Thinking Animation
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Animators come in all forms in the Computer Graphics Entertainment Industry.
Below are some brief definitions of each. Many of these disciplines overlap on shows, so refer to these definitions loosely.
FX Animation: usually involves forces like wind, rain, snow, explosions, etc. This is a very difficult form of animation to produce because it is based in a reality. We all know what a wave, tornado or explosion should look like so it involves a lot of math, cinema and camera work to make it convincing.
Flash Animation: refers to animation produced with the Flash software that utilizes vector and bitmap graphics. The software is great at producing limited animation for television, commercials, games and web content.
Motion Design Animation: these animators have to be fast with turnarounds, have a terrific sense of design and wear many hats. Everything form that spinning football that reveals the scores for your favorite football game to the logo that flies across your favorite morning show falls into this category.
Creature Animation: Animation based on life-like motion that is infused with weight and believability, and "usually" obeys the rules of gravity in the real world. Mechanics of motion and weight are extremely important to this believability.
Character animation: When life is breathed into an artificial character creating the nuances, gestures, distinct movements, and patterns of speech that will make an audience believe that the character is actually alive and thinking.
Describe a typical workday in CG, as an Animator:
This is another broad question and depends on which area of the industry listed above you might be working in. A general workday during a production for a CG animator would be about 10 - 12 hours long. This may seem intense, but it is standard in the industry for games, commercials and film. The good thing about the job is that we also have "down time" in between projects that equals sometimes as much as 6 months of a year. You can use this time to get rested, improve your technical skills or be creative in ways you cannot within the production atmosphere. If you are freelance, your "downtime" might be more or less than those of staff depending on your ability to get work.
The hours during "down time" are much more lax if you are staff employee. Also, because the hours are so intense during production, the set hours at most studios are pretty open. You can come in 10am and work til 8pm or if you are an early bird - come in at 7am and leave at 5pm. If you are productive, you also take as many breaks or as long a lunch as you want at most studios. Many studios provide meals for you to keep you working at your desk. A computer animator is usually at their desk working on a computer with 3D software. However, you do have creative meetings and dailies to go over the progress of your shots to attend here and there. Again this applies to commercials, games or film. Of these creative meetings, you will also attend the necessary production meetings. These are usually held every week, in order to keep abreast of what is going on in all the departments or the studio. Finally, contact with the producers and art directors is very important to find out if your work is going in the right direction creatively and to get the animations approved. You will need good communication skills and a good attitude under pressure.
IN HOUSE CONTENT STUDIO: When the content is owned by studios like a Disney, Dreamworks, ILM, Pixar or game companies like Oddworld Inhabitants and CAPCOM, the process of approval is usually more direct. When studios create their own product and intellectual properties in-house, it enables much more creative control than the "studios-for-hire." The levels of approval stop at the owner of the studio and do not go to outside sources that are paying the bills. These production studios also have more staff employees because they are not subject to the waves of production and bidding on projects. Commercial houses rarely fall into this category, since most products do not have their own studio that makes commercials.
STUDIO FOR HIRE: A "studio-for-hire" like Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, Rhythm and Hues and Will Vinton are working for the Director of a Film (i.e. Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis or Michael Bay) and the Production Company (i.e. MGM, Paramount, Fox), or a Client and their Ad Agency (i.e. Pillsbury, M & M, Coke) and in the case of games a Developer or Platform (i.e. Infogrammes, RockstarGames, XBox, Playstation). These studios get all kinds of different jobs involving many different styles of animation. Their staff is always in flux according to what they are bidding on and what shows are in house at the time. Freelancers make up a big part of these studio's work force because of the seasonal nature of the work.
What kind of equipment and tools do CG animators use?
HARDWARE:
The standard machines used for CG animation in the entertainment field used to be Silicon Graphics Machines (SGI), but those are not dinosaurs giving way to the PC and even a growing Macintosh base. The machines used for visual FX and CG animation are pretty expensive workstations, starting at $3,000 and going upwards of $10,000 (USA dollars). However, you can introduce yourself to the field through the new less expensive PC workstations also, as they are getting cheaper and faster everyday. A good PC with enough power to do CG can be bought under $1000 these days, if built from scratch and can be upgraded as your interests expand.
SOFTWARE:
We do not want to start a software war here. There are many applications out there that create beautiful images and animation. Here is a list of the top ones out there.
TRADITIONAL:
Before jumping into CG, it is best to try your hand at Traditional Cel Animation. The hands-on Traditional approach with pencil and paper (like Disney animators) will teach you so much about weight, timing, lag, overshoot and just plain teach you the basic mechanics of how things move. We encourage you to explore this avenue first, whether or not you can draw. Working on every single frame of your animation on paper will teach you more than you realize, until you actually do it. It is less expensive too! The classes at 1on1animation.com can give you a boost in the right direction, check them out!
What is the recommended training for a CG animator?
Ultimately, it's about what you have on your reel. However, as the field matures, it is becoming more and more critical you attend a school well known for animation and complete your degree. The demand for animators today is so high that many visas are being made available to those who are more qualified outside of the U.S. This is why it is so important that you get the best education you can to be competitive in today's job market. Do not be discouraged! The jobs are there, you will just need to prove yourself worthy of sitting in front of that expensive machine! Although Cal Arts does not have the kind of instructors they once had in their heyday or animation, the school still holds a valued esteem among animators as creating a pedigree of animator that is above the rest. If you can go to this school, the name alone and your connections made while attending will open many doors for you!
We highly recommend Animation Mentor to those who have already graduated some kind of 2 year program or have had some CG experience in the industry to improve you reel as a character animator.
What is the cost of animation schools today and length of attendance required?
Levels of cost of animation schools vary from $1,400 - $15,000 a semester. There are many financial aid programs and some companies even sponsor students to go to these institutions, since the amount of talent is far less than the demand for animators. Some of the recommended schools are 4 year institutions and some are only two year programs. The two year schools (Vancouver Film School, Gnomon) concentrate only on computer graphics and provide no core classes involving history, traditional animation, math sciences, etc. There is something to be said about attending a 4 year school that provides a wider exposure to other things besides how to animate on a computer. Also, a student who has spent 4 years at an institution has had time to develop and mature as an artists and will be more prepared to work in a professional environment.
What can we expect to make as an animator?
The average salary of those who enter the industry today is $40 - $75,000 a year, which comes out to approx. $20- $38.00 an hour $800 - $1400 a week. An easy way to calculate your yearly salary is to remember there are approx 2000 working hours in a salaried year and multiple your hourly rate $20 an hour by 2000 hours ~ $40k a year. As you progress as an animator or whatever part of CG you choose to be a part of, you can expect anywhere from a 3% to 20% increase in salary a year. Your raises are easier acquired as you move around in departments or studios gaining more experience on different types of content and job positions.
The average salary span would be from $75,000 to as much as $250,000 and upwards for animation directors. The CG field is wrought with one problem. Since most of the work out there is provided by out-of-house clients...many CG artists are hired for a project and then laid off when the project is complete. There are jokes about working in CG animation that we are the "migrant workers of the millennium." You must save your money, so that if you are out of work you can float until your next gig. Luckily, animators are paid very well for their work and can manage these highs and lows of the CG industry. In turn, CG freelancers reap the rewards of only working about 8-6 months out of a year, if they manage their finances well.
What are the advantages and disadvantages to working in animation?
We mentioned the biggest disadvantage of this field is the insecurity and unstable nature of consistent work. You must go where the work is. The work comes and goes and many animators choose to freelance in this atmosphere. This kind of workforce exists in many other fields besides animation and is becoming more of the norm today considering the flux of virtual offices through the internet and the increased use of temp work forces.
Reality of today’s workforce:
Most of our parents told us if we went to college, we would find a good job and work there forever. Not true today. With temp agencies, head hunters and freelance contracts fueling the workforce, runaway production and production overseas, it becomes harder today than ever to work anywhere for more than five years. Five years at one company in the CG industry is a lifetime and very rare. Most projects last anywhere from 4 months (broadcast series) to 2 years (film). This could be a disadvantage or an advantage depending on how you look at it. If you save your money and are smart with your expenses, you can only work 6 months a year and really enjoy life when you are between jobs. Some studios offer money or incentives to encourage their staff animators to pursue other interest during downtime. This way they have less burn-out among staff animators. Beware, CG is a very creative field, the time constraints on most projects can make it feel like work sometimes, just like any other job.
Advantages of CG Field:
The only economic change that effects the CG industry is the flux of the type of entertainment people flock to each year. The internet is opening even more worlds up to this industry and we believe as long as you are working with computers you are guaranteed a solid future for years to come. As long as you are flexible to the advancements in technology (virtual worlds on the horizon), you should have a long and fulfilling career in CG.
There are some specific ideas visible in the history of digital artistry important to understand:
a. In the 80's, one artist and one programmer made one digital artist having entirely different minds and backgrounds.
In order to excel in CG you need to cover both sides of this important coin. Core and Glitz skills are necessary to excel in this field. A core skill is a body of knowledge associated with either a professional degree and or long term association with a specific body of knowledge. A glitz skill is a specific set of abilities for a specific software package on a specific piece of hardware.
Core = Basics and Fundamentals.
For example: Full understanding of the "Principles of Animation" and their use in CGI.
Glitz = Software specific Issues.
For example: Setting up skeletons, sliders for expressions, etc. in order to animate in CGI.
The most important thing you need to know about working in CG is communication. If it takes a long time for you to communicate your vision to others you will sink. The second most important thing to arm yourself with is a good attitude. This is true for most jobs, but especially in the world of CG. The hours are long and things get intense so you need to be able to brush it off when the going gets tough. Once you decide if you’re are more of a technical minded person or an artistic person, you can devise your plan of attack. If you are more technical, try to get into studios through the system administration (upkeep of the computer systems). Stay late and prove that you can migrate into other positions and the people in charge will notice. If you are more of the artsy type you could attempt internships as a foot in the door. Most studios sponsor internship programs because the demand for good artists is high compared to the supply. Since CG encompasses so many disciplines you could come from most any background and bring skills to the table.
Important skill sets to concentrate on are: Sculpture, Photography, Video, Film, Mathematics, Drawing, Anatomy, and any art form like music dancing, acting, etc. High school courses you should be concentrating should cover the aforementioned disciplines. Again, there are many people who stop in mid life and pursue a career in CG. James Cameron (Director of Titanic) used to be a truck driver! In his spare time he would go to Cal Arts and get books and class syllabuses for film and Xerox them to no end. He studied that mound of paper and look where he is today!You most marketable part of your presentation is your portfolio/demo reel. Next, would be your own personality. It is very important to get along with people and have good communication skills in this field. we cannot stress this to you enough. Good Luck with your career endeavors!
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