Getting My First Job in Animation
I recently got an offer to intern as a technical director at Blue Sky Studios this summer, and I accepted. Working at an animation studio has been my main goal for four years now, and to finally take such a huge step in that direction is an unbelievable feeling. I can only hope this will eventually lead to a full time job in the industry, but for now I'm happy to have reached this milestone. Along the way I had so many people help me and I'm writing this to describe my journey - how I got into this position, and the things I thought helped me the most. Minor disclaimer: this is from the perspective of someone on the technical side of animation - I'm a computer science major. Some of this may still apply to the artist side but definitely not entirely.
Let's start all the way back. When I was in eighth grade, getting ready to start high school, they told us we'd get the chance to take courses centered around certain career paths. We all got a brochure that listed the possibilities. I saw engineering, computer science, business, architecture, among many others. I went with health science - I wanted to be a doctor. Or so I thought.
My first three years of health science classes were okay, but I knew something was missing. It was pretty obvious I was doing it because I wanted to make my parents proud, and, if anything else, have a career that is well respected. I didn't actually enjoy what I was doing. After getting into a nursing program with the elderly home nearby and dreading it completely, I realized that this was not what I wanted to do with my life. My parents and I went to Mandola's for dinner one night and I told them I did not want to be a doctor. They were supportive, but curious as to what I was going to do instead. I didn't know.
In June of 2015, I was a couple months away from being a senior in high school. I had seen teasers for an upcoming film Inside Out, and I knew when it came out I wanted to see it. So, on June 15, my brother and I took to the theaters. As you can predict from the title of this post, I was blown away by the film - every aspect of it was amazing. It was incredibly immersive, beautiful, wondrous, and filled you with so many emotions. After watching that movie, my curiosity had peaked - how were computer animated films made? I went to the nearest Barnes and Noble and read everything they had on the matter. Then, I took to the Internet and made hundreds of Google queries. Eventually, I found that math and coding were a big part of the process. In school, I always liked math the most out of all of my classes. I hadn't tried coding before, but it seemed like something I might like. The idea of being able to combine my love for creativity, art, and storytelling with problem solving was perfect; almost too good to be true. From there, I knew what I wanted to do. Work in animation.
It's not like I hadn't seen animated movies before. I was a huge fan of all of them - Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Ice Age, Robots, Kung Fu Panda, I loved all of them. I went to see most of them in theaters. However, I never thought I could be a part of the making of them. I just figured I wasn't skilled enough as an artist. I've always been a creative who loved writing and telling stories; drawing and doodling characters, but my parents made sure to instill some realism into me, and so I knew I wasn't ever going to make a career out of these hobbies - I never pursued it. I didn't think there was any other career path that got you into animation, so I gave up early on. Thanks to Inside Out, I did the research, and to my surprise and elation, this was not the case at all.
During senior year of high school, I made a LinkedIn account. I began searching for employees of these big animation studios like Pixar, Disney, Blue Sky, Dreamworks, etc. I'd spend hours clicking through profiles, trying to study how they got to where they were - what schools they went to, their majors, the jobs they had prior to their studio job. Whenever I found one with a Computer Science major, I'd see if they had an email publicly available. I sent dozens of cold emails asking for advice and guidance. Finally, a lighting technical director at Pixar emailed me back - my first contact with the industry. He gave me a lot of advice that I still use to this day. Here are what I consider the biggest takeaways:
- Mold your personal projects to what you want to do. If you want to work in animation, make sure you have projects that show that, and use these projects to better yourself!
- Network and connect with people. Go to SIGGRAPH (the annual computer graphics conference) if you can. Join your school's graphics club. Meet everyone.
These two bits of advice were extremely important, I think, to me in getting to where I am today. Whenever I've had free time in college, I tried to teach myself fundamental skills that it looked like all technical directors and software engineers at animation studios had. I taught myself the basics of Maya and Houdini. I wrote tools in Python to optimize workflows for my little projects. In my classes, whenever we were given an open-ended assignment, I'd incorporate something graphics-related into it. During winter break or the summer I'd try to make games or write programs that involved some new technique. During my interview with Blue Sky, they were really interested in these projects I'd done and a lot of the conversation steered towards describing how I created them.
When I got into college, I joined the school's SIGGRAPH chapter and applied to be a student volunteer at the conference over the summer, and I subsequently attended. I met hundreds of people, some already in industry, and some bright and passionate students like me who would soon make it into a studio. I think going to SIGGRAPH was invariably useful - I've gone twice, and from both those trips I learned a ridiculous amount about getting in the industry, what kind of things people are working on - the cutting edge of tech for animation, and most importantly, I met people who could help me. This past summer at SIGGRAPH, I went to a resume review hosted by none other than Blue Sky and met with a man who reviewed my resume and gave me tips and advice on what to do. Fast forward a couple months, and that same man was one of three interviewing me for a position at Blue Sky. I'm not sure how much this connection directly affected their eventual decision to hire me, but it certainly didn't hurt.
Believe it or not, this is a very abbreviated version of the story. There are tons of twists and turns I've glossed over here for the sake of brevity. The truth is, nothing is easy about getting a job in animation. Hard work and dedication is a requirement. I worked really hard to put myself in a spot where I could be hired at a studio, and the hard work paid off. This isn't the end, either; it's simply the beginning.
One thing I do want to say is - this experience has taught me that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. Never give up if it's something you truly want to do, and you'll surprise yourself. I hate random people giving advice over the Internet as much as the next guy, but I am genuine in saying this because I know there were many moments these past few years where it felt impossible, and I wanted more than anything to give up. It's okay to feel that way, but know there's a light at the end of the tunnel!
I'm ecstatic to be living out my dream this summer, and I hope to learn a whole lot. I'll probably make another blog post going into detail about the interview process and then a sort of postmortem once I've completed the internship with things I learned. Until then, cheers, and good luck!
Let's start all the way back. When I was in eighth grade, getting ready to start high school, they told us we'd get the chance to take courses centered around certain career paths. We all got a brochure that listed the possibilities. I saw engineering, computer science, business, architecture, among many others. I went with health science - I wanted to be a doctor. Or so I thought.
My first three years of health science classes were okay, but I knew something was missing. It was pretty obvious I was doing it because I wanted to make my parents proud, and, if anything else, have a career that is well respected. I didn't actually enjoy what I was doing. After getting into a nursing program with the elderly home nearby and dreading it completely, I realized that this was not what I wanted to do with my life. My parents and I went to Mandola's for dinner one night and I told them I did not want to be a doctor. They were supportive, but curious as to what I was going to do instead. I didn't know.
In June of 2015, I was a couple months away from being a senior in high school. I had seen teasers for an upcoming film Inside Out, and I knew when it came out I wanted to see it. So, on June 15, my brother and I took to the theaters. As you can predict from the title of this post, I was blown away by the film - every aspect of it was amazing. It was incredibly immersive, beautiful, wondrous, and filled you with so many emotions. After watching that movie, my curiosity had peaked - how were computer animated films made? I went to the nearest Barnes and Noble and read everything they had on the matter. Then, I took to the Internet and made hundreds of Google queries. Eventually, I found that math and coding were a big part of the process. In school, I always liked math the most out of all of my classes. I hadn't tried coding before, but it seemed like something I might like. The idea of being able to combine my love for creativity, art, and storytelling with problem solving was perfect; almost too good to be true. From there, I knew what I wanted to do. Work in animation.
It's not like I hadn't seen animated movies before. I was a huge fan of all of them - Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Ice Age, Robots, Kung Fu Panda, I loved all of them. I went to see most of them in theaters. However, I never thought I could be a part of the making of them. I just figured I wasn't skilled enough as an artist. I've always been a creative who loved writing and telling stories; drawing and doodling characters, but my parents made sure to instill some realism into me, and so I knew I wasn't ever going to make a career out of these hobbies - I never pursued it. I didn't think there was any other career path that got you into animation, so I gave up early on. Thanks to Inside Out, I did the research, and to my surprise and elation, this was not the case at all.
During senior year of high school, I made a LinkedIn account. I began searching for employees of these big animation studios like Pixar, Disney, Blue Sky, Dreamworks, etc. I'd spend hours clicking through profiles, trying to study how they got to where they were - what schools they went to, their majors, the jobs they had prior to their studio job. Whenever I found one with a Computer Science major, I'd see if they had an email publicly available. I sent dozens of cold emails asking for advice and guidance. Finally, a lighting technical director at Pixar emailed me back - my first contact with the industry. He gave me a lot of advice that I still use to this day. Here are what I consider the biggest takeaways:
- Mold your personal projects to what you want to do. If you want to work in animation, make sure you have projects that show that, and use these projects to better yourself!
- Network and connect with people. Go to SIGGRAPH (the annual computer graphics conference) if you can. Join your school's graphics club. Meet everyone.
These two bits of advice were extremely important, I think, to me in getting to where I am today. Whenever I've had free time in college, I tried to teach myself fundamental skills that it looked like all technical directors and software engineers at animation studios had. I taught myself the basics of Maya and Houdini. I wrote tools in Python to optimize workflows for my little projects. In my classes, whenever we were given an open-ended assignment, I'd incorporate something graphics-related into it. During winter break or the summer I'd try to make games or write programs that involved some new technique. During my interview with Blue Sky, they were really interested in these projects I'd done and a lot of the conversation steered towards describing how I created them.
When I got into college, I joined the school's SIGGRAPH chapter and applied to be a student volunteer at the conference over the summer, and I subsequently attended. I met hundreds of people, some already in industry, and some bright and passionate students like me who would soon make it into a studio. I think going to SIGGRAPH was invariably useful - I've gone twice, and from both those trips I learned a ridiculous amount about getting in the industry, what kind of things people are working on - the cutting edge of tech for animation, and most importantly, I met people who could help me. This past summer at SIGGRAPH, I went to a resume review hosted by none other than Blue Sky and met with a man who reviewed my resume and gave me tips and advice on what to do. Fast forward a couple months, and that same man was one of three interviewing me for a position at Blue Sky. I'm not sure how much this connection directly affected their eventual decision to hire me, but it certainly didn't hurt.
Believe it or not, this is a very abbreviated version of the story. There are tons of twists and turns I've glossed over here for the sake of brevity. The truth is, nothing is easy about getting a job in animation. Hard work and dedication is a requirement. I worked really hard to put myself in a spot where I could be hired at a studio, and the hard work paid off. This isn't the end, either; it's simply the beginning.
One thing I do want to say is - this experience has taught me that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. Never give up if it's something you truly want to do, and you'll surprise yourself. I hate random people giving advice over the Internet as much as the next guy, but I am genuine in saying this because I know there were many moments these past few years where it felt impossible, and I wanted more than anything to give up. It's okay to feel that way, but know there's a light at the end of the tunnel!
I'm ecstatic to be living out my dream this summer, and I hope to learn a whole lot. I'll probably make another blog post going into detail about the interview process and then a sort of postmortem once I've completed the internship with things I learned. Until then, cheers, and good luck!
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