Letter From the Frontline

I've been in the animation business since about 1996, and I've been primarily working on pre-school television series work. Although I started as a traditional assistant animator, and then an animator, it wasn't long before I animated on more shows using a 2D computer animation software. I realised after awhile that there would be times when work is thin on the ground only knowing the one animation tool, and I noticed a lot of my team mates did know more than one and could swap over to different projects to stay in work.
 

It was at this point I decided that I wanted to learn 3D. So I started looking around at all the web sites/ books I could get and I found myself slowly getting an idea of the mountain climb that lay ahead of me.

I did a couple of evening courses which taught the basics. They were great, but to do others of more depth could be very expensive, even though you can get bursaries. Other avenues to look at are the internet Digital Tutors, Lynda.com. Animation Mentor and Creative Crash. I could go on as there are many MANY types of these sites, some offering free tutorials, other much more in-depth courses, but require subscription.

My first real experience with anything 3D blew my mind. A director I used to work for called me to ask if I wanted to work on a 3D pilot for a show as he knew I was trying to learn this software. This was my big break into it the heady world of 3D and from that I got other small jobs off the back of it, from people I knew in other studios and now I am nearly finished on another pre-school show which has given me a brilliant 18 months worth of work that has been invaluable. The experience has been great as it's really reawakened my love for animation. But it hasn't been an easy journey. It's a perilous situation to be in of having to retrain oneself to 3D software. There is so much to get your head into and from what I have experienced some of the smaller studios want people who know at least 2 or 3 of the different disciplines such as modeling, rigging lighting or animation. Basically as a 2D animator, I built up a lot of contacts over the years and it was a good time to get work. Now I am trying to keep in 3D my contacts are back to square one again and of course I am in an arena with many other skilled 3D types, some straight from college and some who have been doing this kind of 3D work for years.

From what I hear and see today, not many 3D series are done here in the UK due to recent budgetary cutbacks. Studios are favouring to get much of the production done abroad where the money gets more people. It would seem that that one needs to move more towards the advertising studios or film production/FX houses to keep the wages coming in.

It has been hard to find work, especially as I come from a television series background. A lot of studios like more realistic style reels, not series styled animation with loads of flash, bangs and wallops. But you have to work at developing those contacts again. I am thinking I should try to approach some of them and see if they would consider doing a brief 3D internship. The downside being it's a means of doing and getting some experience, but at a low to non paid wage. If you can stomach that for a bit, it might help you get a foot in the door, and get some reel fillers. The animation side of 3D is the easiest to learn frankly. The others can be quite a minefield of stuff to learn, but I love it. I really do. I want to try and broaden the types of work as that's a good way to get more variety on the reel than only having series clips.

Money-wise I haven't noticed a big improvement yet, but that is because I am still new to it and have yet to expand my contacts and get better level jobs.

I hope what I have written hasn't dampened any hopes of those trying to learn new things. Am I glad I did it? Yes, I am, as I enjoy seeing and learning anything that keeps the passion of animation alive within me, so I hope you do go for it. I think it's worth it.

Christian Chessell is a Maya Animator and Modeler at The Picture Production Company