Freelance Animators Working Remotely:
Is it the Next Trend for Studios?

  By: Dana Boadway

As a freelance animator, I often get asked the same questions.  One of the most frequently asked is “how hard is it to find work?” Folks are nervous to give up the relative cushiness of a full-time gig – the regular paychecks, the standard vacation time, knowing what to expect from one year to the next, even one week to the next. Sure, layoffs happen fairly frequently in our industry. Sometimes a project gets put back on the shelf, sometimes it gets cut completely, and usually our contracts state that we are hires for the duration of said project (there are a lucky few who have full-time staff gigs, but I think it’s the exception these days). As soon as it’s finished, in one way or another, whether it’s completed or not, we’re looking for work again. So in a sense, we’re all freelancing. It’s just that we real wheeler-dealers go through the job search pretty much constantly, and work for days or weeks (sometimes we’re lucky enough to get all the way up to months) at a time, instead of a year or two. The kicker is…we generally get paid more (compensation for the instability, no vacation pay and no health benefits), but we don’t get to spend our time off vacationing. We’re usually spending it looking for work. That being said, the more freelancing I’ve done, and the more ‘regular’ clients I get over time, the more I can plan my work schedule around my time off, and not vice versa.

The variety is part of what I love about this business, and also what I kind of hate about it. On the one hand, I’ve been one of the fortunate who have traveled to different places in the world to live and work -- it’s been a wonderful experience. I have friends who have done even more world-living than I have, and it’s an amazing life to live. It brings living on this planet into a perspective you’d never have otherwise. Being able to not only visit in different cultures and parts of the world, but to actually be able to stay there long enough to become a part of that place and have it become part of your soul is incredibly enriching. It has made me more open, more compassionate, and it’s made me realize just how small this blue marble we live on really is.

That being said, it does get old if you ever want to settle down in one place, unpack those suitcases, break open the storage unit and recover all of your stuff that’s been packed away for the last five or seven years (it’s like Christmas when you finally open up the boxes…“Oh MAN, I totally forgot I HAD that vintage E.T. plush toy from 1982… AWESOME!!”). So where does an animator go if they want to settle down? California? Good option for pure numbers of studios within commutable square mileage, but, in my opinion, SO expensive to even rent there, never mind ever wanting to have a postage stamp of land to call your own. Many folks would LOVE to move east, to Toronto, to New England, and be near their families again after all the world wandering . Unfortunately, work can be hard to find in eastern North America especially these days, when studios are struggling to keep those advertising clients coming in even with their slashed budgets, and television and film projects slowing down and cutting back. I’ve even spoken to friends who freelance in New York City, which used to be FULL of work for good animators, who are having a hard time finding the next gig.

Now, I live near Boston myself (originally a Toronto gal) and I love living in the east. I’m closer to my family, I get to enjoy the seasons, and there’s a quality of life here that I find very appealing. Don’t get me wrong -- I’ve spent lots of time out in California, and one of my favorite places in the whole world is the Mojave Desert. But I could never afford a house there on an acre of beautiful wooded land with a stream running through the back as I have here in Massachusetts. Quality of life is something more and more animators are looking for as they attain more and more years of experience. The glory of working for the big studios starts to wear off, and there are hungry young folks coming up in the ranks who are more willing to suffer the constant extra-long work hours and the transient lifestyle.

How does one attain that stability, still get to participate in great, high-profile projects, and live where they WANT to, rather than having to live where the studios are?

Enter… the Internet.

For the past couple years, a very large percentage of the work I’ve been doing has been Internet-based. Shocking, isn’t it? Many people are surprised when I tell them this. This is a new trend that I’m seeing more and more, and I feel this is a trend even more studios will turn to as they seek to find ways to cut back those production budgets. They no longer need physical space to house the team, or computers, or the updating of the hardware and software, not even the pizza-and-beer nights that they spring for during crunch time, when the hours get ridiculous.

I know of a few big studios who have hired remote animation teams for very high-profile projects, and it seems more are willing to consider this option all the time (especially now that there are successful examples established).

One studio that I did work for was Bungie, LLC, makers of the wildly popular Halo First-Person-Shooter game series. They began using remote animators way before anyone else that I know for big projects. I did character animation for cinematics for them on Halo 3 in 2007, and then was fortunate enough to have them ask me back again for Halo 3 ODST. Their animation director was extremely visionary on how to pull the project off in this way, and he, they, and we, as a team, were very successful. Their model of working a remote team on a big project really proves its usefulness and the quality of the work remained extremely high. In fact, there were many wickedly talented, highly experienced folks on those projects who likely would not have been able to participate, were they only hiring on-site staff.

There are some caveats to this approach, however. The team needs to be made up of folks that have some proof of work ethic, and experience on high-level, high-pressure projects. Taking chances on unknown commodities is much more difficult when supervisors can’t keep a constant eye on what’s being accomplished. The animators involved must be very dedicated self-starters, and be able to manage their own time effectively enough to meet their deadlines and be confident enough in their skills to take initiative when issues come up with their shots.

For the studio, this makes having an animation director who is well-known and experienced at many studios and on many projects, and who can wrangle assembling just the right types of folks for the gig, VERY important.

The gang at Bungie managed this SO well the first time around, that I was pleased as punch that they decided to do it the same way on their next Halo game. They made it a personal experience much like working together in a physical space – lots of contact, funny quips abounded via email and instant message, and feedback was always very prompt and very clear. They had an FTP site set up as one-stop-shopping, where animators could go to get their shot files, download tools and melscripts, upload their renders for feedback, and hand in shots. The efficiency was quite impressive!

The flexibility that this kind of work offers me is outstanding. I can decide how many hours I can put in each week (since I am usually juggling at least two gigs at a time), and I can also decide when I can’t work, leaving me free to have time with my family, or taking time to do things like volunteering for SIGGRAPH. I can live where I choose to live, and still feel fulfilled as an animator.

It has been a lot of work getting to this place, professionally speaking. There have been many jobs leading up to this lifestyle I’ve attained that have given me solid networking contacts and solid experience to sell myself. I have invested quite a bit of money in computing equipment, but you can get a lot of power for much less money now than you used to have to fork out. The increasing affordability makes this sort of home studio work to be very doable for pretty much anyone. That’s good for freelancers, and it’s great for studios who would like to save money on rent and gear.

I predict (and hope!) that more big studios will consider this model for future projects as belts need to be tightened, and more of us GenX animators choose to leave the big, high-cost-of-living cities and move somewhere great to bring up our kids. I see this as a win/win situation for everyone involved! Using the Internet for production brings a worldwide studio into one virtual space. Why should a studio limit themselves to the animators who are in their city, when they can have their pick from all over the world? This little blue marble is wired now, and the trailblazers are learning how to plug in to all that potential.

Dana Boadway is a sole proprietor of Killerjellybean Animation, a project director/guest lecturer at Northeastern University and a mentor at AnimationMentor.com. Dana is currently a guest blogger for Animation Tips & Tricks.