During and by the end of my studies in MA Character Animation, I have been focusing on preparing and understanding my career direction which is to go into 2D animation or illustration but also thoughts of going into the post-production role of Editing and production roles behind the scenes to manage the workflow.

Alongside this, I started redeveloping on my CV and website while working on my showreel and portfolio to include the more recent works produced during the time of the course. I realised it is just as important to keep active in communities and socials to aid in networking and connecting with potential coworkers.

Personal Website and Portfolio

It is still common for artist and animators to still maintain and make websites to hold their portfolio in one space for easy access and gather of work produced over the years to be presented in a more professional setting. This helps function to express an individual’s styles and skills available while also being a better way of showing their resume. While I have a website and was up to date with it for a while, the current website that I have been using, Wix, has a limit in what can be uploaded to the website without having to spend a subscription to upgrade the storage. Because of this I am going to be planning to change my website choices during the final duration of the course and before graduating to have it ready for post-graduation and entering the industry.

CV

Updating my resume following some of the lectures and insight from guest speakers as well as tutors has been an interesting understanding about the different changes in the industry as well as a more professional look into what I needed when it came to CV/resumes in this industry. Due to my lack of experience in the industry as a whole, I made sure that my cv would highlight all my various projects that I have worked on that had an industry-related impact such as LIAF, my educational background and some of the skills I can provide, both in soft skills as well as technical skills that I can provide to a project. I would also make sure to provide some details about what I did in said projects and what my tasks and roles were for the production.

With graduation approaching, I started researching what the animation industry is like outside the UK, focusing on the US and China. In Unit 3, we had lectures about the global animation scene and its impact on the industry in comparison to the UK animation scene.

Through research and experience watching animated shorts produced in the UK, I noticed that a lot of films is presented as a form of artistic expression through abstract narratives or stylised storytelling through visuals and atmosphere, encouraging the artist as a person and experimentation of techniques to best express emotion and meaning. This knowledge and research have played a part in influencing how I tackle storytelling through emotional storytelling, dynamic cinematography, and the importance in combining the animation to sound and music.

One talk I attended was by Christ Coleman from Final Frontier, who spoke in-depth about the animation industry in China. He explained how the industry is growing, especially in games and film, and how Western directors are increasingly collaborating with Chinese studios. This east-west collaboration is leading to more diverse and unique media projects. He also highlighted how Chinese mythology often influences their animation, making their stories visually rich and culturally distinct. Coleman also gave helpful advice on building a career through content creation and side projects to grow a portfolio and earn income.

Another talk I attended was by Juliette Rogasik, who discussed the animation industry in the US. She explained how to work there through visas and sponsorships and shared tips on career development after university, such as internships and entry-level roles. This helped me understand how to gain experience and what it would take to work my way up in the industry. After the talk, I emailed Josh to request Juliette’s presentation so I could review the information again later and more in-depth.

The idea of working abroad has always been a concept I was interested in ever since I started progressing in the animation industry as well as the film industry too, being able to experience different takes of the industry in different parts of the world while still being connected to everything in a time of easier global connectivity and networking. In addition, to also being able to live and work in a new environment outside your comfort zone, meeting new industry creatives and expanding the networking connections to be able to find more work opportunities. The talks helped me develop a better understanding of the industry presence in the US and China as well as internationally as a whole. I started doing my own research into the process of immigration process what is required to make it possible and how animators can get sponsorship, often starting through freelance work.

Before starting the course, I only had a generalised skill set when it came to animation as a medium that were carried over from my BA. I was experienced when it came to making animations with knowledge in software’s like 2D, 3D and stop-motion and editing but did not have as much knowledge when it came to storytelling, the principles of animation and character animation. That all started to change as I progressed with the course and has resulted in so much growth as an animator.

Reflecting on Unit 1, I gained a deeper understanding of working in a professional setting within the animation pipeline and industry. The LIAF project was my first chance to create work that would be shown at a festival, even if it was just a trailer played before the main events. This experience helped me understand the process of pitching an idea to an industry client and the challenges involved, especially since only 10 ideas were chosen out of around 40. Although my idea wasn’t selected, I received helpful feedback on what worked and what could be improved. This taught me how tough it is to create a pitch that stands out and appeals to clients, and helped me improve my pitching skills for the future. Instead, I joined a greenlit project in a supporting role. Even though there were some challenges, I carried out my tasks in animation and production management, kept communication clear with tutors and the client, and helped ensure the production stayed on schedule.

Unit 2, helped me develop my storytelling based on a script and keywords provided by the Screenwriting course. It helped me understand what is needed to make a well written and effective narrative in the small amount of runtime we had available. Alongside helping me develop my storytelling skills, this units also provided me more opportunities to work in a collaborative scene with fellow students as well as students from other courses and universities. This meant I could experience roles that I have not done before, helping me have even more knowledge on the different roles within the pipeline and what it takes to do that role effectively.

Comparing my skills now to when I first started the course, I have noticed how my style of storytelling has developed into being more grounded in realism and something that the audience can find relatable. In addition to how confident I am in the pipeline to experience working in different roles when needed. Having worked on 3 films, I can also see my skills in animation slowly develop after each completion and I’m looking forward to how the progress will develop with future projects.

Following the previous post about the role in post-production. From my experience making some short films as well as illustration. I found to also have an interest in the Character designer role in the pre-production stages.

Character designing has been a role that has interested me even before I chose to do animation as a major and I was still doing illustrations. I loved the idea of being able to create a character’s visuals just from the descriptions written down in a novel of the characters’ features or just from notes provided by a director or concept art from the concept artist/director. Character designers need to be able to portray a character’s personality through their facial expressions, poses and outfit or appearance and the possibilities of how they might look would solely depend on the creativity and inspiration of the character designer as well as their understanding of the story provided and how said story wants to express the character to the audience. This is where a character’s design could make or break how they are seen by the audience and how impactful they are going to be.

Being a character designer also does not mean that I would be locked into only the film animation industry as I could still use said skills in the gaming industry too in their production process of creating a playable character for the consumer to be immersed with and connect with throughout the gameplay.

I feel like some of the character design workshops we had in both the first and second year, massively helped in my understanding of what goes into the thought process of making a character design and how to make them standout and unique to the other characters out in the art world. I hope to be able to develop more on these skills with each projects or through creating new characters .

After having produced a few short films during my Bachelors and Masters, I have gotten experience in a variety of roles in the animation production pipeline. Having worked in pre-production to post-production on different projects. I was able to discover what my strengths and weaknesses are as well as what roles I found to be most interesting and fun to me when I has said role.

Having worked on a mixture of Solo and group projects, I was able to discover that, while I love making my own films and working in a leadership role, it can be very stressful and exhausting for my current skill level and experience to logically peruse it at the current moment. However, I was able to find new roles that I found to be most interesting to work in and that being some of the post-production pipeline as well as the pre-production pipeline.

In the Post-production, I found the editor role to be quite interesting and fun to work in, being able to arrange the different cuts of a projects together to piece together the film in the image of the director and writer. Being the editor is like putting the pieces to a puzzle together to get the full image. During the LIAF project, I was the main editor for the film and alongside that I would have to be the production manager as well so that I can keep track of all the shots and cuts produced by the other animators and piece to the final product together as the production slowly wraps up to get the results of the final piece. Being able to see the film start from an empty project file to becoming more and more of a film as production rolled on.

Being an editor also meant I had to have a good sense of timing and beats, so that I can cut the shots and glue them together at the right time to push the story gently from one beat to another without it feeling to rushed or too sudden. Another skill that used is communication, as the editor would have to communicate with the director as well as the writer to get a better sense of how the film is meant to progress and as close to the vision of the director as possible while also being impactful and not wasting the efforts of the animators and the shorts they provided.

When it comes to the decision or idea of what industry area I would like to work in, I am probably most interested in joining the Feature Films/Series and or Games industry for their way of tackling storytelling in media.

I am interested in the Feature films/Series because I love the idea of storytelling and how different/unique a narrative could be for each specific film/series. I want to be able to see how the story unfolds and how the audience would be able to interoperate said development of narrative. How would the animators and production crew develop said narrative to be as impactful as possible or convey what the screenwriter or author is imagining. Is the story going to be a gut-wrenching thriller, or a heartfelt romance? What would make the film standout to the other films that has been created in the past? I have always loved storytelling in films and series. I want to be able to be a part of that process and be a part of what makes it so special and influence the audience too.

The Wild Robot (2024), Directed by Chris Sanders

I am also interested in the Games industry because it is an industry I indulge myself in a lot in my free time and like Feature Films/Series, they also have moments of heavy storytelling, often over a longer duration depending on the game and what it wants the audience to experience while playing. Games also has a different approach to a narrative compared to films/series in that the story is interactable by the players touching the game, and how their choices could influence the experience of the story or worldbuilding and how impactful it could be.

Assisting a 2nd Year’s graduation film

As an animator/Artist who primarily works and focus’ on 2D mediums, I provided the chance to help Indulekha Velloor with their film for the simulated work experience, which was a 2D animated short film about daydreaming.

I was quite pleased with the pairing with Indulekha as the concept behind the film, daydreaming, was a theme I found to be quite interesting and aligned with some ideas I had in the past revolving around a similar/same concept. Furthermore, the direction behind the film, even through only an animatic, felt fitting to my interest in cinematography and story progressions.

I first met up with Indulekha to exchange greetings as well as discuss what kind of assisted they needed that I would be able to provide. As someone who has a lot of general knowledge about the animation production pipeline as well as experience in a variety of different roles, I felt like I was able to provide help in any part that my second year requested.

After getting a briefing about their graduation film; what its about, what the themes are, what scenes are going to be in the film, who the character is and what are they experiencing, I was also provided an animatic of what Indulekha has come up with for the initial idea and pacing for the film, alongside their pitch presentation so that I would be able to get as big of an insight into their project as possible, which I was really pleased about as I tend to be a person who works best with as much information about a project as possible. After watching the animatic, Indulekha requesting on some feedback about the animatic and my opinions on the film. I was able to provide some advice in terms of cinematography, such as a camera movement that they wanted to use but didn’t know the name of and/or how to incorporate it into a specific scene; the technique being the dolly zoom effect to provide an atmosphere of foreboding during the climax of the film.

Other than providing some feedback on the animatic, I was tasked to help in designing a background and scene concept for a very cinematic part in the film where the main character is underwater and needs an establishing shot viewing the scenery with the wildlife.

Once I finished drawing the concept frame, I was later tasked with making a short concept animation for the same scene to help give an idea of what can or will be moving in the scene, be it the wildlife and/or fauna underwater, and how it could be done.

I found this production to be both challenging yet interesting to work on due to all the different moving parts and how much it all intertwines with eachother, but thanks to Indulekha’s communication I was able to continue and prove help as much as possible while trying to preserve the initial concept and style of the original.

Constructing a character from scratch

One of the workshops I did that I found to be one of the most helpful was the Character Design Workshops. The lessons provided insight on the fundamentals of designing a character both for animation and film but for general purpose as well.

Personally, I believe one of the most fundamental concepts when it comes to designing characters is the initial brainstorming and research into what type of character you plan to create; what are their themes, history, inspiration, motivation and more. All of these play a role into the core ideas of the character, and being able to understand the character makes it easier to figure out the looks, but also get the creator to feel a sense of purpose for the character within the main narrative in which they will be inhabiting.

After answering the questionnaire about the idea for the character, I was able to get an idea brewing about what I wanted the character to generally look based on the time-period, their motivation or problems/limitations, and themes. In my case, it was a female character who is mute due to a curse from their previous negligence during a period in their past as a guardian. The theming was set around the 1500’s Japan with fantastical and mythological interpretations intertwined with the characters outfits and history. With this, I started with designing the initial concept features of the character through silhouettes and shapes. I was aiming for the concept to be simple yet eye-catching and interesting that would be able to instantly be recognisable as well as easy to understand the themes/motivation of the character.

The silhouette had to portray the character as a wanderer/traveller that is also athletic and somewhat intelligent and motivated to their cause. This being shown through the idea of a cape/poncho and a hat while also including some Asian inspired fantastical outfits like the trousers and shirt.

After being able to double down on the silhouette and deciding on what I’m looking for in the character, I finally stared designing the outfit and appearance after doing some research and moodboards on Pinterest.

To finish up the workshop, I was provided a task of creating a reference sheet for the character. Providing a turnaround is really important for animators and/or illustrators to get a full idea of what the character looks like from all angles for consistency and continuity within a production. Being able to practice making turnarounds and reference sheets will prove massively helpful later on in a career as it gives you the passive knowledge to be thinking about a character from every angle.

I was very pleased with how the character turned out during the workshop that I would likely make some changes and adjustments for the character to be used in future projects, be it an animation or just illustrations.

The use of non-chronological storytelling if Films and TV

“A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.” – Jean-Luc Godard.

Nonlinear narrative is a technique that can be used in literature, films, shows, video games, and others. It is where events are played chronologically out of order or in other ways where the narrative doesn’t follow the direct and linear story pattern of the events being played.  This technique is often used by directors and screenwriters to produce a different atmosphere for their narrative and wants to portray multiple stories that would eventually line up together or have the audience piece the story themselves during said movie or show, sometimes not even linking the story completely and leaving it to the audiences imagination and interpretation. The technique can also be interpreted in different ways depending on the writer’s creativity and how complex they want the story, as well as, how much they want the audience to imagine.

A subtle nonlinear storytelling would be the movie Interstellar (2014) directed by Christopher Nolan. The nonlinear narrative started becoming more prominent during the climax of the movie as it jumps back and forth from different times experienced by different people. By doing this, Nolan made the audience more invested into the characters, having the story split and focus on them both over the last half of the movie, while also piecing everything together the different question and motives by the end of the film for the finale.

Japanese anime also sometimes presents its story in a nonlinear order. One example would be Durarara!! (2010-2016) Series which is an adaptation of a light novel series of the same name by Ryohgo Narita (novels, 2004-2014).

The anime uses a nonlinear narrative so that the story is told from the perspective of about eleven of the main characters, who are each unique and memorable, by sight if not by name (D, 2016), that change every episode. By the end of the season, the audience starts to notice the storylines start to link together and the characters begin to meet, if they have not met already. The series followed this structure for four seasons eventually leading all the clues and completing the puzzle to its climax and series finale. In Durarara!!’s case of using nonlinear storytelling, it had the chance to make all the character a main character, getting the audience to be more acquainted to each individual character and know more about them, from their past to what has them involved in the stories current dilemma. In addition, because each episode provides a new puzzle towards the story, it adds suspense the more episodes in the viewer is as they are almost able to see what each storyline from each character would result too for the climax.

Overall, the reason this way of storytelling works, presenting a story that isn’t in a chronological order, has its unique benefits as the viewer is more invested in wanted to piece the stories together, when you do get events to link up you feel rewarded for your patience, and in turn, you get to understand/feel the story that much more.