the discipline and the importance of order and continuous improving of one’s own process. These interviews gave me great insights on how it is like to work for different clients and formats, They also let me hanging on several aspects widely on how to get out there and get a job in the industry. The information they all gave me is mainly about their own experience when they started, be it several years ago, in other parts of the world or juts with other conditions to their first job. I was still lacking on that first step.

I learnt that their advice, even if well intentioned was at some extent not helpful completely, and for the same reason following it blindly would have been a mistake . The professionals with longer trajectories coincide that the use of specialized software is not really an important tool to get into a job, while a couple of canadian storyboard artists in starting jobs, even in the other side of the world, insisted it was one of the advantages they had. After that, my own experience getting a storyboard test in a local studio showed me that they were looking for someone who was already familiar with the software, since they were already using it. People on entry jobs have to easily adapt to their new studio environment and even if learning the software on the job is a possibility, it just makes it harder on new graduates to getting use to an industry level of work and on top of that, learn a software they have used just once. Being on top of the technology used in professional environments seems to be part responsibility of newbies and ignoring it would just make it more difficult at the moment to get a job.

25/6/2017

Question Time 01

Anonymous asked: Ok so i live abrood and i wanna lern animation at calarts (like all my heros of coures) but i bascliy have no money for that.. i do have a uk passport so i can go lern there for much cheaper What do you think i should do? Try and get to my dream school or go for something more relstic?
original source

Friend! my my!! many thanks for asking!
What I am going to say is totally my opinion tho, so, Just.. yeah, have that in mind.
I am not going to go into the should you go to art school or not, I am going with the idea you want to get an art degree :O

Let’s see: Money is pretty important in the matter of living :’’)) and i know Calarts and the big usa schools can be hella f expensive, even more for ~~internationals~~ SO, yeah that is a big factor why i never choose to go there..
But also here in the UK can be really good schools and studios imo. One of the reasons to even spend money going to study abroad is, by far, the options of getting real experience from studios and animators and is a good idea to go to a country that actually produces animation you know?
My decision was something like: if you are going to invest THAT much money (as any art school is)…it is a good idea to be realistic about how much you can spend, and later how you are going to pay for a loan if you need one. and a place that has an animation industry is the best option.
Here is the thing: california has A LOT of the animation industry BUT also is way too expensive.
For me the option will always be something rational about paying in the future bc drowning in debt is NOT a good thing to enjoy my career…
The other thing is if you want to go to calarts for the sake of going to calarts or if you want to work in places like cartoon network or anywhere where the calarts graduate ppl go. Calarts have all the good connections and netwroking in this industry is like big part of the success… but also there are a lot of good artists that end up working in the same places because they are good, and not necessarily by studying in calarts
one of the things my mentor said to me is that is your personal work the one that matters, and that I should be looking at the portfolios from ppl from gobelins and calarts bc that is what the industry is looking for and aim for that level of professionalism. he never said style or anything like that, just that my portfolio should be able to compete with theirs… bc we will be aiming for the same jobs.
At the end is something that you can do by studying them from anywhere in the world.
Having good mentors and teachers you can ask the basics and that can sit down with you and really help you develop your skills is what you want and there are so many good teachers in the UK it is amazing tbh, i really like it here in that aspect :>
(you know, most teachers really want to share what they know, and finding some student that really want to learn is what keep them alive. vivan los profesores tbh)

Sorry for the long answer, I hope i t helps: but yeah, in conclusion:
I would not recommend drowning in some debt just to go to renown school and maybe better aim for a mid term goal of working alongside them, since you dont really need a specific school to develop skills, but what you gotta do is study what they do, recent graduates, portfolios, that kind of thing. you can do that and end up working with them and even better have also a different perspective in some things, and that may be the things that lands you a spot with them.
remember that animation is a team industry and you work with many many artists in a single project, and that is great imo <3

good luck tho, this is such a big decision, if you have any more questions about it or just need someone to bounce ideas, yeah, im here to help ;v;

Sometimes I get questions in my art blog about studying animation and being a storyboard artist

23/6/2017

Comments

The Door : RAM PROJECT

Composer: RockeyKeting
Animators : Karolina Bielskyte ,LuisaCruz, AlexCoad, EwanSchwarz.
Location: Shoreditch Town Hall, THE DITCH, Old Document Store
Running time: 1:30s.

Our video projection idea is based on the door that leads from Old Document Store to Rivington Room. We used this opportunity and create a site-specific animation that was projected on top of the Old Document Store door and the sidewall with element from the Bauhaus art movement.
The annual collaborative project with the Royal Academy of Music which involves collaborating with composers to realize a site specific experimental music film. The project was based in the Three Penny Opera from 1928.
We used two projectors to cover the wall with the door and the corner of the wall on the right.

I had the experience of my grad project which was a two video Installation Art.
all the info about that one is here: CATS MAKE YOU WANT TO STAY IN (2015)

Space