I had interesting and diversified experiences in networking and festivals.

I went to one of the Facebook group Festivus gatherings in St Pancras station pub. It’s a very convenient location, as it’s just a stone’s throw of the final stop of the fast train from Bedford, where I live. Luckily students and alumni from the MA Character animation in CSM were present, so we could start chatting with each other before meeting other people. It was interesting to meet graduates and students from other Animation university courses from the UK and abroad having the same anxiety and issues about future work, and meeting people with interesting films and stories. The only problem is their gatherings are always on Thursday evenings, so it means missing a life drawing class during term time.

I’ve also been to one of the London Animation Club gatherings. It’s not as convenient in terms of location and the timing is inadequate for people that are studying or working, as they seem to meet on Mondays later in the evening than Festivus, which kind of spoils your week as they may finish really late in the very beginning of that week. It was nice meeting people and seeing the work of some stablished professionals, but it seems many of them aren’t currently working in the industry, and some seem to be struggling to get work in this area, which seems odd for people with so much experience. Maybe it’s related to personal issues, I can’t explain. But it seemed a group where you were less likely to be able to get any work opportunity by networking.

I had 2 films accepted in the Kinofilm Festival in Manchester. I went to the screenings and participated in both Q&A’s. It was a great experience, and I met nice people, especially the festival manager, director and the staff. I’m wondering if I should go to the Manchester Animation Festival in November as their manager suggested.

I also went last year to the City Lit Flicks Festival, which basically celebrates students and alumni of City Lit. It was great fun too, I met some former tutors and fellow students of different courses I did there, and it was lovely. Although in terms of networking for future opportunities I’m not sure it can help.

I wanted to go to a festival in Portugal that is showing one of my films, but as the screening is just before the submission deadline, I find it unlikely I’ll be able to go. Fortunately, they have some events in the next months in London, so I can go there instead.

It seems small festivals are easier to socialise and network, and to be screened than bigger festivals. The bigger ones seem more interested in promoting big studios’ work and obviously the vast majority of student and independent work won’t be even close to those standards. And there are festival scams in Film Freeway too, so we must be careful.

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.

I recently updated my website (julianaaventurinidenyer.com), showreels and CV to apply for jobs and internships.

I started with my website. It really needed updating, there was a load of Fine Art out-of-date information. I decided to simplify and focus on animation-related jobs as they’re higher in my list of priorities (see blog post “Careers Options for the Near Future”). I concluded a structure with separate sections for stop motion, model / prop making and 2d animation works best.

On top of each animation section, you can see a link to the respective showreel. Also, information on some of the films I did in these techniques.

It’s more organised and more efficient to have separate showreels for stop motion and 2D, and you can direct the people to the work they’re interested in. I followed recommendations of lecturers and professionals of the industry to select the material for each showreel, CV and cover letters. I still must do some updates to address suggestions in Shaun’s lecture, which clarified topics not discussed by other people before. Also I have to get feedback from a visiting lecturer on my stop motion showreel.

I applied to an Assistant Animator job at Aardman, but obviously the competition is huge as sometimes they have like 600 applicants per position.

I’m also applying for internships, starting with the Arts and Grafts one. Let’s see what comes from those too. Obviously my chances in 2D animation are remote as most of the course I spent doing stop frame techniques.

I applied for a traineeship in Puppetry and Set Design too.

In the showreel event in CSM on the 13/6 I particularly want to talk to Strange Beast, as they are a producing company, and being linked to them would be handy in being a freelancer director/animator.

Also updating CV, showreel, website etc. is useful as I want to apply to the In-Studio Stop Motion course with Aardman Academy (https://academy.aardman.com/),  and they form part of the application. I went to their online open day in Zoom recently. For that I need also to make a little “pitch” with information of the film I want to do in their course. Not sure I have time for this before their deadline for this year.

They also have a Stop Motion Character Animation training course in Aardman studios to help people produce portfolios to make them visible to the global industry. The application also requires CV and showreel, although I’m not convinced doing this course would replace redoing to improve the exercises I did in their former courses.

I have business cards from specific films and more generic ones. Must keep the film specific to a minimum, as after some time their picture is old news. More generic ones are more practical as their pictures hopefully shouldn’t get dated.

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.

I was paired with Lily Jenkins for the UAL simulated work experience.

First she told me that she wants to do a traditional or mixed media animation probably on paper based on many observational drawings she made. She showed the animatics so we could have an idea of how the film should be. I thought it’s an exciting idea.

Lily then asked to do some inbetweens for a rough animation in TV Paint that she will use as reference for the final animation. I did it based on the 4 keyframes she sent me and didn’t touch her keyframes as advised. Her keyframes are the ones with thicker line on the animated character:

Secondly she asked me to get some photo or video references of atmospheric light. I’m still working on that.

Lily is aware of the March 8th deadline of the exercises we have to hand on, so I didn’t feel any pressure or hurry from her, which is really kind. I’m not sure what she thought of the inbetweens or the pictures I showed her, but I said I want to help further than just for 2 weeks, as I think it’s a lovely film idea and I’m really curious about how this will look like in the end. Also I enjoyed helping the graduation NFTS animation film before, and I’m open to further experiences like that.

I wish I had registered in the beginning that she was working on 3s and did all the work in 3s from the beginning. I never animated a whole second or more in 3s, an even number 4s would sound more confortable for me. I animated in 2s and had to change in the end when I realised it had to be in 3s, which gave a different feel to it.

I think it would take some time to be able to do this kind of tasks in a studio after I finish the MA. I would imagine you would start helping animators with clean up, or tidying puppets and replacement mouths, etc.

At first I was scared as she intended the shot to have about 6 seconds, which is a lot of frames. However later I was advised that we should do just the inbetweens, and I realised that to be able to do the whole 6 seconds you need way more than 4 keyframes, and that extra keyframes should be made by the director or a senior animator to have the intended timing of the events and emotions of the characters.

The collaboration was helpful not only for some animation practising, but also to use more TV Paint, which I started using a bit after the rest of the class. That was a good decision as the initial exercises were simpler, then more practical to do in the lightbox than the latest exercises that are way more complex and time consuming. I realised in the first week of the collaboration I didn’t manage to do any more on the exercises to hand in for the deadline of the 8th of March, nevertheless as I was using TV Paint I considered it useful as a way to get more used to it and hopefully faster in it for the exercises that need TV Paint.

I’m not sure doing a rough animation in TV Paint before doing the final one in paper or mixed media is better than going directly on paper. When I did a short film on paper I intended at first the pencil animation as reasonably rough and the clean up would come with the colouring of the frames. I’m not sure doing TV Paint rough animation before becomes a real advantage. Don’t appreciate the idea of shooting twice in different media. If possible I prefer spending more time planning and experimenting than doing 2 or more times the same animation. This way it really looks 2D animation can really take much longer to plan and shoot than stop motion, which seems sometimes hard to accept. TV Paint may be useful for animatics in stop motion if you don’t have any puppets ready yet.

Having the MA going on and at the same time helping with the NFTS film, and also doing Stop Motion 2 from Aardman Academy this term was really hard. I felt time for the exercises of the MA, the Aardman course and the NFTS film was not ideal, felt rushing all the time. But if I left the NFTS film and the Aardman course for the second year of the MA, it would be even tighter in time. On the other hand, if I left the film and the other course to do after finishing the MA, chances are they would not have been done as I may be working or making another film.

I’m really happy I chose Stop Motion as pathway choice in my course. That was what I really wanted. My work helping the NFTS graduation film made me more confident and experienced in making small props for stop motion films. I did the main character’s chair, 2 photo holders and 2 cups to join the robot crane in the Biscuit Factory film. I’m really looking forward to see them and the whole film the NFTS screening tomorrow!!! We saw the robot crane animated in a shot when we delivered the last cups etc. and it was amazing. Made me wanting to do more for other films!!!

Update: The NFTS screening was amazing. The film name was changed to “The Last Biscuit”, and it can be seen at:

In terms of puppet making and film shooting in the Stop motion pathway I had a mixed experience. I felt confident in clay modelling as I’m experienced in sculpting, however I felt puppet making in felt was too rushed for me, and I think a more consistent and systematic approach from the visiting lecturers would have helped me finish the puppets in a better standard. Some more time would help to finish them, and also animate better the clay puppets. The experimental puppets look better finished but obviously have functional issues due to the choice of materials not being done before knowledge of that was presented, but I enjoyed making them too. On top of that, making puppets before developing a story will always bring limitations in functionality, mainly for unexperienced makers.

On the other hand, shooting the clay puppet worked reasonably in the first day, and not that well in the next class. Not having a too restricted time pressure to do that would have sorted it for me. I’ll do my best not to have to rush in animating in the future, especially in stop motion. But animating the pixilation and the charcoal drawings had the right level of time and pressure so the results were much more satisfying. I really want to explore some more pixilation with people and animating mixed media with paints, etc. in the future, as well as scratching film stock etc. Link for the pixilation film:

https://vimeo.com/803607493

I enjoyed working with the group I did for pixilation. Me, Jonathan, John and Amal were friendly, fun and focused on doing a great film. Everybody was listened with lovely contributions for the story and shooting, we could all participate and the result of the focus on a good story was well worth it. It’s the funniest and most interesting piece of animation we did at UAL so far in my opinion. I’m sure we’re all proud of that and I would love to work with them again in similar conditions.

Unfortunately this year, the Stop Motion 2 course from the Aardman Academy is being great, but didn’t really help with the Stop Motion pathway as that course is really focused on performance, animation, with no emphasis on puppet or prop making. It’s a different objective, enjoyable in a different way. But it helps with the lip sync and other animation exercises we’ve been doing in class, as they’re about more advanced performance in animation too.

https://vimeo.com/802383384

We had these workshops in 2022 / 2023.

The storyboard workshop was helpful to see again techniques of storyboarding, camera angles, etc. and practise them, which will help me organise better the shots for my final animation film and hopefully future ones. Bianca is always pleasant to see and her organised and practical approach keeps the lectures dynamic, useful and engaging. Sue Tong approached the staging in another way emphasizing good composition guidelines and also showing great examples in films etc.

Her character design last term certainly adds to developing proper characters that can keep the stories interesting for the audience. With character design techniques from Robert Bradbook’s workshop on top of that, also with very good examples and systematic didatic approach, and Sue Tong’s approach to colour pallettes, I believe I have lovely tools to develop characters to be as good as they can be to support a story with appropriate strength for the films I want to do. Also the character performance and construction techniques from the performance workshops add to all that too.

Different approaches and many examples in storytelling techniques from Robert’s and the performance workshops will also help with character construction and telling lovely stories. I feel we are given many useful techniques and approaches, and if the need comes for them in any part of the development of films / characters they will help me improve my work.

We had very interesting performance workshops in UAL in 2022 and in 2023.

We had theatre classes in 2022 mainly concentrated in Laban and Stanislavsky. They look at reasons for actions, scales of intensity, etc. Stanilavsky’s 7 questions were also discussed at the Character Design workshop.

It was very interesting seeing and practising techniques to improve performance and relating them to emotions and instensity. Anything that helps in better performances in the LAVs obviously will help in better animation of characters.

It was really tiring and exciting, however also a good way to do some light exercise. And so much fun. Acting in LAVs certainly helps me animate. Also it help you keep and increase the level of playfulness in animation work, that is essential for good animations in my opinion. Creativity many times comes from your inner child.

I don’t understand how most students can’t see the importance and fun of these classes. Some of them probably think they can get away without having to do any proper video reference themselves to animate, or even trying to act some movements of the character. I’m not really extrovert, although I learned that caring too much about other people’s opinions is a prison. I don’t care if people think I’m odd performing a monkey reaction. Some kids are sent to theatre classes to become less shy and have fun, and some adults are too shy to enjoy them. Nonsense.

Yesterday we had a different performance workshop, though. There wasn’t much acting and we had much less physical activity, but still had fun and looked in techniques of storytelling, and character construction of an emotional point of view and using some of the classical archetypes of stories. Also looked at character construction techniques as a way to generate story ideas.

It was challenging to shorten a story without losing the details that work as its “colour” or “shine”. But it helps keep an eye of the essence and get rid of unnecessary parts that would be just extra work to animate. The character construction techniques may be useful too to help with audience impact, generating new stories and character development.