At a crossroads- please help!

Hmm, well I actually like the animating as well as the story process of animation. Sure the storyboard, layout, character design has it's place, but if you think you'll do better job writing for animation then go for it, but just don't think that animating is boring, it's the most essential part. Yes I have heard from outsourcing studios that it's "labor" and writing is the more "creative" part. Just don't think your script(s) will get anywhere without the proper artist departments.

Storyboard, Layout, Background, Animation, etc stills need to be there.

Also writers aren't rewarded much, they write their script or novel and just calculate a price(if they are freelance) and just let themselves rot before some random producer buys their script(if at all).

I think it would be alot more rewarding to be able to do MOST of the process yourself, unless you plan to outsource your projects to overseas studios(which cost big funds).

Also unless you find yourself writing for a company, which even then most company projects are probably decided by executives.

I may be incorrect in some of this but just because you like creating things, doesn't mean they'll ever get animated without effort.

Hi Blueman23, welcome to the AWN Forums.

It's pretty cut and dry. You hate animating, so don't do it. Write instead. Creators of shows don't animate, they write and direct. Work on your stories, design characters and settings from that world. If you want to get your show made, that's the way to go about it. The simple fact is, animating isn't for everyone.

Aloha,
the Ape

I'm pretty much what you could call a self-taught storyboard artist--in that I learned on the job and never went to art school.
My mentors were fellow professionals and I picked up aspects of storyboarding from books, comics, watching movies etc. I started out with a flame about..........THAT high wanting to be a comic book artist myself--but storyboarding was more realistic and stable for me.

I've been 'boarding since around 1991, but started in the animation biz as a inbetweener/clean-up artist/assistant animator in 1985.

I can tell you its not been easy.

I sweat blood trying to do this stuff........oh, at least 50% of the time.
There's lots of cursin', tears, frustration and "bad drawin' days".
There's also lots of successes, moments of brilliance, and times when the drawing just flows off the finger-tips.
I remain in the business for those latter things, and constantly dread the former things.

Tell your parents you love them dearly, but to go blow......its your life, not theirs. Sure, they mean well.......but at what point does it become your life to live? They are basing their perceptions of the animation business on......what? My parents gave me the same kind of grief.
Like ANY endeavour in life, the outcome will be determined by latent skill, focus, persistence, and a grain of luck here and there.
This is true of a career in the animation biz in ANY capacity.
When I started out, I was pigeon-holed as a inbetweener.
I caught a break as a storyboard artist because of my learned insights about comics and held on tight.
My first storyboards were hopelessly amateurish.....on paying gigs no less. I was fortunate that sharper eyes saw something in the work ( messes) I did and coached me.

Or took pity, I cannot be sure which ....
I learned, and ...........eventually, gained some competency and prospered.
I'm not the greatest artist going, nor do I know everything......but I can deliver a usuable storyboard to the client.

The choice you need to make is simple:
How much do you want this?
Use a simple scale, and be VERY honest with yourself.
One a scale of 1 to 10--how much do you want to do this?
If it just sounds like a "good idea" or a "logical thing to do" peg it as a 2 or 3 on the scale. If its something that screams at you in your dreams, then its safe its a 9 or 10. Anything above an 8 means you probably have the drive to pursue this.
The mitigating circumstances will be all the other life-drives going on, like earning an income, family, friends, etc.

The true determining factor is how badly you want this and how prepared you are do do the work.

Want my honest opinion?

You will not liiiiikkkkeeeeee itttttttt......

If animation lessons are "not your thang", then consider that much of the work in the animation biz is likely going to be the same--even in storytelling aspects.
If you are not enamored of the idea of writing or storyboarding for a PBS cartoon, like Arthur, or Dora the Explorer then this is not the career for you.
See, a lot of newcomers come in thinking they can write their own ticket as far as content goes, and that is seldom the case--same with jobs too.
I've worked on a mix of pre-school, action, comedy even adult material, and about 50% of it.......stank. That, from my perspective, is common.

These are the careful kinds of eyes you need to come into this with, the consideration of what the business REALLY is, as opposed to how you might see it--rightly ot wrongly.
Take note of all the new cartoons playing on all the channels accessible to you, and at the video store. Note the types of subject matter that predominate.
Whichever is the greater portion, that's likely the kinds of material you'll spend a lot of time working on.

If that don't grab ya........don't...........for your sake.........jump in.

But if that is not a concern, then go balls to the wall and get your work as close to professional standards as possible.
The amount of persistence you muster will be in direct proportion to the success you achieve.

Stuff like animation is important to have under your belt, because it gives you insight into the overall process of production. CGI animation is here to stay, and the processes there are even more involved.
You cannot know too much, and if you "love everything" and insatiably study as much of it as you can you'll find the relevancy of some of those tiresome things to be quite surprising. Nothing is unimportant in this process.

Good luck.

In all honesty, I find that most new cartoons of today turn me off. I often find it hard to focus my attention because most of the material is shallow and trite. At one point I wondered if cartoons were getting actually getting dumber; it wasn't until a few months ago, that I realized I had "outgrown" cartoons.

But the love is still there. I still read manga and a lot of comic books... does that disqualify me from having a career?

I won't say it disqualifies you, but I will suggest you take a harder look at what you want.
I have preferences myself--I like action adventure a lot--but most of the work I have done has been a mix of comedy and pre-school shows.
I consider myself fortunate in that I've had just enough of a variety of shows to keep my interest piqued. Because each job is truly different from the last, that variety keeps the juices flowing.
I may not like the subject matter of the show I'm on at any given time, BUT.....I can usually find SOMETHING within it to latch onto, and therefore be able to bring something to it.

When I was teaching folks about animation/storyboards/cartooning/comics etc....one of the kernels of wisdom I passed on ( a kernel passed on to me as well) was to become as fully-functional as a cartoonist as possible.

This is a notion that's lost on a lot of aspirants to this business.

I really resisted that early on in my career choosing to embrace it instead, and took time on my own to study things like comic strips, comic books, motion picture concept art, illustration, model-sheet design, modelmaking, military design etc....
I studied and practised perspective, inking, lettering, colouring with dyes, etc.

These were my daily interests, and I drew inspiration from those kinds of things.
On the job, I was coached and further groomed to appreciate slapstick and subtle humor. I'm now comfortable working in any kind of genre put in front of me, and pretty much any kind of style

If I can rant a bit: manga and anime are a curse. They encompass one part of the spectrum of cartooning. A LOT of young folks get hooked into manga/anime, but don't bother with other kinds of cartoons.
A lot of them sniff at Disney, Warners, stuff like Asterix or Tin-tin, or Charles Schulz or Dik Browne.

Its outside of their tastes, so its ignored.
That............is like eliminating a potentially valuable assest from your repetoire.
Part of being fully functional means having an expanded range of abilities under your belt. It means that if work dries up doing storyboards for a couple months, you can do greeting cards, or kids books illustrations, or comics, or ads art, or caricatures or layouts or......get my drift?

I wince when I see the "anime kids" do nothing but anime--mostly because I'm not seeing a developing cartoonist--I'm seeing yet another parrot being born. No amount of prodding will get them to change.
Its not that manga or anime are bad, its just one segment of styles from a vaster range of styles.

So.........if perchance, this is you, then my advice would be to really look hard at the industry and your own levels of interest in pursuing a career in it.

Also, I was wondering if it's possible to become an animation producer without an animation education? I often hear wild stories of people taking up leadership roles with no experience in this field at all. Such as a guy who worked at RadioShack but is now the director of Ice Age or something.

Would you want to fly on a plane with a pilot who spent all his career working in a bakery, but whose played a lot of flight simulator games?

In my professional opinion, there's no substitute for a producer whose come up from the trenches and who knows intimately the entire production process.
To me, that means having held a pencil at a animation disk at some point.

That "Radio Shack" guy wouldn't be of any use if he didn't know the difference between the camera-axis rule and a camera hold--and there are those kinds of people "acting" as producers on productions even now.
Many of those kinds of shows are not pleasant to work on.

All of this leads back to my spiel on committment--once again, you need to measure yourself and discover if you want the job title, or are willing to take on the actual job.
Again, a surprising number of people I have encountered are star-struck by the glamour of the biz, and they want that job title.
But they are not willing to do the scut-work neccessary to become a true asset to the industry.
One of the things I used to do in class was have students do a bit of acting.....and the fuss some people would make over having to get up in front of class and do the "job" was.....eye-opening.

From storyboards, to layouts to animation.........everything we do is performance art to a degree. If a person is unwilling to put themselves or their ideas on the line in fron to others, then they are not willing to do the job.
Sorry, but I don't think that kind of person is suited for this craft.

Its not just about being willing to stand at the front of the room and act like an owl, and look like a complete dork doing so--its also about doing all the other things necessary to the job.
Putting in long hours, working on all manner of subjects, being will to have your ideas ripped into a total hash by other people--all because the outcome is meant to be entertainment.
Like that Bugs Bunny cartoon with the hats falling out of the truck and landing on the heads of Bugs and Elmer, creating different personas--if a army helmet lands on your head-what do you do?
If a baby bonnet lands on your head--how do you act?
Those ideas in that cartoon came about because someone had the balls to explore that kind of idea and weather it through the entire process to realization.
If a person has the cajones to do all that, to explore not just animation and filmmaking, but cartoons, music, stories, effects design and as many of the other minuate of subjects swirling around this craft--THEN I'd say they'd be on the right career path.