After a lot of thinking, I decided on a hierarchy of preferred career options for me:

1. Independent filmmaker
2. Stop Motion director / animator
3. Model / Prop maker
4. Storyboard artist
5. 2D animator

Clearly independent filmmaker is hard, especially to get funding for your own films, but I feel the urge to tell stories. And I don’t have a problem in doing commercial work for financial support. Last year I went to a screening of Ainslie Henderson and his partner’s last film, and in the Q&A afterwards Ainslie showed he despises doing commercial work. I would think this plays a part in him being worse off financially now than when he was a musician.

I wouldn’t mind being a stop motion director or animator, especially freelancer, as this way you can work with different styles of animation and design in different studios, or even directing films in other animation techniques. And most people that work as animators in studios like Aardman normally don’t have time and energy to animate their own films in their free time. I’m not afraid of being freelancer, because I worked before as contractor in other industries, and I enjoyed working in different places with various people. I don’t fall for illusions of stability in staff jobs anymore.

You have to focus on what you want but also keep an open mind on opportunities in related areas, not only because you can use that as a path to your main objectives, but also as your path may not be as clear as you expect (some lecturers talked about that, and also stop motion animator Tim Allen talks about his sisters’ career change experience and his own career path in the podcast I really enjoyed that can be accessed on https://meditationswith.podbean.com/e/observing-life-one-frame-at-a-time-with-stop-motion-animator-tim-allen/.

I enjoy Model and Prop making too, although I prefer large scale Prop making, especially if it involves carving and sculpting. I wouldn’t mind also doing some mould making, even though it’s not one of my preferred activities in this field.

I really enjoy storytelling, that’s why Storyboard artist is another option that would be enjoyable. I have to learn industry software for that like Storyboard Pro.

I wouldn’t mind 2D animation jobs either, but I confess for this and for storyboarding I need to improve my drawing techniques to compete with people that have more continuous experience in drawing than me. That will also help with my own storyboards and animatics.

I also want to apply to write for the Skwigly magazine as mentioned before by Laura-Beth. I enjoy writing and that certainly would help me meet interesting people and watch interesting animation films.