If you’re a reader of the Animation Tips and Tricks blog, you’re up on the latest animation tips and tricks from Shawn Kelly. We’ve expanded the Animation Tips and Tricks blog so it includes other professional animators who are in the know about cutting-edge tips and tricks. Our first guest blogger is Keith Sintay, an animator at Digital Domain whose credits include Open Season, Surf's Up, Monster House, Beowulf and I Am Legend. He’s currently working on G.I. Joe. We’ll be introducing several new guest bloggers over the next few months. Check out the Tips and Tricks blog: www.animationtipsandtricks.com
-Animation Mentor Staff

Who Is Cut Out For Animation (Answer: YOU!)

  By: Shawn Kelly

I've been getting a lot of questions emailed to me asking what it takes to be an animator. I've talked a bit about that stuff before and elsewhere, but I thought I'd address those questions again here.

I believe with all my heart that ANYONE with the passion and drive and desire to learn animation, can learn animation. Yes, there will always be those VERY few lucky people who just naturally have crazy amounts of animation talent, but they are few and far between. I've been either learning or teaching (well, always learning!!) animation one way or another for 13 years now, and can only think of three students in all that time who really fit that description. Maybe four.

Those people are very rare. For most of us, we just have to study our brains out and practice like crazy and sacrifice a lot of sleep in order to try to get the hang of this animation stuff.

You're probably worrying about competition in the industry, and you know what? There WILL be competition, and a lot of it. In fact, hundreds of people will probably be competing with you for that job at your dream studio. But gosh, if that's your dream? If that's your absolute dream
job, how can you not give it a shot?

I really think that unless you have serious time-consuming family obligations or other extenuating circumstances and responsibilities - unless you're in some kind of situation like that, you owe it to yourself to chase after that dream. If you want it more than those other hundreds of people, and work harder for it than those other hundreds of people, then it's those hundreds of people who should be worried about YOU, and not the other way around!

When I was in high school, I wanted to work on Star Wars more than anything in the world, and they hadn't even officially announced that there would be more Star Wars movies. It was just rumors, but I made it my goal to get to ILM. ILM was where I wanted to work, period. In light of that, every single decision I made was based on "does this decision take me one step closer to ILM or take me a step away from it?" If it was the former, then that's what I did, no matter what kind of burden it created on my time, my social life, schooling, etc.

I worked my butt off to somehow unbelievably make it into ILM after years and years of training, networking, and working at smaller studios. I learned that something my grandfather once told me was very true: simply "following your dreams" isn't enough - you have to aggressively and proactively HUNT your dream down.

People spend their entire lives "following their dreams" and the vast majority of them never arrive. If you want to get into your dream studio, you have to be better than that.

You have to be a hunter.

If you can combine a true passion for learning animation with the tenacity necessary to hunt down your dream job, then I have zero doubt that someday I'll see your name in the credits of my favorite TV show, a video game that I've been lost in for weeks, or at the end of a film in a packed theater. It might not happen right away, and you'll probably have to slowly build experience and your reel as you work your way up through smaller studios, but if you just never let go of that dream, and base your decisions on it, you CAN make it come true.

I know, because I've been there. And the hard truth is that I saw plenty of people who could have tried harder. Back when I was in school, I saw plenty of students leave the animation lab at 10 p.m. to go play video games or hit a club or go to sleep. The people who stayed in that lab until it closed at 2 a.m. EVERY NIGHT are largely the people who have their dream jobs right now.

We made animation our LIFE, and put everything else on hold. Could it be a coincidence that those are the people who ended up with the jobs everyone else wanted? I don't think so. I think it ended up coming down to who wanted those jobs the most, and who was willing (or able) to make the sacrifices necessary to completely immerse themselves in their art.

For me, it was a great life lesson, and one I feel happy and lucky to have learned, so I figured I should pass it along...

I also want to add that I'm not merely talking about joining Animation Mentor. I realize that many of you aren't in a situation where you can join the school right now -- that's fine! Seek out other ways to hunt your dream down. There are a lot of free online resources that can at least help get you started, such as forums, online animation and art communities, and blogs like this one. There are great books out there such as The Illusion of Life and The Animator's Survival Kit. There are fantastic making-of documentaries on any number of your favorite DVDs.

Seek that stuff out and soak it up! Do the best hunting you can with whatever is at your disposal right now, and take that first step that brings you even the tiniest bit closer to your goal, whatever it may be.

Best of luck,
Shawn :)

If you have questions, you can also email: tipsandtricks@AnimationMentor.com

Visit the Animation Tips & Tricks Blog: http://animationtipsandtricks.com/