Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive.

David B. Levy has written a highly readable book at a very affordable price called, Your Career in Animation: How to Survive and Thrive. It’s one of those books that should be in every animation library. Written in a friendly style, with lots of funny cracks and personal anecdotes, Levy goes right to the source and asks animation pros what they think on dozens of subjects. He gets advice on all phases of production to art to school to pitching. There are so many quotes in this book you wonder how he got all those okays to print them.

Levy starts in the introduction telling you how hard it is to get anywhere in the animation biz, and then proceeds to tell you how you can overcome the obstacles if your heart is really in it and you have the talent. He has ample background, as he is an award-winning independent filmmaker, animation director for Blues Clues and has lectured at Parsons School of Design. You can read the book in any order, delving into any chapter that seems to apply to you, but you pick up a lot of little hints from other disciplines by reading it all the way through, because this industry is so interdependent.

The author introduces each chapter with a relevant quote from a well-known professional, and generously illustrates the book with his own and others art work. When he talks about a certain artist, there is usually a representative piece of that artist’s work near, and you find yourself looking for them. Some of the chapter titles are cute, like “Stretching and Squashing Into a Job.” Some are quite serious, such as “Surviving Unemployment.”

School or No School?
Levy admits that many of our top artists didn’t have a lot of schooling, but then tells you about his own education, and how he was influenced by the animation pros who lectured at his various classes. He cites the advantage of your student peers, saying, “The seeds you plant or the bridges you burn set the direction your career will take…” The kids you work along side in school (and the teachers, too) may be the ones who hire you somewhere down the road, and vice versa.

Levy is president of the New York chapter of ASIFA, so it is no surprise that he is enthusiastic about the benefits of belonging. This is an industry where networking is very important; as people tend to hire people they know and trust. Ours is a tight knit group, and networking organizations like ASIFA (ASIFA-Hollywood on the west coast), Women In Animation, SIGGRAPH, and all the others play an integral part in getting your name out there. Levy says, “…this is a people driven industry. People who know people who recommend people who hire people.” And, “Relationships require energy and effort.” Relationships lead to jobs.

Ah, That First Job
His advice on getting your first job goes on for 16 pages, and includes how he got his first job in New York. He talks about getting the meeting, making the call, cover letters and résumés, tests, desperation, the hard sell, casting a big Net, and face-to-face versus the Net. He peppers the book with bulleted lists of dos and don’ts (including the “don’t trust your spell check” that every list should have).

Advice from Their Own Careers
Chapters three and four break up animation career paths into two sections. Three starts with the all important storyboard artist. Here pros like Diane Kredensor, Scott Cooper, Liz Rathke and Dev Ramsaran give advice from their own careers. After each name is at least one credit, so you know what these people have done. Here also you first run into a list of recommended reading, one of several interspersed throughout the book. This chapter then talks about animation designers with more quotes from people in the field like Dagan Moriarty, Debra Solomon, Elanna Allen and Jason McDonald. They give advice from what design is to what to put in your portfolio (my favorite is make it easy to handle — I used to lug around a three-foot-square leather thing that weighed a ton). McDonald says, “… don’t fall in love with what you create... it is taken from you and can change into something else. Be willing to let go.”

Levy talks with big time industry insiders like Fred Seibert to get their advice.

Next is background artist, where names like Kim Miskoe, Mike Lapinski, Beatrice Ramos and Liz Artinian pop up. Incidentally, if you don’t know these names, better start reading the credits closer. Artinian recommends not getting typecast. “It’s important to constantly remind people that you exist outside the realm of animation background painter,” she advises. After that is character animator, where Jim Petropolis, J.P. Dillard, Chris Conforti and a lot of others (a complete list of all the people quoted in this book would be a bit unwieldy) give advice that roams from duties (“wear many hats simultaneously” — Petropolis) to technology to the Internet to your sample reel.

Okay, now comes the stop motion animator. Eileen Kohlhepp and Elanna Allen tell you not only to not rely on it for a living, but then take you through the entire process. You have to really love stop motion to do this! Both of these gals say most of their training came on the job. Jimmy Picker says, “…you have to be an engineer and know how to deal with lights, camera, etc.” He cites how much the introduction of the digital camera has helped. The last of this chapter is devoted to the freelancer. Animator Dean Kalman Lennert describes a day from 4:00 am to 10:00 pm. Lennart, Doug Compton and John Serpentelli all rely a lot on the latest technology, but keep up their personal contacts, attend festivals and do a lot of computer backup.

Writers, Directors and Producers
Chapter four deals with writers, directors and producers. Writer Erika Strobel contrasts live action and animation writing. Eric Weil says write as much as you can and enter contests for the exercise and to practice your craft. Sheet timing (sometimes known as assistant director), is one of those unsung career paths in animation, but it is one no production can do without. Celeste Pustilnick describes how she works to break down a scene. Karen Villarreal and Dev Ramsaran both started as animators, which is a real help in visualizing the sheets.