Professional Development

Los feliz life drawing meet-up

During my trip to Los Angelous, on my last night I attended a life drawing session using a networking app called meet-up , during this life drawing sessionI met with a few very kind and very talented animaton professionals, the 3 conversations that stood out the most to me were between the following people who interacted with in person and connected to over social media .

felipe Molica. Overhearing a conversation he was having with another Disney animator , I interjected out of curiosity to hear about his role and he got into the industry.

He is a key frame animator working primary on character rigs although he has a history with transitional animation as well . he worked on projects inc;uding star trek : lower decks, Kuney toons cartoons and my little pony.

He began his career in rio on a television series before moving to Los Angelous.

he stressed the importance of working on personal projects and ding life drawing as his career despite being an animator does not allow time for expanding your skills past your day to day work , especially when working for larger companies like Disney. our conversation continued with discussing the current affairs of finding work in the industry currently and the importance of networking an meeting people in order to do that .

a friend of felipes , who i mistakenly did not get the full name of but exchnaged instagrams accounts with worked din the cell and colouring department for Disneys in the 80s and 90s.

His advice was to meet people in the industry that will train you and get along with your personality . He said that he had no prior experience in animation , before starting with Disney and that his experience was purely with oil painting and painting so that skill was very easily transferable with the training provided to do his job . this was great incite into the ways in which you can entering the industry through differing skillsets as long as your in the right place at the right time .

last but certainly not least i connected with Jule Soto , a storyboard artist who worked with dreamwork, Disney and not studio 64 amongst many other impressive stuios .

He showed me his animatic for sonic the hedgehog and talked me through how received the script for animatic and would head straight into storyboarding. he said that ideally the storyboard would not be re-iterated more than once as if thar need to happen its a sign of "poor wrting`" he also mentioned that in a few occasions he has the opportunity to write scene and actions for shots he animates , but that is due to his several years of experience in the feild.

he stressed the importance of working fast and delegantly and to understand and visualise very well what it is that you need to make before you dod it . He also mentioned that is very rare to receive thumbnail sketches from directors, that is it straight ahead from script to image.