Point of Contact - Contacting Professionals

Throughout third year, I have made an attempt to contact professionals who specialise in my area of interest, which would be storyboards. I specifically looked around for storyboard artists who have worked on films which I believe work really well, and I have seen some of the storyboards for. I did not make any sort of list for who I was going to be contacting, I purely contacted people who I believed to be good examples of storyboard artists.

My first step was looking into storyboards which I enjoy from live action films, but also storyboard artists who specialise in animation, and have examples of storyboards online. The following is who I found and contacted:

Douglas Ingram: Link to Work : DouglasIngram.com

Douglas Ingram is a London based storyboard artist having worked on blockbuster films such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Batman Begins" and "Fast and Furious 6" Myself and Mr Ingram did at first exchange in an email conversation, however most of our correspondence was over the phone which I obviously cannot evidence. Mr Ingram was so inviting as a person to talk to, and was able to offer a lot of advice on approach. Although he was so helpful with storyboard questions, we also were able to have what I felt was a very genuine conversation about our approach, and what we like to use in terms of pencils and equipment. This was an inspiring conversation to have and really gave me and insight into the live action storyboard industry. From this I have made a long term connection whom I have contacted a few different times on a more friendly basis since our initial contact which has been very useful.

Andrew Wildman: Andrew Wildman Work

My initial contact with Mr Wildman was at Thought Bubble Leeds 2018 where he had a table selling prints and his new book which was the complete storyboards on an episode on "Doctor Who". I purchased this book which he kindly signed as well as a print of his from his days working on "Transformers" comics. After this he gave me his email, and we had a brief talk about storyboarding and it's connection to comic books of which he was incredibly helpful. After this I was able to contact and connect with Mr Wildman on LinkedIn, where we had back and forth correspondence and he was able to give me some very good advice on the industry and his approach to storyboarding. I found that this differed to Mr Ingram's, however it often does from artist to artist so this wasn't a surprise. From this we have had some contact here and there about some more general topics - movies and such, and he is a very helpful and useful contact to have.

Frasier Maclean : Link to Mr Maclean's Book

My very first contact with Mr Maclean, was 2 years ago during a talk he gave on the animation industry at Uni, and he is a very informed individual throughout the animation industry, having worked in the layout department on Disney's "Tarzan" and written the book "Setting the Scene: The Art and Development of Animation Layout". Although Mr Maclean is not specific to storyboarding, I felt it necessary to gain insight from industry professionals on there career as there could be insight on how to carry myself and how to approach the animation industry. However to my satisfaction, it turned out that Mr Maclean did in-fact have an extensive knowledge on storyboarding, and was able to suggest a lot of very useful books (which I have picked up since) as well as being able to answer all the questions I had about storyboarding for myself. We have been in contact since a fair amount, as he is kind enough to talk through updates about what I am doing and how my experiences have been since our initial talk.

Steven Evangelatos : Steven's Work

I was actually lucky enough to stumble across Mr Evangelatos' work on a whim whilst looking for Marvel/Comic related works in storyboarding. I came across this board from "Marvel's Avengers Assemble" the animated show. From this I contacted Mr Evangelatos on LinkedIn, and he greeted me very nicely, and so I asked him the questions I wanted to know the answer to, which he graciously answered within the same day. This was a different experience as Mr Evangelatos is an American storyboard artist, and therefore I was able to gain some insight on how an animated production in the USA develops it's storyboards. As a key difference to the storyboards I have contacted prior, Mr Evangelatos spends a long time working out character arcs before starting the board process. This was a very key difference and definitely puts a lot more emphasis on the storytelling (which the other artists do also) within a series.

Bianca Ansems :  Bianca Ansems Work

Bianca Ansems is a storyboard artist/ animator who has worked on projects for Cartoon Network such as "The Amazing World of Gumball". My initial contact with Ms Ansems on twitter, where she very nicely said that I could contact her in a couple of weeks as she was on holiday. After a couple of weeks had passed I contacted again, this time on email, and asked if I could ask some questions, to which she nicely agreed to answer when she had the time. I asked my questions and I received some very in depth responses to my questions. This gave me a very good insight into storyboarding for the TV animation industry, from a well established professional. Ms Ansems was professional and incredibly helpful all the way along. I was able to get a very good sense of her process and also her responses were very direct and to the point.

Work Experience - Brown Bag Films 25th - 27th February

After contacting Brown Bag Films in November, and completing my application form, I was able to go along to Brown Bag on the 25th of February to complete my production pipeline work experience.

Day 1

- On day 1 I was introduced to the other 2 people there completing the same experience I was, both at different levels to myself, with one being a graduate, and another being college level. I had a long talk with Kate Lander this day about what I wanted to gain from my work experience and what type of things I could ask the professionals I was about to meet. There was a lot of admin stuff on this day ie safety, NDA's and what not. However during this I was able to meet some of the professionals undertaking work experience whilst also being employed, essentially the same program but over 10 weeks as opposed to 3 days. We ended the day in Post Production, looking at how the edit suite takes storyboards from the artists and times them out into an animatic to show the client which is timed up to the audio tracks with placeholder music over the top. I found this stage very interesting as it related directly to my own practice.

Day 2

- Day 2 was a lot more full on, as we started with Clodagh, in production, talking about the planning of productions and how meticulously everything has to be set in stone before the production starts. This was interesting as it is a stage that requires a lot of work, but not in a creative sense, which I don't really do that often. We then moved on to talk to Cliodhna, one of the directors at Brown Bag, who had a background in storyboards, and this was the part I found most interesting about the experience as a whole, as it was all about my practice, it gave me a lot of answers to questions I had, as well as a brutally honest insight into being a storyboard artist in the animation industry. What followed was a day in the design department, from character, to layout, to backgrounds and finishing off the day in scene set-up, and entry level job which involves placing the characters into a scene ready for the animators to use.

Day 3 

- We saw a lot more of the animation side of things on this day, spending time with a lead animator, and getting to know his role was a great insight, as he actually had less shots to complete than everyone else, due to him having to take shots and give feedback on a lot of different people's work. From here we went to tradigital VFX, looking at hand drawn animated effects which are used on the show. We then went into post production to see how the episode gets put together then handed on to the client.

Summary 

- Overall this was an amazing experience, and I took a lot from it. I feel as though I have gotten a much better understanding of the industry as a whole. I will now take a lot more consideration into the other stages in production when I am storyboarding on any project, and it will definitely inform my practice as a whole. As well as this it will give me a great thing to put on my CV, which couldn't hurt my chances of getting a job after uni.

Freelance Work Opportunities

To try and pull in some storyboarding experience, I set myself up on freelancer.com, where people can give their details for creative work.

I used my usual tag "TheBritsonian" as my freelance name, with a rate of $30 an hour, which would roughly be about £22, so a minimum freelance wage for a storyboard artist in the North of England. I applied for a couple of positions on this website, and I was offered the role for one of these.

This was the email I was sent, to work on the pilot episode of "Aychu" a kid's YouTube animated show showing kids the importance of the environment. However, the timeline and payment for this role, were not what I was looking for, and would conflict too much with my Uni work. The payment was $100 as  a set wage, with 5 days to complete a 10 minute storyboard, which I felt was far too unrealistic for the time I was given, as this included deadlines for thumbnails to final pass, which was far too steep. Therefore, unfortunately I had to decline the offer as although it would have been great for my portfolio, it would not be a good opportunity to take at the time.

Point of Contact 2 - Ex Tutor

I have tried to create a lot of connections during this year, but I had missed an important contact I should have looked into before all of this, in my ex tutor Martin, who happens to live in the same city as me. I thought this would be a good contact as he has his own animation studio, so I thought I could gain some work experience through this.

Luckily he gave me a very nice response, and said that I may be able to help out in his studio at some point in May, which would be good as it is when the final hand in is, and would be a great thing to put on my CV as work experience.

It would also be good for after Uni as I know I would have to move home to York for a while before I am able to move out, so staying around York and gaining experience would be a win win for me.

Interview Experience - Build a Rocket By Games

After applying on glassdoor.co.uk, I was contacted by "Build a Rocket Boy Games" for the role of cinematic storyboard artist. This was to be a Skype interview, where we would discuss my portfolio and my application. Here is the email that was sent to me, for obvious reasons I could not include email addresses and such forth as that is personal information.

During this interview we discussed my general process, and how I approached storyboards. I got the feeling however during this interview that I was not being taken seriously, and it was unclear to me whether they knew I was a student, even after putting it on my application. However the interview was professional and I was sure I was unsuccessful in securing the role.

Although I was unsuccessful, I am putting this one down to interview experience, and I now know what to expect in future when I undertake interviews for similar positions. I need to improve my interview skills, as I got a bit flustered when I was asked about my process, and when asking questions, I could have been clearer in terms of what I was asking. I should have been more assertive and handled myself as a professional as opposed to a student, which is probably a confidence issue.

Work Experience?

After contacting around studios, my contacting went pretty far as I got a reply from Brown Bag Films asking for some more information. This was the first email I received from Kate Lander:

Proceeding this, I filled out the work experience form. Which I asked for a couple of days. They also asked why I wanted the work experience. The reason for this is that I wanted to gain an insight to the industry that I couldn't get through interviews or books. The only way I could properly experience what it was like to be around an industry setting, was to go and see for myself.

To my surprise, I was contacted again, this time asking me to an interview, which I was very pleased with. I went along to my interview, where we discussed what the experience would include, and when about I would be able to come along. I was also asked some general interview questions as to why I chose Brown Bag and why I wanted the experience. I was interviewed by Kate Lander, and the interview ended with her happily offering me the work experience starting in the new year for the 3 day production pipeline program. I am incredibly happy with this result, and I will relish the experience that they can give me.

Application after Application

After making my CV I thought it best to apply for some potential jobs, whether it be because I believed I was in with a chance, but also because I wanted the experience of going through the application process, and maybe gaining some interview experience. Therefore I went for these websites to track down some jobs.

All of these websites have been incredibly useful in looking for jobs. So far I have used these resources to apply for Cloth Cat animation, Jellyfish Animation, Build a Rocket Boy Games LTD, Square One Resources, as well as internships at Pixar, Disney and Blue-zoo for storyboard artist internships. So far I have not received any sort of response from these companies but I will remain hopeful and keep applying for extra stuff.

As well as applying on these websites, I have contacted some studios about any work experience or studio visit opportunities which could potentially be around but not on any sort of job websites. The companies I have contacted so far have been Brown Bag Films, Little Fish Animation Studios as well as some others, I have tried not to contact anything too far away due to travel cost however I am trying to establish a connection with these studios.