Month: November 2023

During one of the lecture weeks, Ravi Swami came into the studio to talk to each one of us about our career prospects. I shared my interest with him in potentially setting on a path of storyboard artist. Turns out, he was a storyboard artist himself. However when I gave my opinions and insight into the industry Ravi explained to me that storyboard artist isn’t a position to which you can apply to the studio, which surprised me. When I did my research, t classified storyboard artist position as an entry level job to the animation industry. Of course, there’s a junior storyboard artist position, a senior storyboard artist position, and the storyboard advisor.But from Ravi’s words, the only way to get this position, is in the same way as he managed to get it-apply and work as a cleanup artist first, then animator, and only then you can get upgraded to the position of storyboard artist, which to me sounds unfair. I was aware that storyboard artists are supposed to demonstrate a thorough understanding of animation, layout, composition, sequential drawing and editing. However to me, if I want to work in preproduction department, I might have to switch roles and think of something else, because I’m not passionate enough to spend years working as an animator with the hope of one day becoming a storyboard artist. I will be now looking into character design positions in the industry, as I am still very passionate about working in the preproduction department and working closely with the head of the story, creative directors and designers. Ravi suggested that I might look into filmschools and storyboarding for live action cinema instead of animation, as there they would straight away look closely at my existing knowledge of cinematic language. I agreed with him, because in a lot of cases, my work is heavily inspired by cinematic techniques, realistic acting and action.

Takeaway: Throughout this year, being able to direct a film and work solely on the project made me realise my strengths and weaknesses. To me, it is very important to be in charge of creative direction, story or the visual style. If becoming a storyboard artist is really only possible through animation, then I might not even try it. I will be building on top of skills that I already have like layout, illustration storyboarding, scriptwriting, character design and will be trying to adapt to the industry, showcasing the versatility of my skillset but in the direction where I can find artistic satisfaction. After all, I would even prefer to be a director of my own projects.

During our first year on the course, we were given a surface level dive into what is required to be an animator and what it takes. To me, becoming a cleanup artist on the first stages to work on projects without a single control over style, idea, concept sounded very dissatisfactory. As someone who values visual language and because of my affiliation with comic illustration and scriptwriting, I started looking into positions in the animation industry that could be suited for me other than cleanup artist or animator. A possible career that appeared in my vision was storyboard artist. When we break down what it means to write a comic, as I already do , it breaks down into two aspects: storyboarding and illustration. I really enjoy communicating an idea or a story in a series of consecutive panels. The official definition of the job of the storyboard artist is as follows: storyboard artists help the head of the story create a visual representation of the narrative. This job is part of the preproduction. In some cases storyboard artists do cleaned up storyboards, to make sure that they are in the right style for the project. These are the skills that I already poses and I would be happy to improve on. Next, I had to talk to someone who is a storyboard artist.

As someone who went to study animation on my own accord and out of sheer curiosity, after a year of being involved in the animation I can definitely say that going down the animator path isn’t something that I’m willing to do if I want to get into the industry. It isn’t because I feel the lack of skills, but because I’m lacking one important aspect of an animator-patience. To me patience always means a lack of dynamics, and something that’s lacking passion. The concept of doing something, only to get a satisfaction by the end when seeing the finished product is something that occurs as very uninspiring to me. After working on LIAF and having my pitch chosen for trailer selection for Long Shorts, I realised how much pleasure I get when working in preproduction. The visual development grips me the most, potentially because I have background in illustration, design and fine art. One part of my creative conscience that I always try to push first is branding myself as a comic artist. I’ve been engaged in visual storytelling since the very young age.