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'AWN' Training & Job Survey: How Did You Get Started? — Part 2

Continuing the collection of stories from AWN s readers on their education and careers, Rick DeMott lays out the second half of the highlights.

Whether digital art or fine art, many of the people surveyed received their education from more than one source.

In the second part of AWN s Educational Survey, we hear from the tail end of the alphabet from Syria to South Africa and from the U.K. to the U.S.

Ali Asad Jafri of Pakistan has an educational background in software engineering with no training related to post-production or animation. Most of the education he has gained is by self teaching and learning from the gurus of the industry. Mentoring him was Ali Ahsan, who worked on the last release of Exorcist and Son of The Mask. Jafri says, I certainly had an eye-opener on how to approach things and managing them. Ahsan helped me improve my outlook on CG and Ive certainly gained from his experience from working on high end projects.

He adds, My career was pretty much chaotic. I certainly wouldnt recommend anyone to choose the path I chose because most of the choices I made was to earn money to help ease my familys financial situation. But what Ive learned from my experience is how to manage things and to keep moving forward, learning new things on the way and to be disciplined in my profession.

Frank Saperstein, head of Philippines-based pasi animation, obtained a BA from Oberlin College and MFA from New York University. His first industry job was as a production assistant for a Hushpuppy shoe commercial. His job was to ice down the dogs wee-wee in between takes because he got an erection from the female leg models. This convinced him to work with animated animals instead of real ones. Landing a gig on Pee-Wees Playhouse, he was able to shift his focus to animation. He first went to the Philippines as a producer/director for Prince in the mid 90s. At the time, he thought, They would never allow me back in the country, let alone that one day I would be running the studio.

Calin Cazan works for UbiSoft out of its Romanian office. Before that he studied at the Architecture Institute and the Fine Arts Institute Bucarest, Romania. As for mentors, he credits animation knowledge to Mihai Sanpetru and art direction to Mircea Toia. His break into the industry was when he was hired at Animafilm. A year after he became an art director. In 1990, he went to the U.S. for a year and a half, working in the computer field. After returning to Romania, he secured a senior animator post at DACODAC studio in Bucharest. After several other industry posts, hed come to UbiSoft, where he has moved from animation to modeling to texturing to design.

Asra Aman of Singapore got his education and industry break at the same time, landing a 2D animation job, which offered him a six-month training program. During his diploma course, his instructor helped with his five-minute 3D animation. Aman says the teacher helped the students technically and gave them tips on what the industry is like.

Dominika Marcisz went to university and studied Information Design, which taught her the visual way of thinking, drawing etc. But all of her animation experience was either from professionals in the industry, on the job experience or through books/tutorials/DVDs. Marcisz worked for about a year as an intern, just learning animation and helping out on jobs at a small animation company. Then another company noticed her and offered her a full-time job doing animation for television. A year later Marcisz got noticed again and is now working for Video Lab, one of the biggest post-production companies in South Africa, doing 3D animation in Maya.

Michael A. Mangicotti was a computer tech about 16 year ago, repairing CPUs in Madrid Spain. Through working on the computers for tech firms, he came across 3ds Max, which he taught himself without books, the Internet or DVDs. His break came when a pro in the Spanish TV industry had to turn in a job and needed more disk space. The main tech had left the shop because it was closing time, so Mangicotti stayed an extra half hour and set up the mans new drive. The two became friends and he helped Mangicotti break into the industry.

At first he worked lots of hours as a helper for very little or no pay. A few of his models got out on TV. Then he managed to get into a small video company, doing 3D flying company logos and learning some editing. Then the big boom of the Internet came and Mangicotti work for five years at the big Latin Internet company, Teknoland. After the Internet bubble burst, Mangicotti made ends meet producing low-tech videos, doing all the camera work and motion graphics, plus the editing. Later the owners of Teknoland formed a small animation company, making a preschool 3D series for Granada International in London. Mangicotti got all the XSI books he could find and studied his ass off to try and get into the company. He landed a freelance post doing DVDs, which he worked into a job as a technology assistant, creating setups for production that saved a bunch of production hours.

Many of the people surveyed credited top animation books as a major help in their education.

Johan Sonestedt of Sweden went to university, but learned animation through reading, discussing it with other students and a lot of trial and error. After graduating, he was offered work in a 2D animation serial but the finances collapsed. He worked part time in classical animation. One month later he was offered a part-time job as an assistant director for a video companys covers and catalogs. Eventually that developed into doing animation. He now is an animation course director after less then a year of teaching and one and a half years after graduating. His graduation film played at Annecy and has screened in festivals in Europe and New York.

Reem Ali-Adeeb now works at Star Animation in Syria. He studied fine arts at Damascus University, taking several classical and Flash animation and drawing workshops and courses on the side. In his first year in college, he worked for a small animation studio called Afaaq, working on a program called Aura for a Year. At Afaaq, he learned almost everything about how to make an animated film, but didnt have experience in animation principles. To get into Star Animation, he had to pass a placement test first and then received six months training in paper animation and Flash. Ali-Adeeb says, I learned so much from being with professional animators and designers Besides animation I learned about character design, storyboarding and backgrounds.

Darren Blencowe of the U.K. left school at 16 and hated the idea of further education he wanted to work. He planned on taking an art course at college, but instead gained an apprenticeship at an architectural practice. There he mainly focused on CAD. After nine years of pushing the visualization side, he got a lucky jump into the games world, working for the Digital Village, which produced Douglas Adams - Starship Titanic. Since then he has started up his own company, Voodoo Animation Studios.

Jennifer Vaux works in development at HIT Ent. She received a BA in Communications and MBA in Strategic Planning. Her knowledge of a database program that she had used in an administrative job got her a post at the Gemini Awards show in Canada. From there she networked and worked on her computer office skills. Head of Nelvana, Michael Hirsh, taught her that if you are a creative you also need to learn the business side. He inspired her to do her MBA. Jocelyn Stevenson taught her to remember who your audience is and be true to their journey. Her advice is to never underestimate the role of being a good assistant.

Now with Sony Computer Ent. Europe at its London studio, Jim Southworth started in the industry joining a games company to work on an Olympic Games title in 1995. As for schooling, Southworth received a degree in graphic design, specializing in experimental animation. He started as a 2D inbetweener for a small commercials house then moved to assistant and eventual animator working at various companies. He believes his 2D experience has been invaluable in his understanding of basic animation fundamentals, which he has tried to follow through in all his 3D work.

Lisa-Jane Gray is now a director on a stop-motion TV series at Cosgrove Hall Films in the U.K., but got her degree from Sheridan College in Canada. Her first job in stop-motion animation was on 30-second commercials. She didnt have any direct mentors, but has been inspired by the work of Chuck Jones, George Pal and Paul Driessen. She freelanced for eight years in Toronto on commercials, shorts and interstitials, then went to Vancouver to partner in a company for nine years.

She jetted off to New Zealand to work on a TV series for a year and then taught classical animation in eastern Canada for a year. She also worked in Denmark and Spain. She says her career path has taught her to diversify and adapt to ever-changing challenges.

Michael Morgans education consists of a national diploma in graphic design, HND in graphic design, BA Hons in multimedia design and two years of 2D animation module in his BA course. At 23, he got his first job in Mocap. He moved to animation and modeling for videogames for five years. Now he does 3D animation for childrens TV series at The CharaterShop in the U.K.

The path to a career in animation is often not straight or direct.

Sue Pugh of the U.K. got a degree in three-dimensional design and majored in jewelry and silversmithing. Her break into the industry came when she got a job making puppets at Cosgrove Hall Films. Later she moved on to become an animator on TV series, commercials and feature films. After serving as a supervising animator on several TV series, she progressed to director.

Brian LaFrance currently works for Walt Disney Feature Animation. LaFrance almost finished a bachelors at San Jose State for computers in art, design, research and education. But he says that turned out to be fairly worthless. He bluffed his way into a job for a small advertising company painting with Deluxe Paint. Later he got a copy of 3ds Max and taught himself 3D. The next big step forward in his career came when he got some contract work for Atari Games, which lead to a full-time job there. The next big break came when he landed a post in the commercial department at ILM, which eventually led to working on Star Wars: Episode I.

Carol Hayden is now on maternity leave from Blue Sky Studios. She attended Pratt Institute and earned her BFA in computer graphics in 1991. She started at a small CG company as a texture painter/matte artist doing HD dinosaurs for the Imax Theater at museums. From there she went to ILM and left after Lost World to work at Disney on Dinosaurs. After nine years in California, she came back home to New York to get married. There she went to work at Blue Sky studios doing shaders.

Erik Girndt was trained in traditional animation at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. He learned Flash at his first animation job after graduating. He gained expertise in the program from reading books, learning from fellow animators at work and just playing around with it. As for his big break into the animation industry, he was hired to animate for Comedy Centrals Kid Notorious. That then got him onto Cartoon Networks Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Currently hes taking an online 3D animation class in Maya from AnimationMentor.com.

After film school, Fred Tepper worked at Blockbuster for a few years, then left there to learn 3D. He started learning LightWave in late October 1992, and spent day and night with it for about six weeks. All he had was the manual, as no other training material existed. His break came when Amblin Imaging really like a sinking Titanic model Tepper had done for a learning project. He was hired to work on seaQuest DSV, which used that Titanic model as the RMS King George in an early episode. Hed go on to work on James Camerons Titanic at Digital Domain and then co-founded Station X Studios. He left there to be part of pmG Worldwide, makers of messiah:studio, and recently started a directing career with the indie horror film, Sasquatch Hunters.

Animation legend Gene Deitch always drew cartoons and dreamed of being an animator or a comic strip creator. He had no special training, only a high interest and some native abilities. A lucky meeting with a fellow jazz record collector led to doing cartoons for a jazz record collectors magazine, which led directly to a beginners job at UPA Hollywood in mid-1946. Deitchs mentors were John Hubley and Bill Hurtz, who took him under their wings at UPA. From them, he learned how to think about animation, how to see and how films are constructed.

Before starting his famed professional work, he was a boy amateur magazine publisher with primitive mimeograph printing. He developed writing, drawing and technical skills, all of which were a foundation for animated filmmaking. He got ahead in the jobs he managed to get simply because he was an energetic, intensely working eager-beaver. No doubt this irritated some, but also convinced bosses that he could be a creative leader. He was able to get many talented people to extend themselves, working on his projects, thereby making him look good. He said he feels that many of the awards he has won are due in large part to the work of many colleagues.

Though he has made every sort of animation film from TV commercials, theatrical comedies, industrial and informational films, TV series, etc. he has centered his work on short, classic drawn animation films for children. He began his career in America, but has worked for 45 years in Prague, in the present Czech Republic.

J.J. Sedelmaier found a way to do animation at UW/Madison even though they offered no specific animation courses. He did it through an 8mm film course and took as much life drawing/anatomy as they offered with as many different instructors as possible. While at school, Sedelmaier says that working for three years in a restaurant, doing everything from bussing tables to assistant managing, taught him all he needed to know about running ALL aspects of a service industry business.

No thats not J.J. Sedelmaiers mentor in the box, but he does hold many people close to his heart as being big influences on his career.

Inspiration first came in meeting his future wife and business partner, Patrice, who encouraged him. Next it was meeting Tony Eastman, who took him on as an independent assistant and, after awhile, recommended him to long form studios in New York. Later on, he worked at R.O. Blechmans The Ink Tank, which helped establish him in the industry as a director/producer. Sedelmaier went on to found J.J. Sedelmaier Prods., which worked on Beavis and Butt-Head and Saturday Night Live cartoons as well as commercials.

U.S. born Jason Gottlieb went to NYU Film School where he concentrated in animation. During school he had many internships where he learned a lot about working in the industry. His first paid job was making models for a stop-motion commercial, while still in school. Then he worked in CGI and traditional animation in New York for nine months, but left that job to go to London for an internship in the art department on Tim Burtons Corpse Bride. This internship led to a post at Cosgrove Hall animating puppets.

Jason Scott said he feels learning was good at his university, but independent practice is essential. He knew some people at Stan Winston Digital and they were looking for a VFX production intern. After graduation, they hired him to work on Sky Captain. After doing some freelance work, he moved on to DreamWorks Animation as a trainer.

John Cawley got his college degree in journalism, but broke into animation through contacts made working at Disneyland. He started at Disneyland entertainment, moved to Disney studio archives, then live production and finally to animation production. All his training was on-the-job. Now he works as a line producer at Cartoon Network.

John Schnall got a BFA in film production at NYU. He learned more about animation through extensive reading, learning on the job and taking after-work lessons with Tissa David at the Ink Tank. He lists several people as his mentors. George Chase, his high school animation teacher, taught him all the basics. Richard Protovin, his college animation teacher, taught him how to think out of the box. John Canemaker, another one of his college animation teachers, taught him about history and how to watch films. George Griffin taught him all the aspects of animation (pre-computer). From David, he re-learned everything he thought he knew. Schnall now works as a director on JoJos Circus.

Joseph Bowers attended the Art Institute of Los Angeles. He learned what he could there and that which he felt he wasnt learning he would teach himself. The best part about attending the school was being taught by industry professionals whose brains he could pick. One of his teachers hired him to work for his company as a modeler. During the two years working there he helped and mentored Bowers. Later Bowers eventually got hired at Disney Feature animation as a modeler.

Kevin Elam started by earning an associates degree at El Camino Community College, studying life drawing, painting and general ed classes. He went on to take two years of drawing courses at American Animation Institute (union) and gained an associates in Art at SMC Academy of Entertainment Technology. In 2003, he earned a 2D Animation diploma from Vancouver Film School. His first industry gig was as a freelance rotoscoping/animator on Eminems Mosh video. Eventually, he landed a job at JibJab Media.

Mark Simon has been self-taught by any means possible. Hes read books, talked to pros and took advantage of free access to university equipment to experiment on his own. For live-action FX he gained an understanding of foreground miniatures from reading Cinéfex. On his first movie at Roger Cormans studio, Simon had an opportunity to use his knowledge and build a portfolio. His animation break came when he landed a gig animating Tinker Bell. Simon now runs A&S Animation Inc. in Florida and has published several books at animation.

Michael Levines only formal training was from some Photoshop courses. He broke into the industry at Lucasfilm Game, which became LucasArts. He rose up the ranks at LucasArts to senior effects specialist and technician. He left to form a company with ILM vets. He then left that company three years later to form his own company, Pileated Pictures.

Michael Sporn started his own animation education before going to art school. He read intermittent books and watched Disneyland shows and Walter Lantz how-tos. He went to imitate in 8mm everything from cel, multiplane camera, cutout, puppet and scratch-on. After school, a two-day stint at the Hubley Studio turned into a career. At Hubley, Sporn met the brilliant animator, Tissa David, and she still teaches him directly or through her work. He says he learned the art of animation from animators Art Babbit, Emery Hawkins, Bill Littlejohn, Johnny Gentilella and Barry Nelson. Sporn now runs his own independent studio, Sporn Animation.

Friz Freleng could spot talent, but couldnt fight early sexism in the industry according to Stephanie Pyren-Fortel.

Stephanie Pyren-Fortel had her first art show at 18. While going to school, she got a job as a fashion illustrator for a company and worked there until the company went back east. She broke into animation after answering an ad in the Los Angeles Times for an ink-and-paint artist at Filmation Studios. She later moved over to traditional layout working with Don Christianson. After leaving the industry for a while, she returned as a background painter at Depatie-Freleng. At the time she was the youngest person and the only female in the department. She had to prove herself, but the heat was on and after she went into Frelengs office to show her work, he came back and said, Honey, youre a good artist, but they dont want you here.

She was devastated to say the least and left the business again. She went back east and taught life drawing, fashion illustration and window display at South Carolina University. After her first husband passed away, she retuned to California and ended back at Filmation, but the memories of meeting her husband there were too great. She left to work with Jessie Santos at DIC. Later she quit the industry again and went to paint copies of old masters with the famous French artist Jacque Harvey for a few years, but continued to freelance for the studios. Harvey asked her to move to France with him and his family, which eventually led her to go to Thailand to teach western BG paintings for one of the studios.

Meanwhile, she met her future husband when he bought some of her fine art. She returned to France and got married after five dates. When she came back to America for a visit, a friend asked her to freelance for the merchandising arm of Warners, which led to a full-time position. Right before moving, she had an art show in Paris. Now she works at Mike Young Prods. where she was again humbled and had to learn Photoshop.

Tom Sito attended the High School of Art & Design in New York from 1970-1973, majoring in animation and cartooning. He earned his BFA at the School of Visual Arts in 1977, studying media and animation. He supplemented his degree with classes in drawing and anatomy at the Art Students League.

He broke into the industry on the night shift as a cel painter on the Richard Williams musical Raggedy Ann & Andy in 1977. There he learned from Shamus Culhane and Williams all the professional skills that were not taught in school. They taught him a love for quality work and business acumen. Ben Washam taught him tricks of the art of timing. Harvey Kurtzman taught him about comedy writing, frame composition and teaching. Art Babbitt taught him the greatest reward in animation is the respect of your peers.

He rose from the ranks the most traditional path, as cel painter, inbetweener, assistant animator to animator. He moved into storyboarding then writing and then direction. Sito now is a co-owner of Gang of Seven Animation.

Valerie Fletcher, who now works on South Park, went to CalArts for the four-year character animation program. But she says the early work she did in high school doing caricatures at Six Flags was invaluable. She calls it artistic boot camp, stating, You have to be able to keep drawing in terrible weather, screaming people, roller coasters roaring by and lemonade getting spilled on you.

She has a brief stint at a licensing company where she learned to draw on model and the importance of asking the right questions. Her big break came when she landed a storyboarding job on South Park via a job fair at CalArts.

Rick DeMott is the managing editor of Animation World Network. Previously, he worked in various production and management positions in the entertainment industry. He is a contributor to the book Animation Art as well as the humor, absurdist and surrealist short story website Unloosen.

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