3 minute read
Autonomous Animator
Opportunities Autonomous Animator
By Martin Grebing
The Three Career Paths
So you want a career in animation or visual effects, but don’t know where to start? Many believe that there are actually only three real options available, so you’ll need to choose wisely.
Work for Others
The most common career path that millions of people around the world take and is more often than not the default for animation — or any industry, for that matter — is to work for someone else. This is otherwise known as “a job.”
To go down this path, you need to submit a resume and demo reel, land an interview, negotiate terms and, hopefully, end up with an offer. From there, you’ll be taking your cues from a team leader or other supervisor, producing your best work and getting paid a salary or hourly rate (and hopefully benefits and incentives to boot).
In this scenario, it is the studio’s responsibility to keep you busy and to honor their contractual agreement with you pertaining to payments and perks.
You will more than likely not have a choice regarding the type of work or projects you will be handed nor your level of involvement (at least in the beginning), but they will more than likely keep you very busy.
There may be opportunities for advancement or not, but as long as the company stays afloat and as long as you do a great job, you should be able to hang your hat there for a while or at least until your contract expires.
Many people that take this career path have many stops along the way, moving from one company to the next, which can be exciting for some and daunting for others.
Build a Studio
For those with an entrepreneurial spirit and endless optimism, building your own studio may be the best choice. The failure rate of new start-up small businesses is staggering, but with connections, guerilla business training and unfettered determination, starting your own animation or visual effects studio can be a dream career for the right person. The benefits of being your own boss are numerous and epic. So, too, are the responsibilities. Unlike having a job, being a business owner requires you to find the work and bring it to the table. You will assume the role of looking for and hiring animators and effects artists, rather than being the one hired. You will incur all the liability and pressure of maintaining constant cash flow to pay your team and yourself.
You will need to focus on big-picture business goals as opposed to being an animator setting keyframes all day. Your day-to-day will require less creative production prowess and more business acumen. As a business owner, you often do not clock in or out. In other words, if something needs to be done or if an important phone call or email comes in, it will often need to be handled by you immediately, regardless of time of day, night or lack of sleep.
Work for Yourself
A third option, and quite possibly the path least travelled, is that of the facilitator or middle-person. This person doesn’t do production and doesn’t necessarily own their own studio, at least not in the traditional sense, but rather makes connections for others. Sometimes called an agent or producer, this career choice
Just like the characters on Disney+’s Monsters at Work, animation industry hopefuls have a wide variety of colorful job choices to pick from.
requires intimate knowledge of the inner circles of the industry and a solid-gold Rolodex (or the equivalent digital contact list).
You may help connect the right studio to the right project or you may help someone promote and/or land a production deal for their idea. You could even be contacted by a client that would like to have an animated project produced but they have no idea how to get started and you could serve as the consultant.
Perks of this job are the potential (if not requirement) for lots of travel, meeting and connecting new people all the time, lots and lots of schmoozing at ritzy locales, rarely spending full-time hours on your job, but with the potential for much more than full-time earnings, and being on the inside of the industry, behind the curtain. For someone who is slick, confident and truly a people person, this could be the career of a lifetime.
With only three options available, you need to think long and hard about what gets you the most excited because if you are not passionate about the possibilities, you’re probably heading down the wrong path! ◆
