For many new animators, getting to work on a big studio feature film is a dream come true. It's also a lot of hard work, putting to the test all their talent and skill in an attempt to contribute to a huge undertaking.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the third film in Blue Sky Studios' signature series, gave many Animation Mentor alumni the chance to do just that. A whopping 51 Animation Mentor students, graduates and mentors worked on the film. So here we take a look at five recent Animation Mentor graduates' experiences working on the film.

Getting her first experience on an animated feature with Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is Teresa Nord, who says she wanted to be an animator ever since she was a little girl. She got a call from Blue Sky on the day she graduated from Animation Mentor offering her a job on the film, despite not having applied for a position Blue Sky got her name and a look at her demo reel through the school's career services department, which helps its students find jobs in the animation industry.

Nord came on near the end of the film's production, working on about three shots – including one with five characters – in the two months she was on the job.

She's especially proud of a shot that featured the mastodon Manny, voiced in the film by Ray Romano. "It took me a long time to get it, but once I got it, I liked the emotion in it," she says. "I was able to do all five of the characters in that shot. It was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done."

Blue Sky was a friendly and supportive environment to work in, and it was easy to get advice or help when you needed it. Nord also says her experience at Animation Mentor prepared her well for the workflow on the film.

"The processes of going through your shot from planning to the final product, they were very similar [to the school's routine]," she says, "The dailies in the morning were just like having your mentor critique your assignment every week at Animation Mentor."

Nord says she learned a lot by working on the film, saying the hardest part was learning to work more quickly. "At school, you had a lot more time for turnaround on a shot, whereas for a feature film we were on crunch time."

Valerie Morrison was in a similar situation, getting a job offer out of the blue based on her reel on the Animation Mentor alumni web site. Hired for the tail end of the project, Morrison was working on actual production shots within a week of starting at Blue Sky.

"It was pretty intense but it was easy to flow into because it was so similar to what I'd done at Animation Mentor," she says.

Morrison says she did a variety of shots, working on everything from run cycles for background characters, to reaction shots to working with main characters speaking dialogue.

There was plenty of support from supervisors and the directors, with each making multiple rounds per day to check on the progress of shots in addition to screening dailies.

"The frequency and the availability of rounds was helpful, and the rounds were well done because they were clear and concise," she says.

David Sloss was already well versed in working at Blue Sky, having worked on Horton Hears a Who, and is now working on staff as a character animator. On Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Sloss worked on the project from the beginning and got to try his hand at animating all the series' iconic characters.

"At Blue Sky, we get a shot and, regardless of who's in the shot, you're responsible for animating those characters," he says. "So you might be animating Manny one week and the second week you'll have a shot with Sid."

Sloss, who was on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs from the start, says the studio usually begins bringing on extra animation help about halfway through the production process, building as needed to get the entire film done by the final deadline.

"By the time you get to the end, the team here almost doubles," he says.

Sloss says working on Horton gave him the confidence in his skills to do some more complicated work on Ice Age. "Now, I sit down and I start thinking about a shot and I'm usually much more efficient at arriving at, technically, the way I'm going to go about doing that shot," he says. "Having had a bit of experience on Horton gave me a bit more confidence on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs to try out things that I might have been more conservative with."

Working under different directors was another thing that changed between Horton and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and took a little bit of adjustment, Sloss says. "On Horton, Jimmy Hayward often wanted us to push poses, expressions, and timing 'too far,' and then he would pull us back a little bit to meet his vision and the requirements of the picture. Carlos Saldanha for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs wanted a much less cartoony style of animation for most of the characters, obviously to keep it in tune with the style defined in the two previous Ice Age films, he says. "Making this adjustment isn't like flicking a switch: It takes a little time and you learn to listen very carefully to what the director is saying to pick up on everything that he or she wants for the shot and for the picture."

Gordana Fersini also worked on Horton and returned for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, saying the pace at first started out slow and picked up quickly. "It was pretty intense in terms of hours, but everyone was working very efficiently."

Fersini says her shots were more challenging this time, and she learned how to better plan her shots and execute the performances. She also learned to focus on the task at hand and not rush into creating details that are not necessary to the point you're at in the overall process.

Dealing with the 3D element also required some extra planning, because some of the techniques that work in 2D don't hold up with an extra dimension.

"You work on shots the way you would normally, but you can't cheat like you would do for a regular production," she says. "You had to respect that there was a sense of depth."

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was the second feature film job for Malcon Pierce after a stint on Sony's Open Season 2. Pierce worked at Blue Sky nearly eight months on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs as a character animator.

"We started out doing smaller shots, just quick, 30-frame, maybe 60-frame shots. As our skill level grew, we were given more complicated shots. The workload grew and the time crunch got tighter as the deadline for finishing the film approached," Pierce says.

In all, Pierce estimated he did about 1,900 frames of animation spread over about 20 shots.

"Towards the end of the contract at Blue Sky, we were really in a crunch to get the movie done on time," he says. "I don't think much can really prepare you for that other than just jumping into the pool."

But all the hard work is worth it when your scene gets onto the big screen and becomes a part of the bigger goal everyone's been working so hard to achieve.

"You're working crazy hours but in the end when you see your shot in a trailer or something like that, it rejuvenates your desire to do it again," he says.