The University ran a trip to Aardman Animation studios for the Animation students. However at the end of quest speaker, Korky Paul’s talk, lecturer said there were a couple of spaces left on this trip so therefore I seized the opportunity as I wasn’t previously aware of this trip.
I emailed Marc straight away to query whether this opportunity was open to illustration students and thankfully it was! I had to rearrange my work shifts to be able to go. I always wanted to work at Aardman when I was younger as I wanted to go into stop frame animation. I remember I used to research my prospect when in school and at the time Aardman had a partnership with the University of Bristol where you could study animation at the University of Bristol and complete internships with Aardman. When I came to the age to apply to University this, sadly, was no longer an option. I used to make stop frame animations on my own at home and was always interested in the modelling of the characters. I got into this after my dad made a stop frame animation with my brothers happy potter lego!
I wanted to go on the trip because I was interested to see the working processes of Aardman and see any opportunities they had available because I frequently checked their site for work experience but unfortunately, they don’t offer it. When we arrived in Bristol we had about two hours free time. I previously looked into the area Aardman is based and realised there’s lots of Banksy pieces in Bristol. We managed to see two pieces of his work. Unfortunately some of them were in rather rough areas where their were homeless camps and a potent odour of drugs. I believe banksy selected areas like these to create his works to make a statement about class, being from the working class himself.
Below is an imagine of me in front of the first piece we visited. “You don’t need planning permission to build a castle in the sky”. We then went to see another one of his works as seen on the right. We then went into Aardman, the first talk was about CGI as Aardman are sadly moving away from stop frame animation. Two of the animators discussed and showcase their independent film work. They discussed how they are encouraged to work on their own projects as well as outside of work and how most of the animator while working on their major Aardman projects. I feel every creative has the same dilemma working on a project for money verses working on a project they actually want to make. Their has to be some level of creative compromise to a level while continuing to enjoy what your working on.
The second talk we had from Aardman was about being a producer. A career I had never before given much thought about. They outlined the key skills required and day to day responsibilities and I thought it sounded like something I could potentially look into. One of the key assets you need is leadership skills. I feel I am a natural leader and I’m a massive people person so it could possibly be a really enjoyable job for me. Alongside this they explained the pathway into this and unfortunately, unlike most pathways into creative jobs, they started with unpaid work experience position often in big cities like London. However if I were to pursue this I would have to look into other leadership roles and possible jobs as a runner in the studios.
Overall I feel it was a very informative day, there was a lot of information to take in but these are the key points I took.
· Creatives have to make compromises in terms of what work they want to create and what work pays to create.
· Even Aardman, a prolific stop motion company, are moving towards more digital methods of animation. Making the profession something I would be less likely to succeed in if pursued as my digital animating skills are poor.
Action plan
· Continue looking for work experience in a wide variety of creative disciplines to explore what sector I want to work in
· Continue to keep on eye opportunities