Career as an Animator

By Institute For Career Research

Cartoon artist for film and video. The animation business is in a state of rapid evolution, closing some doors and opening new ones every day. Traditional hand-drawn animation is giving way to digital animation. Animation is part of the legend and mystique of Hollywood. For those with a creative mind and endless imagination, there may be no more more appealing career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Institute For Career Research
• Release date: Dec 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781458078360

Book preview

Introduction

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. It's good advice you should take seriously as you start down the road of choosing a career. Don't ignore the practical aspects of careers, like money, advancement opportunity and professional prestige, but don't become too focused on them, either. The career you choose now could define the next 40 or so years of your life. If you're not happy, nothing else will matter.

So what makes you happy? What intrigues and entertains you? What would you like to do all day, even if you didn't get paid for it? How about watch cartoons! That would be a pretty good way to earn a living. Okay, you probably can't get paid to just watch cartoons, but you can certainly get paid to make them. Animation is big business.

Make no mistake; cartoons aren't kid stuff. Animated films, as they're more accurately known, are extremely complex ventures that require the talents of hundreds of people. Animators are the colorful tip of a very large iceberg. Feature-length animated films take years to make and cost millions of dollars. In fact, it has been a long time since a major animated film was made for less than $100 million. The highly successful animated film, the 2003 Disney-Pixar production Finding Nemo, earned more than $400 million at the box office and has been the best-selling DVD in history. That's an excellent return on an initial investment of about $130 million.

Animators are the key to the animation business. Skilled and dedicated artists, animators must possess both the discipline and maturity to become great artists and the childlike wonder to devote their skills to the fantasy world of animated films. It's a happy way to work, if you have it in you. If you think you'll grow out of cartoons, this is probably not for you. If you can't imagine a life without them, keep going.

The animation business is in a state of rapid evolution, closing some doors and opening new ones every day. Traditional hand-drawn animation is giving way to digital animation. Animators are using new tools and new skills. The number of jobs is shrinking somewhat while the artistic possibilities are expanding rapidly for those who master the new techniques. Animation is a very competitive field, and you'll have to work very hard to succeed. But if you want to enter a field that will keep you at the forefront of the film and video industry for the next few decades, animation is a very good choice.

Take careful note of the information contained in this report. If you like what you read, look into a few of the resources listed on the last page. You'll find a wealth of information to help you in your search for the perfect career. You can never know too much.

Begin Your Search and Preparation

Competition for jobs in animation will be tough, so it is important for you to get started