Situation Vacant

It’s the end of the summer and those CVs from eager graduates are flooding in daily. We try to respond to everyone giving some sort of constructive advice but it’s frustrating that firstly, we don’t actually have positions to fill right now and secondly, 99% of the applicants don’t have what we’re looking for. Most of the CVs are from animators who want to make their break into the world of work. As Lupus Films is not an animation studio, but a production company that outsources the majority of our animation work to animation studios at home and abroad, we rarely have suitable opportunities.

However, what I’ve never received in eight years of running a company is a CV and covering letter saying; Dear Sir/Madam, what I’d really like to be is an animation producer. Please will you invest in me and train me up so that I can take your job one day? (No doubt I will get lots of letters like that as soon as this article is published!)
What this industry really needs is good producing talent. The role of the producer in the animation industry is crucial, especially now when UK companies are increasingly the lead producer running large complex productions with work spread over a number of territories worldwide. And I’m sure if there were a survey done across the industry to find the average age of animation producers, the answer would be – old. We need some young blood, some raw talent.

I only know of one course in the whole of the UK that trains graduates or under-graduates to become producers, but even that course covers mainly live-action where animation is just an ‘option’ so the numbers of graduates coming into the industry is limited.

I’m not suggesting that every graduate should know what they want to do as soon as they leave college, after all, I didn’t. The first company I worked for advertised for ‘trainee production staff’. I worked my socks off making corporate videos and organising conferences and it was only when I left two years later that I realised I’d been trained as a producer; nobody told me what I’d been doing was actually what a producer does. I considered myself to be a ‘Jack of All Trades’, I was good at organising things, was fairly good with money, I had good ideas and I was quite bossy. What I’ve learned now, sixteen years down the line, is that those key attributes are what makes a good producer.

I think that the route of production runner, or production assistant graduating to production co-ordinator or assistant producer is an excellent route to move up the ladder within an animation production company. My advice once you have an ‘in’ at this level is to make yourself indispensable by offering to help with everything. You’ll excel in certain areas which will lead you towards your specialism or make you realise what you really enjoy doing.

What I hope for is that the role of the animation producer is held up as being a respected and important position. Then maybe it might be seen as being a more attractive career goal for fresh new starters. But I guess that it’s up to us oldish animation producers to do something about it and spread the word. I hope it’s a job that becomes more revered, perhaps seen as being fun and a bit glamorous.

It’s not all Excel spreadsheets and boardroom meetings you know. In fact, I’m just off to Sheffield shortly followed by Cannes where I plan to repeat last year’s antics of late nights, noxious liqueurs, Cuban cigars and falling over dancing at cocktail parties on posh yachts. If that’s not glamour, what is?!!

Ruth Fielding is Joint Managing Director of Lupus Films.