Mark Simon was on the move the week after he graduated from college.

Move. That’s right, move.

If you want to succeed in your career, move to where the jobs are. Now.

I was speaking at a university in Indiana last fall about getting started in the entertainment industry. After my talk, a number of students came up to me to ask questions. One student, Rick, asked if I would review his demo. We loaded it into the DVD player, held our breath and sat back to watch his work.

What I saw surprised me. It was good. Really good. I mean, it was so good that I told him to drop out of school and move to L.A. Really.

In the creative arts, talent means more than a degree. If you have the talent, waiting for the degree often just delays your career. It was clear that Rick was ready to work at a hot studio, and there aren’t any big, hot studios in Indiana.

At least it was clear to me. Rick wasn’t too sure.

Actually that’s not quite true. Rick looked scared shitless about the prospect of moving to Los Angeles.

Rick is a natural talent. He could fit into any Flash animation studio. I could see it. He couldn’t.

Rick gave me every lame excuse in the book. He wanted to live in his hometown. He wanted to stay near his girlfriend. The excuses just kept coming and he never moved forward in his career. What a waste.

Don’t think that you will always be able to get a job from where you live now and that a studio will pay for your move. Most animation studios are in Los Angeles, especially around Burbank. For the best possibility of landing a job at a studio, you should live near the studios.

Sure, we all hear about recent graduates who get great jobs at a major studio in another city. However, those are the exception, not the rule. To increase your chances of landing a great job, move.

One of the main reasons is simple economics and the other is relationships.

The economics of landing a job is that there is tons of great talent in Los Angeles. It is easier, faster and cheaper to hire someone already living in Los Angeles than to hire and move someone from elsewhere in the country.

Relationships are also important. All studios tend to hire animators they know. This is because we often have tight deadlines and we need to be sure that we will hit our deadline. All of you know a bunch of artists. How many of them have problems with deadlines? Uh huh. That’s my point. That’s why we hire artists first that we know and trust to finish a job.