Author: Bingqi Liu

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have sent out emails to several studios that have internship programs. Most of this list is from the pdf list Christina pushed and Ko sent us, but I have made changes to suit my actual situation. Most are UK based, with some international ones. Below is a screenshot of part of this list.

Right now I’m prioritising emails to studios that have internship programs. So far not many have replied and they have indicated that they have put me on an alternative list. When I have done my film, my plan is to send regular emails to each studio. At least this will help me to keep learning and further improve the showreel, so I will keep this strategy after graduation.

My plan for the next two years is to stay in the UK and look for work within the animation industry. So I started preparing early on and I already have my portfolio website, showreel and CV. All I have to do now is to keep improving them. I’ve put the links to the websites here for easy viewing:

https://6bing7.wixsite.com/bingqi

Showreel is the project I spend most of my time on. Because I understand that the most important thing to look for in a job within the animation industry is your ability. I showed the initial showreel to different mentors and sought feedback. It’s a balance between selecting great work and showing more potential possibilities. I’ve currently included some footage from the short graduation film I’m working on, but it’s still an unfinished version and I’ll update it again when it’s finished.

I have used existing portfolio websites, showreel and CV to email to studios with internship programs, unfortunately, I have not received positive results but I am not frustrated, I know that finding work in any industry is difficult at first. Hopefully, I will make further progress when I finish my graduation film and update my showreel.

Thanks to CSM for providing us with the platform to invite numerous animators from the industry to give talks to us, it was really helpful. They were each different and had different personal experiences and therefore offered different advice. I would summarise as follows:

1. Make sure you keep in touch with people in the industry! Networking is very important. This is the first piece of advice that every mentor mentions 
2. Update your work regularly on social media, it is very important that potential hires see you.
3. Depending on the style you like, try to communicate directly with the director and they may offer you work. This tip comes from Sacha Beeley, thanks to her for giving me new ideas
4. Keep the Showreel high quality, producers are more likely to look at good work that is shorter than average work that has been around for a long time.

To find my place in the animation industry, it is vital to understand myself in addition to the animation industry. I need to understand exactly what part of the animation I am interested in and what type of work I would prefer to do.

After another semester of animation studies, I have produced two full-length animations. Although one was a group effort and the other was not yet complete, I have been involved throughout. I find that my intense interest lies in the dynamics of animation, I am more obsessed with designing dynamics and realising them than I am with character design and background design. So my interests include storyboard creation and animation (full animation, animation that shows strong dynamics)

But what confuses me is that, according to what I know, the purpose of storyboarding is to tell a good story. But my passion for storyboards lies in how to design exaggerated dynamics and how I can maximize the exaggeration of dynamics in the shots. So all things considered, I am most passionate about exaggerated dynamics. I really enjoy using exaggerated dynamics and animated performances to convey emotions.

更喜欢用夸张的动态来传递情绪

Christina has sent us a PDF containing information about animation companies in the UK and the experiences and opinions of previous years’ graduates. This was really helpful! Thank you, Christina!

I see a lot of students starting out in the animation industry on a freelance basis. As the animation industry often requires a lot of basic work, it is very good to be a beginner by providing clean lines, in-between animation and colouring for different projects in different animation studios.

In terms of Industry Sectors, the animation industry is mainly divided into these categories: TV Animation, Games, Advertising and Commercials, Independent Animation and so on.

From the research I’ve done, it seems that currently there is a desire to go into the advertising industry after graduation. Because of the high demand for TV, billboard and online advertising, and because they are relatively short-term projects, joining them as an animator allows you to experiment with many different styles of animation. I think this was more appealing to me than a long-term TV animation project.

Video animation is very popular at the moment and most video animation requires animation support, so it’s also a very popular industry. But in terms of personal interest, I rarely play computer games, so I’m not considering getting into the games industry for now.

Independent animation. Most of the animation is done by working animators or directors on their own or in teams. There is a very distinctive feature of indies: they are very personal to the director. If it can win awards, this can be very beneficial for future career development. But at the same time, it is also very difficult, because both the individual and the team understand that there is a lot of extra work that needs to be done outside of the job, which is very driven.

So my post-graduation plan is to start as a freelancer and join the animation advertising industry without giving up making my own independent animation.

As I mentioned in the previous post I will be trying to know more about the animation industry. Since my interest is in 2D, I base most of my discussions on the 2D animation industry.

After a recommendation from my friend Ark, I tried out intermediate frames for the half month I was there: the producer gave me the character settings and keyframe animation, and I did the final step before the animation was coloured in adding intermediate frames and clearing lines. It wasn’t an official full-time job, but it was my first real job in the animation industry. Thanks to Ark!

We had a clean line workshop where Isobel, an animator with 6 years of experience in the industry, explained the basics of the 2D animation industry to us.

Through the work and clean-up workshop, I found out that the job is not as easy as I thought it would be. It tests the animator’s drawing skills and requires close attention to volume and proportion, which seems easy, but it’s actually very difficult.

I showed my tutors my animation showreel which consists of assignments I made in terms 1 and 2, but unfortunately, they said it would be difficult to get a job with this kind of student-level basic animation practice and that I needed to have more professional showreel. I was anxious for a while about this, as I was about to enter my final year of postgraduate studies and would have to start looking for a job. But I quickly adjusted my mind.

So, over the next year, I will continue to improve my portfolio. I will also continue to improve my skills and understand the animation industry by understanding the requirements of an animator.

This term we are tasked with the production of LIAF animations. We will work on a theme of our choice based on our interests and then produce a simple animation prep over a 3-week period. Then we present in front of our tutors and many experienced directors, who finally choose the projects and the directors, and then the students form teams of 3 to complete the project.

The whole process is very much like a bidding event in the animation industry. And through mentors, in the industry, if you want to become a director, you need to have the ability to do a presentation to show your idea.

So I was very surprised that I was selected. During the 3 weeks of preparation, the tutorials were very helpful. I kept discussing my story, design and shots with the tutors and students and anyone I can meet and got all kinds of feedback from them.

A lot of feedback has given me a lot of inspiration, but at the same time, I have received a lot of completely opposite opinions, which has sometimes confused me. It also made me realise that to be a director you have to understand very clearly what you want to say and what you can give up in order to say the story.

I was lucky enough to have two perfect partners, Ark and Luna, and we were able to work perfectly together to make the whole process go very successful.

In this project, I took on the role of director and did visual development, storyboarding and animation. The equivalent of me trying out the central part of simple 2D animation production. It was a great feeling to complete a full animation for the first time and I really enjoyed the process, which has reinforced my desire to pursue a career in animation after graduation. So I will try to learn more about the animation industry in the next Blog.