Week 5 - UK Animation & Games Industry

After looking at the New Zealand animation and games industry for the past couple of weeks, this week I wanted to look at the what the UK has to offer. In total there are over 4, 700 people who work in animation in the UK, this number covers 2D, 3D and stop motion. Most studios will concentrate on one discipline, were as some studios like Aardman Animations will use all 3.

One way of starting out in the industry is being a Runner. Also known as production assistants this is a apprenticeship approach where animation skills are gained from experienced artists at the studio. Some skill in drawing, animation and 3D modelling is expected, however your jobs will be delivering and collecting materials and helping out around the office. The experience and skills gained from doing a job like this I think are invaluable. Being able to see how everything fits together and getting feedback of your from people who work at the studio can  help you become a better artist. http://www.creativeskillset.org/animation/overview/

Further looking into how to get a job in the animation industry I found an article by Dr Val Williamson giving some interesting advise. http://drval.over-blog.com/article-animation-85867517.html
 The first paragraph discusses getting the correct qualification to get into the industry. also having a show reel displaying your work and having a done a dissertation based around animation will look good on your CV. These are things I'm doing already for example the show reel I've started to plan out and basing my dissertation on animation. The article also talks about animation festivals as being a good way to network and gain contacts with people already working in the industry. This would include events like Game City which I've been to many times, however there are animation focus based ones happening all the time for example the London International Animation Festival that's taking place this week.

Week 4 - Show Reel Plan

This week I've begun planning my portfolio showreel that I'll present at the end of the term. I want my show reel to be mainly animation based however I would have my 3D environment from the module Advanced 3D Graphics. This is my plan so far:

Plan – Aiming for around 1:30 to 2:00 minutes approx

“Staring at Me” Animation

“Make 10 louder” Animation

3D Environment – turn around

“Resume” Animation

Super Collateral Animation – Rig and model done by Josh and Cemal

Independent Studies Animation 

More will be added at a later date as I collect more ideas. For the animations I've planned so far that contain dialogue I'm using the website http://www.moviewavs.com/. Up to now I've it to be a reliable website to use and offers files that are compatible with the Maya software. I've also been considering what character rigs I'll be using for some of these animations I have planned. For past work I've used the Max for Maya rig. however I would like to use other rigs for some of the animations as this would show variety in my show reel.

Week 4 - Looking into more Animation studios

Looking more into Oktobor Animation, I came across an interview with Rob Dififlia who's head of production and Bruce Everett managing director. One question asked was "Is New Zealand's tertiary institutes producing enough graduates with the skills you need to grow Oktobor?" In his answer Rob says "A lot of the graduates come to us as a first step in animation." This shows that Oktobor Animation understand that students coming from animation courses need a jumping point to begin their career.
http://www.idealog.co.nz/blog/2013/04/inside-oktobor-animation

I wanted to see what other animation companies their are. As I was looking at a studio that has a relationship with Nickelodeon, I thought it would be a great idea to look at Nickelodeon Animation Studios itself. http://nickanimationstudio.com/ Based in Burbank California they produce 2D and 3D shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and SpongeBob SquarePants. Nickelodeon also have thier own YouTube channel dedicated to the studio featuring information about being an intern at the studio and the correct way you hand in your portfolio.

Even though the portfolio video is corny at times for humorous purposes it's still gives a lot of insight into the correct ways you need to submit your portfolio for example handing over the correct forms otherwise the studio won't even look at your portfolio. In the video they also discuss the interview process you have to go through to get the job at the studio. However this is fun video made by the interns at Nickelodeon in 2011. Near the end of this video they show a mock interview, this reminded me of a similar task we did this week in the lesson. 1 person was being interviewed while 1 person was the interviewer and the final person took notes. The questions were all done for us and the job role we were applying for was whatever we wanted (for me an animator) at the company Mind Candy (http://mindcandy.com/).  

Back to Nickelodeon this video involves interns being interviewed about their day to day job. In the video they discuss the positives of being an intern at a studio like Nickelodeon. Being able to talk to artist who have worked on your favourite shows and being able to get feedback on your own portfolio are just some the amazing factors to being an intern at the studio. At the end of the day it's all about who you know. They also brief us what the average day consists of for an intern for example naming storyboards and sending animation done to other studios like DreamWorks Animation.

Week 3 - New Zealand and Australia Gaming Industry

A group task for this week was to look into what the gaming industry is like in other countries. In my group we looked into the gaming industry in New Zealand and Australia. I focused on New Zealand and while looking I found a lot of interesting facts. Both New Zealand and Australia have a greater focus in developing mobile/tablet and social media games rather than AAA titles. The industry as a whole is not very big at all. A survey took by the New Zealand Dame Design Association shows that in 2010 there were 186 people working in the gaming industry, that grew in 2011 reaching 289 people and finally in 2012 there was 367 people.  From looking at these results it's only expected to grow even more in 2013.
 http://www.careers.govt.nz/jobs/information-technology/game-developer/how-to-enter-the-job

An article found from the New Zealand Herald Chris Harris the founder Ninja Kiwi states that there are "huge opportunities" for the individuals and companies looking to create games for people on smart phones. Ninja Kiwi was founded in 2006 by brothers Stephen and Chris Harris and since the company grown to 40 people. Ninja Kiwi made $5 million in it's last financial year mainly thanks to the game Bloons Tower Defence 5 that reached number 2 in the IOS charts in its first week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10883915

From the looks of things the industry is on the rise even though the community is small it's gradually increasing. Outside of the lesson I wanted to research what what it's like getting a job as a animator in New Zealand. http://www.careers.govt.nz/jobs/creative-design/animator/job-opportunities Using the careers website as before, I found the animator role however it's also includes Illustrator too. Comparing this to the game developer role the numbers are a lot bigger, in 2012 the total number of people working as a animator/illustrator is 754.

It also states on the previous website it's harder to get a into this kind of field in the gaming industry. Majority of animators are employed full time, however some work as freelance and contract work. With the gaming industry and companies themselves being small in size it's expected for them to have very few jobs in the animation sector as many companies are developing app games. However I did come across an article about an animation company called Oktobor Animation. Oktobor Animation produce computer animated shows like Kung-Fu Panda, Pengiuns of Madagascar and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon Studios. These are really big shows based on huge movies and are viewed by 400 million households around the world. All this really attracts me to possibly consider New Zealand.

I wanted to look deeper into the company Oktobor itself. Going onto their company website, I was able to find various information about the company. On their website they state all their contact details and addresses so you are able to personally give out your portfolio to them or email and call them. Even though this isn't a company that makes video games I would still be interested in working for a company like Oktobor working on TV programmes or even movies.

Week 2 - Portfolio Research

Home work set from week 1 was to find examples of good and bad portfolios. When browsing through portfolios we had to consider the talent of work shown and production quality of the website. When I began researching, I went back to early showreels I had watched when researching ideas for my Specialist 3D project. Something I only noticed till now was the audio that played in the background of the animation was really off putting. A couple of months ago when I last watched these show reels I had watched them on mute at University. The music constantly changed in levels of volume and to the point when you were not concentrating on the animation any more.

Next I wanted to find a show reel that showed off their animation without the need of any music in the background. The next portfolio I came across was this portfolio by Hanna S. Abi-Hanna. Her portfolio displays her amazing animation and illustration work.

http://www.habihanna.com/

When you enter her website you are first greeted with a homepage, here there are links that will take us to the artists portfolio/work, her resume and there's also an option if you want to email the artist. In her show reel the work varied from 2D to 3D animation and also showing the animation in various stages of progression. This is a great example of how to do a show reel correctly.

http://awtcurtis.com/

The next portfolio I looked at was by Alexander Curtis. The work shown on this website looks really cool, however why I choose it as a example of a bad portfolio was because a lot of the content was restricted and required me to log in with my Vimeo account details. I don't have a Vimeo account and was unable to see majority of the content. however what I did see looked good.

http://erikrios.wordpress.com/resume/

With this portfolio my first impressions were that the background was too yellow and wasn't very appealing to the eyes at all. The work that was there was good, but there wasn't much of it or any variation like the other portfolios. I also noticed that the layout of the images was very lazy and there didn't seem to be any care in how the images were laid out. One final note is when you first enter the website the first image you are greeted with is a cartoon version of the artist. I feel maybe some of his best work should have taken centre stage here and not an image of himself.

 

Week 1 - Introduction to the Module

Your portfolio along with your degree are two key factors to help you getting a job in the industry. A portfolio can come in various styles depending on how you want to present your work. It could be a series of renders edited together to make a show reel. It could also be a website displaying still renders of your work at the highest quality possible.

For me I would like to work as an animator in the video game Industry, I would even consider film and television too. The best way to display my animation related work would be in a show reel. 

The end target for PPD 1 is by week 12 to have a planned out showreel annotating what will be in my final showreel which is the final target for PPD 2. This I will present to the class and hopefully gain feedback to help me as I go into the next module PPD 2.