On the other hand, one concern was to be coming from another industry. If you look at some filmmakers you can see they came from different areas, like Ainslie Henderson that used to be a musician and always thought Animation would be the second option. When Music didn’t work as expected, he turned to the second choice, and I hope he’s feeling more successful now, even though he admitted financially it’s being worse. Suzie Templeton made a more radical move from a more technical area of work, and she actually works in another industry, as she didn’t manage to work in Animation in advertisement, which makes you realise there are complete idiots hiring people for this industry out there, like in other industries. In spite of that, she managed to be an Oscar-winning Animation Director. Laurie Sitzia, a senior Animator at Aardman, said her background is in Fine Art, especially pottery. Based on all that, and the fact people move jobs inside the Animation industry, I concluded I can’t be afraid of that. After all, I moved from another industry before.

Although I would love to work in a studio as animator, I have the concern that this would put me off making my own films. I asked full-time stop motion animators Maria Ribas and Laurie and they said when not working they don’t want to animate, they take other artistic activities like painting or drawing or exercise. Also, a full-time Art Assistant working at Aardman told me she doesn’t want to sculpt or do anything directly related to her job when she’s off, so it seems these activities can be overwhelming as a full-time job, though she runs with her husband the Instagram account @stopmolovers (he’s an Animator at Aardman). As I want to make my own films too, it’s a concern, but worth trying to balance both. Andy said he’s doing a film with the help of his son, so perhaps being an animation director may give more space for your own filmmaking. Unfortunately, I can’t answer this question for my case at this stage. That also leaves the idea of being an independent filmmaker, which I like. Nevertheless, I’m concerned about the difficulties and competition for funding.

So far independent filmmakers that I talked to say they have to do some freelance jobs every now and then to support themselves financially. Whether it’s a commission for a commercial, or a freelance job in a film, or they teach on some animation course, they seem to agree on that. It’s a bit like people that do have a Fine Art practice and have another day job, or teach Art somewhere, as selling your work may be not that easy or profitable, even with careful pricing.

I had a trial in the past to try to have a silly job just to pay the bills and do my own thing on the side in my free time. Against my wishes it didn’t work, I got too stressed at work as I took it too seriously and I didn’t agree with many work share issues. I’m not sure I can face this situation in a more laid-back way for my own gain now, but hopefully I don’t need to be in that situation, as the stress I had made me always be too tired to enjoy my free time in a productive way and gave me health issues.

Other week we had an online Zoom call with the course alumni and the option of becoming a Story Artist came as a suitable option for having more input in developing someone else’s stories. That’s an interesting approach that needs more research from myself.

Animator and Art Assistant jobs in Stop Motion depend very much on the level of skill / experience demanded for the position and the size of the studio. For example, in a bigger studio like Aardman, you may start as a Trainee Assistant Animator and be more responsible for helping tidy up puppets than really do any animation. In all studios the level of difficulty of the shot / model making must be matched with the skills of the Animator / Art Assistant. In smaller studios, you have more chance to be involved with different jobs like Animator and Art Assistant in the same project, which is an attractive factor. Bigger studios normally have more specialised roles and hierarchy.

When we had our first studio visit booked by UAL lecturers, I went to Nexus as I wanted to know about their stop motion work. It was surprising that, for cost reasons, they decided to do replacement animation as each small 3D printed character costs about £1 (I guess before filing and painting), cheaper than making puppets with armatures, according to the director involved in it. Nowadays, you can buy a ready-made armature for £150, and of course you can buy parts, and ally wire and balsa wood to make your own armature, and that would make it cheaper than £150. In addition to that, the 3D printed characters come from a 3D animation simulation, where they print one item for each frame. Not sure about their hourly rate for the 3D animators, but for me it seems more expensive and inefficient to animate the same shot twice, once in 3D and then in stop motion just for stop motion’s sake. I would not choose to work that way. I like traditional hand made animation methods, but I’m not in favour of animating the same film twice in 2 different techniques if you’re just using one in the final film. It’s like bad project management practices imported from projects in other areas, and living in a Dilbert comic strip! I guess building puppets with armatures would be cheaper. I understand stop motion is perceived as expensive mainly due to puppet and set building. However, if you think of cost effectiveness you will only animate in 2D drawing in tablets, and that’s why most commercial animation is done that way, especially in feature films. All other animation techniques may just become an esthetical choice if you think just in reducing costs to the maximum, and many artworks wouldn’t even exist if everybody had this mindset.

Director seems to be more a job progression for animators that want to go down that route when the opportunity arises. It’s like the career progression in Y for engineering: either you progress to an advanced technical position, or you become a director / executive. Though both paths would involve some people managing tasks. At first, I didn’t believe people get easily hired as a director when they graduate, even if they studied Directing Animation in NFTS and made films that did exceptionally well in big name festivals around the world. But this changed when we went for the visit in Nexus studios, and we were told that actually happens often. That is different from what I heard from people that are or used to be directors at Aardman. They either started as animators (like Andy Symanowsky) or came from the film industry after working with other studios, like BBC for example (e. g. Mark Hewis). One thing I was particularly concerned is about creative input in the director role. Needless to say, if the story’s not your own story / pitch you won’t have full creative control in it, although you can have some input and have your opinion / suggestions heard, according to Andy. That’s a good point as if you work in somebody else’s story and you want to avoid having shots that you keep thinking you wanted to have it done in a completely different way and you’re not happy about them. Although I like the idea of working as a director in a studio, I guess I could miss being more involved directly in animating, fabricating, etc. In this point being an independent filmmaker could help.

In Animation, I would like to work as animator, prop / puppet maker (art assistant) and / or director in Stop Motion Animation. I wouldn’t mind having some contracts now and then in 2D Animation too, especially in rare traditional Animation on paper projects, or even work as a Story Artist, even though I tend to animate better in straight ahead animation than pose to pose.

I would like either to work in a big studio like Aardman, or smaller independent studios, or even get commissions for commercial or get funding for my independent films. I feel divided between working in a studio and being an independent filmmaker. I wouldn’t probably reject an offer of staff position in a studio; however, I see being freelancer in contracts would also be an interesting path for me. Working on feature films or series is interesting for me too.

I wouldn’t mind having to move somewhere else to work, even if temporarily for a contract. Although a permanent move would have to be for longer contracts or a staff job as we have a mortgage. Obviously, the rates would play a huge role in any moving decision. For a permanent move I would prefer to stay in the UK, if possible, although I wouldn’t mind living abroad for work specially if it’s in a temporary basis. If I had to move abroad, I would prefer to move to Canada as it seems to match good animation prospects with less gun violence compared to the USA. On the same note, I think Europe is attractive, but opportunities are more limited. Of course, opportunities are welcome there too.