Four Major Points were covered:

1. The wishful assumptions we make about our ‘dream’ studio
2. That there are other opportunities you may not have considered
3. How small studios foster mentorship and growth
4. How small studios can provide better shots to work on

Now we’re going to explore how they can give you a better demo reel, enable adventure and be more innovative.

Small Studios Can Give You a Better Demo Reel

Great Mentorship + Great shots = Better Reel.

Animation freelancers are digital nomads usually changing companies year after year. You get hired by how impressive your demo reel is. This means you need to appeal to supervisors who are watching thousands of reels a month. It also means appealing to HR, who aren’t typically artists. But both of them are looking for something unique, something entertaining.

If you’ve been guided well on a smaller team and have made the most of great shot opportunities, chances are your reel will stand out. Imagine how interesting your work would look if it showcased a piece from Duet or The Gruffalo:

You don’t have to be Glen Keane or Andreas Deja to pull this off. Showing projects that have a refreshing new style unlike anything seen before can land that next job, and small studios excel at doing things differently. My good friend Joseph Holmark landed a gig at Blue Sky Studios on Rio 2 after showcasing shots from Singapore like this:

Joseph shares his whole jawdropping transition from One Animation to Blue Sky in this podcast, exposing all the lessons he learned at a small studio, his animation workflow, how the job offers came and so much more – in great detail.

Small Studios Are Nimble and Innovate

Perhaps the greatest allure of a young studio is the fact that they are different. This will be what gives your demo reel a unique feel. These places are like a young Pixar doing Toy Story, trying to create what they’ve always wanted to make, not somebody else’s vision. They were taking risks, pushing the envelope, discovering their message and style.

In Pencils to Pixels John Lasseter even points out how Disney rejected 3D and that’s why he went to Pixar. That was back in the 80s when they had fifty employees. While everybody was squabbling on the path to Disney, John traveled the road not taken.

Today, as much as I personally love Disney or Pixar, I have a certain expectation for how their movies will look now, as do the parents who take their kids to the movies, for good reason: Those companies have found their bread and butter, the problem is they are now dependent on it; Asking Pixar to make an R-rated animated film would be too big a risk for anyone there to take.

While there’s nothing wrong with that, this is where small studios can be especially exciting. They are nimble, blazing a trail, taking leaps into the unknown instead of careful steps. Amazing things can happen, and you can be at the ground floor when it does. Or, worst case scenario, you walk away with unique looking artwork.

Think of Moonbot Studios and their Scarecrow Short Film for Chipotle:

Or their vastly different video game project The Golem:

Each project is both appealing and vastly different from the other, challenging the status quo and daring to venture into unknown territory. Even if you only join a studio for one project, when you leave you will be refreshing in the eyes of HR staff and Supervisors at other studios upon seeing your demo reel, because you were part of something unique.

Small Studios Are Fun

Are Nerf gun fights in the office more fun at Disney or at a company of fifty? Probably about the same. There’s a strong illusion that everything’s better at your dream studio, but don’t fool yourself into assuming you’ll be missing out on fun. In a small crew setting you’ll get to know everyone extremely well. It’s the difference between trying to reserve a dinner for forty vs. nine – if you could even get enough seats for everyone, how difficult would it be to schedule? Would you even get to talk to more than ten while eating? By knowing everyone in the office, it’s just more likely you’ll enjoy any project you’re working on, from all the inside jokes and support during stressful overtime to all the shared experiences outside of work. You’re fostering lasting friendships for life that can be crucial to landing new jobs in the future.

Small Studios Enable Adventure and Don’t Have to Be Forever

Another point new artists forget is that we are contract/project based. We can be on a project for three-to-twelve months and then travel to another city or country to work at a new company. Staff positions are a rare commodity these days, and to take full advantage of this you can travel all over. For twenty-four years of my life I lived in Florida, and in three years of animating I’ve either visited or lived in nine different countries. This can lead to a very exciting life if you stay open to possibilities. With smaller companies in vast numbers scattered all over the globe you can literally base your next job on where you might like to live for a year.

Japan? Sure, let’s give it a go for 6 months.
Germany? How about a year?
Argentina? Let’s do it!

Think of the new hobbies you can explore, cultures to soak in, friends you could make across the planet – the doors are wide open. If you ever get tired of some country, or you don’t mesh well with a company’s philosophy, you can move on. Maybe it will be a time then to try out a big studio and see what it’s like with a fresh perspective after your travels. Or maybe you’ve found a country/studio you absolutely love and want to stick around. Staff positions will be more readily available to you, because there’s less competition and you’re valued talent who won’t be running off to Pixar for a while.

Twenty-year VFX Supervisor Veteran Alan Mckay has a great podcast on ‘Traveling the World as a Digital Gypsy’ – check it out for detailed info on getting the adventure into your career.

Ditching BIG Studio Envy

Some of the greatest pressures we put on ourselves can stem from what our family or friends say and do around us. When I graduated from my first animation school I never found animation work. When I graduated from my second school I finished and feared the same would happen all over again.

I saw awesome friends literally go off to Pixar, Sony and Blue Sky. They deserved it, yet at the same time I couldn’t help but be jealous. With a gnawing hunger to succeed as much as they did, when I accepted my first job in Singapore as part of a small team I doubted its worth. Instead it changed my life. Slowly, as I lived the experience, the jealously evaporated and I became extremely grateful. I realized my dream was to be a great animator, and create amazing art for the world. I believe that’s what you are here for too, and you can find a way.

How to Choose Your Path

It will take some research to choose the studios you’d like to work for and then decide how best to prepare for them, but it’s worth it. To help with your journey, here is a free PDF with a list of studios big and small all over the world I have compiled, some you may not have even heard of.

Remember to ask yourself these questions when deciding on studios:

• Who could I learn from?
• Where could I learn the most?
• How much stronger will I be after?
• What kind of a demo reel will I have after?
• Do I want to travel?
• What experiences do I want to have?
• Where would I like to live for a year?

If you’re still thinking you have to choose big studio or small, remember the world is not This or That – it’s ALL of the above, so try everything – you’re not stuck anywhere.

Feel free to ask any questions (I’ll respond to all of them) and share in the comments what one studio you would like to start at, and why?

The post How Small Studios can be your BIG break – Part 2 appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

It’s the same with animation. When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to be in awe of big studios like Pixar, ILM or Disney – you believe they are the only answer to your dream career. Like my Florida Sushi, I grew up hearing all about Pixar and thought that was all there was, but after two animation schools, four years of learning, and one full year of waiting for a ‘big’ studio gig I finally woke up. After a series of chance events, a small studio unveiled a much better world than I ever imagined.

I like doing everything. That’s why I came to Pixar as opposed to Disney or any other studio – it’s small. At the time I started I was, like the tenth person in the animation group, and we all had to do everything. That’s the way I like it, keeping it fresh

– Pete Docter, back when Pixar had fifty employees

Then it hit me that I didn’t need Pixar to have a dream animation career, in fact I realised that there is a huge sea of animation opportunity and life-changing experiences out there (including mind-blowing sushi). To get started in uncovering what small studios have to offer, let’s begin with rethinking what you think you know about ‘big’ animation studios:

Disney – a place so magical everyone who works there must float on clouds. Imagine all the bragging rights! These thoughts are so powerful a lot of people get lost in trying to find a poorly-defined dream that doesn’t exist or impress others through their movie credits. This is all surface level, don’t get caught up in it – you became an animator to make amazing art and to have a career that always challenges you, to never be bored of your work even when you turn 98. To make a little kid cackle in the theater or a grown man bawl. I’m not saying give up on your dreams, but do challenge your fantasy. ‘Big’ studio dream goals like Pixar or Disney are totally worth having, going for, and getting but they aren’t the only options to get what you’re truly after. Smaller studios are perfect, especially when staring out, and in a lot of cases have more advantages.

How Small Studios Enable Big Opportunities

Pixar dominated my mind for all five years of education. After school ended my applications to Pixar, Disney, and BlueSky were all met with silence – I knew I had to go somewhere else. I needed experience, to keep learning – and getting out of my parents’ house and living independently would be a nice plus too. So I opened up all possibilities to small studios anywhere in the world. Opportunity arrived where I least expected. Singapore, at a studio of about fifty international and local artists creating long pantomime skits with Looney Tunes style gags. The tests for the project were entertaining and it were supervised by a veteran animator, so I jumped on a plane, saw two sunrises from the air in thirty hours and found it was far better than anything else I could have done. Not just for my career but my life. Flash forward a year later – I was completely changed.

Small Studios Enable 1-on-1 Mentorship and Growth

The most important thing you can do as your career starts is become a better artist. Raising your game to a high professional level ensures job after job down the line, and having a mentor will accelerate your skill. When a veteran sits down time and time again to pick apart your work, you learn to spot what they look for. The lessons they have learned through years of struggle are distilled down for you in months or even weeks. This is effective learning. Smaller companies are more capable in this regard not because their veterans are necessarily better than those at Disney or ILM but because they have less on their plate; When there are approval screenings, in-house meetings and hundreds of people on staff to look after one-on-one mentoring doesn’t make sense.

Other approaches you can take are internships and apprenticeships. Studios like Disney have an Apprentice Program where you can work under the guidance of a mentor, provided you’re a recent graduate. These I’m sure are amazing for new artists and, if you have the opportunity, make the most of it! It may land you a permanent position or at the very least one hell of an experience. But there are a few downsides to this approach as well.

• With big name companies like Disney or Pixar there is huge competition, probably just as much as – if not more than – regular openings. Students all over the world prepare killer art to land them, thousands of demo reels a week from people already animating at a Disney level.

• Assuming your internship goes fantastically and they have room to hire you after those three-to-six months, then you may still be at the low end of a totem pole you’ll need to work your way up, among a lot of talented artists.

I wouldn’t suggest avoiding internships, but small studios can skip all of these downsides. Provided the supervisor understands the power of fostering a strong team, you’re bound to learn a lot more from them – constantly. It’s the difference between animating on Tangled with Glen Keane assisting the entire forty-plus Disney animation crew and being one of the three Animation Assistants with Glen Keane on Duet. Imagine how much more you would absorb being one of three animators next to Glen Keane. How often could you see him work, hear him talk, get his feedback?

Just listening to this master talk for a few minutes, as with the interview above, and you start thinking on a whole new level. These are the kinds of opportunities that come and go right under our noses. It doesn’t have to be someone as renowned as Glen either and frequently it wont. Simply look for someone who has more experience than you in an environment where you can interact with them constantly. In Singapore, my first supervisor, James Chiang ensured I became a better artist. He held me to a higher standard, squeezed every ounce of emotion out of a pose, saw my personal struggles, hosted after-hours breakdowns of Woody Allen movies, and took thirty minutes out of his day to draw over my animation frame by frame. That kind of repetition day to day, month to month, makes anyone excel. I reached out to James to get his opinion:

This would all have to be qualified of course, but yes, I believe that in a small studio, you have a much greater opportunity to grow and learn. However, the atmosphere must be designed to enable artists to grow – if the mindset is still that of a robotic production facility, size won’t matter. If done right however, smaller teams allow for much greater collaboration, more innovation and chances to think outside of the box. In larger teams, supervisors are often overburdened with meetings and their own production quota to allow for more personal relationships and richer development. Even as a director, I found that I could grow with a team, rather than just guide the team when the staff count is manageable. I was also able to work with younger artists personally, helping them advance their skills or when needed address unique issues because I made room for one-on-one mentorship. After all, you’re not just setting an example for learning skills for a career, but for life too – helping and giving is a concept to be learned and applied. I think for young artists starting out, they’ll get a better picture of the whole picture.

– James Chiang (Supervising Animator, Director, Character Designer, and Animation Mentor Instructor)

Small Studios Can Give Better Shots

Mentorship compounds your growth when you get challenging shots. Animations or work that pushes your ability in complexity, speed, or entertainment is what takes you to a higher level. Like bench pressing – the struggle to go from lifting 160lbs to 200lbs is what makes you stronger. The same is true for shots – you have to take the opportunity to push yourself but also have a challenge ahead.

Let’s assume you’re a new animator arriving at Pixar, where there are loyal pros who have spent literally decades earning their position, learning from their mistakes, and gaining the trust to work on the most crucial, complex shots. In your first weeks, who do you think is going to get the money shot, You or them? Great shots work down the chain of trusted employees. Out of eighty artists, the most senior people will get the pick of the litter, and by the time it reaches you there will only be table scraps. Sometimes these scraps (eye blinks, head turns) are exactly what you need starting out, but you’ll quickly outgrow them. Being part of a smaller team lets you sidestep these growing pains. You don’t have to spend years proving yourself before getting a chance. If you’re one animator of twelve instead of eighty, you instantly become more indispensable to the company. There is more work available because there are only a few of you to get it all done. This typically means longer, more complex or just more mouth-watering shots. All of these will showcase much more appeal and skill on your demo reel. Back in Singapore at One Animation, a crab fight shot I did on Oddbods was a great example of something fun, challenging and fairly long, a seriously rewarding opportunity for an entry level animator.

Recap and Whats Coming Next

To sum it all up, here are four questions to ask yourself when considering studio jobs in the industry:

1. Take a hard look at your ‘dream’ studio – why is it truly your dream?
2. Are there other studio options?
3. Who can you learn from there and will they have time to mentor you?
4. Will you get great shots?

These questions will make you look at your future in a new light and clarify what’s truly important. In Part 2 you’ll discover even more benefits of small studios, such as how they can give you a better demo reel, enable adventure, and be more innovative. By the end you’ll have a clearer understanding of where you want to truly work and why.

The post How Small Studios can be your BIG break appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.