You're Going to Hollywood!

I was thinking recently how it might be a good idea to talk about a few subjects that discuss actually being an animator as opposed to just animation itself, which is what I usually do. There are so many things that get discovered along the way, that I kind of take for granted now, but I would never have even thought about when I was just starting out in this profession.

I get a lot of emails asking me how I made the transition from video games to movies, which is a great subject, but I think there is a much undisclosed side of this that covers how animators actually manage to move to different countries and end up being able to work in the big studios from a legal, financial and social standpoint as well as an artistic one... basically, professional ability be it artistic or whatever, is only one part of a big puzzle when trying to get yourself here, and there are so many things I wish I'd known before. Especially now with online animation schools like AM, there are students from literally every corner of the world all scrambling to work in the central feature animation hub based predominantly in North America.

I want to write a post about how I got from England, to California. I don't want to write a "life journey" post, which is useless to anyone except my mum, instead I would like to try and use my experience to offer some advice to those of you thinking about doing this yourselves.

I wish there was something like Animation Mentor when I was a student... I am a self taught animator, and have no formal training other than a story supervised 3 minute short film I completed in my final year of a graphic design Degree. I made it in 3D Studio Max. The animation quality was not the film's strong point at all...

I started animating professionally for a small game developer in Manchester around Sept 2001. I was offered a few jobs after I sent out my short film as a demo reel to a bunch of places in London, Manchester and a few other places. I didn't jump at the first chance I was given... I remember the first place was a good TV studio in London, that offered me a "runner" position. You never really know of course, but it scares me to think of where I would be now if I had started my career getting coffee and sandwiches for other staff, whilst working unpaid after-hours on the Softimage workstations they had ( this was their suggestion ). I looked at a few other places in London, and a great little place that was a little too far out of the city. Finally, I ended up in Manchester.

I think there are a number of things I took from my first job in the industry; Firstly, it really was good that I waited it out and took the job that felt right to me, and not any of the first few jobs I was offered. The Manchester studio was good for a number of reasons; mainly they were working on Animaniacs and Looney Tunes games that I knew would be great practice for me and great for my demo reel. They were also willing to accept my request for a higher salary... its always a negotiation, and I found that extra money helped a lot at that stage of my life. Lastly, the management at the company really looked after me, and encouraged me to grow into a lead/senior role.

• With regards to what I had to move forward when I left, I had a pretty good demo reel with well known cartoon characters, and experience as an animation lead for my resume. I also taught myself Maya's mel scripting language, which gave me a huge technical advantage. I think above all else, even more important than the quality of my reel, was that I could move forward with a much broader skill set than when I first started at the company.

Despite the fact I didn't really know it at the time, leaving this small studio was probably the biggest step I took towards moving to California because that was the point where I decided to leave the United Kingdom and work overseas in Canada. I was about 25 at that time, and I honestly believe that if I had moved to another UK based company, and got settled in another city, its unlikely I would have ever left England.

When you make the choice to leave your home country and work overseas doing animation, there are a few things I thought about that helped me a lot. There are a few things too that I didn't think about! I'm going to put these in a list as I think about them, but these are not really in any order or importance:

• If you leave your home country to pursue a career in animation, you are doing this because it is likely that your own country does not have the studios or facilities to support your long term career aspirations. This basically means, that it is very likely that you will never return to your home country to work again. Of course this isn't always the case, but you will find this sneaks up on you when you least expect it, and its worth thinking about. Your old friends, family, culture and almost everything familiar to you will remain in your home country.
  

• You'll need your overseas employer to organize your legal right to work in that country. You can't just show up and start working. Sometimes this can be really complex ( like when you move to the U.S ) and sometimes not so bad. When I moved to Canada all I needed was a letter of employment confirmation that I used in the airport to get a work permit. At the time however, I was very naive about this and I should have asked my employer more questions... I didn't even know if my spouse would be able to work legally. Its really worth asking questions like "how long does the permit last" "how many times can it be renewed" "what do I need to do to renew it" ( for a U.S visa, the renewing process requires you and your family to leave the country and pass back through immigration at the border! ). Most of the time the company will hire separate immigration attorneys to help you with this if its necessary. Don't get crazy worried about this, but understand the terms of your permit / visa to avoid surprises. When it comes to working in the U.S, this can be really quite complex, and I'll talk a bit more about that later.
  

• Make sure you try and find out if there is anything official you need to do before leaving your home country for a sustained period of time. There are usually things associated with taxes, residency and state benefits that require you to "tell them" you're leaving for a while. When I left the UK, I didn't really do this, and whilst its not a real problem, I wish I had thought about it a little more. You can usually find out what you need to do by going to your governments tax or benefits websites and looking around there.

• Moving costs you money. Even if you change jobs in the same city, its going to cost you at least some amount of cash. When you move overseas, the cost can get very large, very fast. A good employer understands this, and most companies offer a "relocation package" as part of your initial employment agreement. Its crucial you understand the relocation package and negotiate it higher if you feel its inadequate. From my experience, the company will usually kindly offer to pay for your plane tickets ( and any family traveling with you ) and 1 month temporary accommodation ready for you when you arrive. Sometimes a flat dollar amount is offered as a starting bonus instead. A few things that are worth asking for are contents shipping ( to get your stuff from home to the new city) and professional help with your first year's tax return can prove invaluable. Its important to understand your tax liability when it comes to relocation, as you can sometimes be required to pay income tax on the total monetary amount that was used for your relocation expenses, which can be very high! so for example, if your employer paid $3000 for your plane tickets, you may later have to pay anywhere up to 50% of this cost as part of your tax liability. Know how the taxes work by asking your employer, and a know that a good employer will usually cover the cost of these taxes for you.

• Consider the fact that you'll always have ties to your home country, mostly in the form of your family and close friends. You'll need to take trips back, and your parents will start to miss you! It can get expensive when you start thinking about this for the long term future, especially if you have a family of your own. I frequently find myself wishing I could just drive to London and go for a pint with my dad, instead of having to fly four people almost 5000 miles over the Atlantic ocean.

• I am really fortunate to have the companionship of my wife, particularly in those early days when we first left the UK. It was a real adventure and so much better to be able to share it with someone. I can imagine moving on your own is just as exciting, but will raise other challenges that I have not experienced.
  

I don't think I really started to think seriously about getting a job in a feature studio until I moved to Canada. Living in England, these places seemed very far away, and despite the fact there are some great studios in London, it would never be my first choice for a city to live, work and raise my children in. After about 18 months at Ubisoft in Montreal, I decided it was time to move on to another part of Canada, Vancouver, and this time I had a specific goal in mind which was to animate some realistic creature type animations with the intent of eventually applying to VFX studios in Canada or the US. When I left Montreal, these were a few of the things I had learned:

• I needed a variety of types of animation on my demo reel, if I was to have any chance of getting a feature or vfx job. I had spent almost 5 years by this point basically animating the same things - cartoony physical actions. I had spent some time in the evenings, building and rigging a "chicken" character, that I used to animate my first acting test with dialog and facial animation. I really wanted to do more of this, but for now I was really excited about the new job at Propaganda Games that would allow me to animate creatures, humans and dinosaurs in a much more realistic way. This was the first time I was thinking about specifically tailoring my demo reel, and this is something we all have to eventually do.
  

• Montreal was a fantastic city, and me and my wife were happy there. There were issues though that we would never have really thought about before we left the UK that made it difficult to stay. It was kind of hard with the French language barrier - everyone always spoke English around Anglo-phones, but all in all it would have been 1000% better if I could speak French, and my French is pretty bad. My wife had trouble finding work too. It was bloody freezing in the winter, -20c was pretty normal, and winter was pretty long. You can never really find out what you think you'll need to know before moving to a city, but its best to do at least some research... we did absolutely zero before moving to Montreal.

• Ubisoft Montreal is a huge studio, and it was great experience to see the difference between small and large developers. Ultimately, the feature studios in the U.S are large studios, so you need to get a feel for how these places operate. There is a clear difference in the studio environment that you can only really understand if you experience it for yourself. You have to work and behave differently. Working at such a well known developer like Ubisoft would also help me later on when I needed to get legal permissions to work in the U.S ( though I didn't know this at the time ).
  

• Moving again for the second time, I had more experience with negotiating salary and relocation. Propaganda Games took fantastic care of me and my wife, and made the transition from East to West coast almost completely painless. Whenever I think of the perfect relocation scenario, I think of that move to Vancouver. Its good that I have that experience as a benchmark against which to judge future relocation deals.

So Propaganda Games was the last game developer I worked for in Canada, and is a large part of why I was able to eventually come to the US and work on animated features. I worked very happily for about 3 years, but can honestly say that the last six months were fueled by a burning frustration to at least try the feature business and see how it was. When I left Vancouver to move to San Francisco, these are the things that Propaganda had helped me with:

• I had been able to specialize in creature animation, and had a handful of "shots" that looked very different to my usual cycle style actions. They were ideal ammunition to send to a VFX company for potential work.

• I had spent a lot of time expanding my technical knowledge by developing Maya tools for me and the animators and this had helped me greatly in getting a leadership role at the company, but also increasing the speed and quality of my animation. Despite the fact that entering the film industry for the first time will usually mean taking a step back from any leadership roles you may have now, it still bears very well on you as a professional and your ability to adapt for the better. I found that working leadership roles gave me a lot of confidence in myself, but also made me think carefully about how I treat others, and how others perceive me. Again, being a good animator is just a tiny part of the puzzle.
  

• I still needed some "acting" on my demo reel and to do this I had to really work hard. I would get up at 4:50 am every week day, make some coffee, and work on a shot from 5am until 7am. Not only was it hard because it was early, but more so because it was only 2 hour sessions, and it was difficult to get "into the shot" and get a groove going. I did this for about 3 months and completed the "smoking girl" shot on my demo. The key thing here is that you usually have to go out of your way to do at least some kind of extra work in your own time that you need for your demo... 99% of the time you don't get everything you need at the day job. The sad truth is that people get screwed by this because they get stuck in a job where they can't animate what they need, and they don't do any work in their own time to remedy that... don't be a victim!

• On leaving Canada, I realized how much I love it there. It is a strange but perfect mix between English and American cultures ( but still very much its own culture of course ). Its a nice feeling to make roots in a place that you otherwise would never have experienced. I plan to return to Vancouver one day and settle there when the time is right, its a beautiful city with amazing people. I miss it a lot.
  

The move to San Francisco to start at ILM was a very challenging time indeed. I had been contacted by them to work on Transformers 2 after they had seen my Turok work ( I still have many thanks For Jean Denis Haas for bringing it to their attention ). To summarize what I learned when moving to the US, I'll write a list again as I think of things, but they are in no particular order:

• Its important to understand that often things hit you when you least expect them too. Despite the fact I was keen to move to the US and work on films, it really was bad timing for my personal circumstances. We literally had just had our second baby ( he was one month old ) and financially I had seen much better times. I had not directly applied to ILM, and was taken by surprise when they contacted me. Understand that you wont ever be totally prepared when you get that call.
  

• Again, to highlight the fact that the "perfect scenario" to move to a new job rarely happens, there were a number of things that made accepting the job at ILM a huge risk for me and my family. Firstly, they were hiring me for a 2 month contract! I would have to be willing to uproot my life in Canada completely, and take my family to the U.S on the basis of a 2 month contract, in "hope" that I would be picked up for more work. I can't tell you how stressful that was. Secondly, I had to get a work visa to be able to obtain employment legally in the United States. The attorneys for ILM did an excellent job of helping me with this, but essentially I had to quit my job in Canada before I knew whether or not I could get this visa... again, a huge risk. Lastly, because my contract was so short, I had trouble negotiating a relocation deal that would cover the cost of most moving expenses for me. I ended up asking my parents for money, and god bless them, I would not be here now if it were not for that financial help they gave me at that time. Basically, I think it was one of the largest risks I ever took moving to the US, and I was literally scared out of my skin when I got on the plane to leave Canada.
  

• It became very obvious to me just how difficult it can be to be able to work legally in the US. I did manage to get a visa in the end due to the vast amount of help I was given, but it was hard work. I had to spend many evenings gathering information about companies I had worked for, references, and a variety of public information about myself and previous projects that shed a good light on me and my professional abilities. My Degree qualification did help, but it was by no means enough by itself. Unfortunately, it is also common that spouses cannot work under your visa unless they obtain one themselves. To be honest, the immigration system in the U.S is so stringent, it is almost impossible to figure it out. With regards to long term residency, this can be even more complex and literally take many years to get. Like it or not, as an immigrant to the US, it becomes a part of your life, and often feels like a hurdle.
  

• Strangely enough, the nerves about working at ILM were minimal. To be honest, it was the main thing that kept me looking forward, and stopped me taking the easy route of staying in my current job. Its important to remember not to lose sight of your goal when you get wrapped up in the technicalities of making big changes to your life.

What's kind of funny, is that as my worst fears expected, my time at ILM did not last. When I left to come to DreamWorks, I took the following experiences with me:

• Despite thinking that "things will work out", they don't always materialize as you would like them to, or expect them to. For me to have continued at ILM and moved onto Avatar or Iron man, I would have had to support myself from May until August. Financially this was a huge problem of course, but more than that was the complications this could have caused with my visa/residency status in the US (i.e being unemployed). My time at ILM was incredibly rewarding and successful, but in the long run it was bad timing... they did as much as they could to try and keep me there, but I couldn't accommodate this gap in employment. The short term contract game, from my experience is tough, and not designed at all for the family man.

• Having worked at ILM I had effectively achieved a personal dream of mine. This is a really bizzare feeling that gives you a lot of confidence going forward. I would definitely like to animate in the VFX field again when the time is right.

• Luckily I had worked a load of overtime on Transformers and managed to save what could potentially be enough money to relocate to another part of the city, another state or even out of the country if worse came to worst. If you work short term contracts you have to save money to help carry you through to the next job if its necessary.

• Before leaving Canada, I had been in very early discussions with DreamWorks about possible work at the studio. It turns out they had seen my Turok reel and were keen to hire me for How to Train your Dragon. The way these things unfold however is strange, and at the time ILM had approached me first, so I honored the agreement and mentioned to Dreamworks that I would potentially be looking for work around April/May of that year. They were very understanding about this, and were pleased to hear from me again when I eventually got back to them a few months later. Dreamworks were able to offer me the security that I needed, and an amazing opportunity animating for full CG features that is something I never really thought I would get to do. On the whole the move to DreamWorks was almost completely pain free and is one of the best career moves I think I have ever made.

I hope this sheds some light on what is essentially just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this kind of stuff. Its hard to summarize, but a bullet point list might come as a welcome surprise after all the crap you just read through!

• Be willing to take a risk even if it seems insane.
  
• Expand your skill set outside of animation.
  
• If you can't do it at work - you have to do it in your own time.
• You can't decide if moving overseas is the right thing or not by sitting on the couch and thinking about it.... you only know by doing it.
• Ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to ask for more.
• enjoy the ride.