Sep 11, 2010

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.


44 comments:

Philip To said...

Where's the pictures? I can't read that much text at once!!

Seriously, cool post and something that isn't talked about very often, sorta like negotiating contracts etc

For short contracts tho, companies really should pay for your relocation to and from. I had a similar situation where i also went to a large company initially for 2 months and they paid for my flights in and out, as well as relocation allowance for other things. Big companies have the money for this, sometimes you just need to twist their arms a bit... But i guess you were talking about large scale relocation, like your furniture, family etc etc?

*lots of man love hugs!*
-Phil

vp said...

excellent post!
very informative article
and your reel is simply awesome!!!

tinylittlesandra said...

That is a lot of information - and I'm so grateful for it! I too traveled the last couple of years working in Animation, without really thinking about it. I'm home now to finish off my time at Animation Mentor and move off again with more experience and a better plan of action. Your posts are so inspiring and always keep me pushing forward.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all your advise.

SEB said...

Hi Flip,

Thanks for that post it's very inspiring and motivating!!!!

P.S. I watch your acting shot (the one with woman and cigarette) every single morning! It's more than amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely fantastic post! Thank you so much!

avneriginal said...

Thank you so much for sharing this with us Cam. You can't imagine how useful it was to read about this type of stuff. It helps you put things in the right perspective and realise that you need to think about the other things apart from just pure animation.

I will definitely come back to this post as it has some great advice and a lot of great points to think about.

Keep up the good work!

Rock on

Unknown said...

This is an amazing post man. Seriously.
I can relate to some of the stresses of relocating, it was something I had to do 3 times last year. Fortunately immigration wasn’t something I had to deal with. I can imagine that would make things 10 times harder.
I think a lot of us dream of working overseas, but have no idea where to start. This is such a great insight. You are really generous for sharing it with us.

Craig said...

Hey Cam,

This was a great read, it was funny because just when you sent that out I was looking into Visa's and knowing all the uncertainties and hassle that goes along with them.

I live in Australia, knowing that studios aren't really on the rise here, I've been searching for international work and this a was a nice step away from it all to read and to know.

It's helping me look at this from a different angle and while even though you hinted that it wasn't too reassuring, it was to me.

Thanks very much for giving the time and thought towards this subject,
Craig

Brad Silby said...

Inspiring stuff, and I never realised you were a fellow Englishman. Love your 'smoking girl', those hours were worth it.

Unknown said...

yer always an inspiration. Look forward to the next session

suzanne kaufman said...

Great Post and super inspiring!!!

Thanks a bunch!

Suzanne

Owen Williams said...

A truely excellent post, big thanks for taking the time to write this. I'm in a situation where all I can think about is working in feature animation in California :) I recently visited friends during my honeymoon, and we visited Dreamworks where one of them works (Morgan Evans,TD). For at least 10yrs I've dreampt of working in feature animation and visiting DW just fueled my drive. I'm a (frustrated)concept artist, working in games in the UK and so recently decided to go to the CTN animation expo in Burbank in November this year to speak to guys in the industry and *hopefully* get some much needed feedback on my work. (http://www.owenwilliamsportfolio.blogspot.com/)
Anyways, it's really inspiring to read success stories from fellow Brits
Thanks!

Matt Walker said...

Thank you so much for such amazing information! Im actually in the process of moving my wife and I from the US to New Zealand for my first animation job (The Penguins of Madagascar TV show). I am so blessed to be able to go on this adventure, but I will say it has been a bit stressful at times, dealing with visa, place to live. There a a ton of small things you dont think about, banking, mobile phone services, language differences (even being the same language).
But the company has been extremely helpful and I'm so excited to start. This will be the first time that I can say that I animate for a living!

Thank you for all of your fantastic insights!
-Matt

Jean-Denis Haas said...

Fantastic post Cameron! I was sad to see you leave and would have hoped to get to know you better. It's great to hear/read that everything worked out though.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, they will help and guide a lot of people!

franky said...

Great Post sir : )

Dean said...

thanks for sharing it~ It's an amazing post for us international students and a job seekers in U.S. Learned a lot by reading your experience! BTW, love your smoking girl clip. keep watching it frequently. thanks again!

CGnitro said...

thank heavens i did not let this go unread or read later,,, really very informative and inspiring read this is..

JCoomey said...

Very inspiring and informative post. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it certainly helps take a lot of the sting out of the uncertainty that comes with relocating for work.

Best of luck at dream works, you are an inspiration to the rest of us European animators.

Cameron Fielding said...

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment. I really appreciate that.

Phil! - yeah man... it can be the furniture, all the plane tickets for each family member ( 4 tickets for my family! ) tax help, it all adds up and can start to get like you're asking for a lot. You're are right tho, you always have to ask. take it easy man!

matt W - good point there about banks and stuff - the big thing is credit history and how that gets totally nuked when you go overseas, and potentially slowly ruined back home.. i might update the post with some info on that - thanks

Jean D - dude, you know I loved it at ILM man, miss it there a lot to be honest -I hope to sneak a contract in again one day!! haha hope everything is good with you and cant wait to see Rango - very interested.

Anonymous said...

man, balls of steel:
quiting a solid job for a 2 month contract in a country you can't stay in unemployed, with a 1 month old baby
glad it worked out.
I don't know if I would have the guts to take that risk if I were in the same position (my 2nd's due in late Nov, we'll see if anyone comes calling :P ) Can't tell if that's a fail or win for me.

thanks for the interesting post. May your good fortune continue :)

Jeff Joe said...

Excellent post, Cam! You worked hard to get where you are now, and you deserve all the good things that come your way!

Olivier Ladeuix said...

I didn't realise you were also coming from the UK and yes the VFX industry in here is a funny one... serving coffees to become an animator.... well it is probably the universities that should be blamed for it in the first place since they don't train anyone to the level expected in feature and the students who also think that getting a diploma will be sufficient to land that dream job.

Some people get lucky but most of us need to work hard on manufacturing our luck and this post is a good reminder of that.

Thanks for that excellent post and I am glad to hear that we share the same life philosophy.

As Phil said it: "Where is the picture? and lots of man love hugs here too ;-)*

Herman Gonzales said...

Thanks for taking the time to write this. Very info for all.

Henk said...

Hi Cameron,

I hadn`t realised the steps you took where that risky. Inspiring to see the choices you made under the circumstances. Thanks for sharing this. It means so much to see how others move around and it takes.

Mike York said...

Right on great post CAm. Im personally trying to make the switch to work on feature films coming from many years in games. This post was nice to hear your thoughts and struggles and overall got me energized to make a leap!

Unknown said...

Thanks for post this.
Flip, you are my idol.

Josh Bowman said...

Great post Cam! Really apprciate that you took the time to share this.

Tobias Schwarz said...

...I cannot remember how many vacuum cleaners I had to buy due to my constant moving from countries to countries. Moving is such a huge part of an animators life that its surprising that so few write about it.
Thanks for taking the time and posting this!

Cameron Fielding said...

Haha Tobias, yes its very true... vacuum cleaners, shower curtains, and CARS!

Tania 'Doodlezilla' Vincent said...

This post has really helped me. i'm 24 and working in my first job (wierdly in a small computer games company in manchester).
and moving to work in movies is something i've really always wanted to do.
Suddenly recently it occured to me that if i dont do it soon I might never do it.
My boyfriend is also in the industry and its a scary leap to make but you post answered all the questions i might possible need to ask someone.
It makes me so happy to know its a possibility!
now i just need to go and do it!!!

V.Chander said...

Awesome post. I love how open you are about the topic and shared your experience.
I learnt lots from your work. You are an absolute inspiration.
All the best at DreamWorks and I will look forward to your upcoming posts.

AnimFlynn said...

Brilliant Post, very informative and shall hopefully be helpfull for when I decide to do the same move myself.

Very encouraging to see the success your having, especially since Im also working at the same company you started your career from in Manchester ;D

a humble fan.

Upinder Dhaliwal said...

Excellent post Cameron with a good in site into how things work. Your Turok reel is very inspiring.

Best of luck
Upi

Wei Xing said...

Very inspiring post! Thanks for all that information. I hope to be on the same track one day :)

Marcus Tee Jin Liang said...

Thanks Cameron for such an informative post. I always thought that it would be hard but never that insane to work in the animation industry and move around.

Your post is truly an inspiration.

Chan Ghee Leow said...

Thanks for this fantastic post. I've had my fair share of moving around as well. I constantly feel like I'm living out of my suitcase, being wary of completely unpacking and settling in.

Anyway, I've revisited some of of your older posts. I'm glad to see the Turok reel being made available again. I love that reel :) That's the level of work I would like to strife for personally. When I need the extra kick of motivation, I'd head straight for that video!

Fantastic posts! Can't say how much I appreciate it :)

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this post. Im an international student studying Computer Animation at Ringling College of Art & Design, and would like to hopefully work in california for a studio like dreamworks or pixar post-graudation. Needless to say, the international complications have had me worried for a really long time! Thank you so much for your inspirational post!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for sharing some very concrete realities! Awesome post! Absolute congratulations and respect to you and your wife and family for having the fortitude and courage to follow your dreams. I'm going to share this with some other students. It'll help us greatly in realising that we have to put in the effort and research and will really make us think hard about our goals and the reality of where we are right now. Loved the list and the identification of mountains and hurdles! Loved your ultimate success!!! Thanks so much for sharing!

Marcus Ng said...

I did go through a bit of personal struggle through the immigration process and can understand how frustrating and nerving it was. I am currently based in Singapore and will have to go through it one day. The thought of being able to stay because of a piece of paper drove me to the wall of desperation. The night before I had to leave, I caught the last lecture by Pausch. In it, he mentioned that obstacles are there to block out people who don't want it as much. The next day, I went back to the immigration office in SF and got some temp status after some hours.
I am extremely happy for you and your family for being able to settle down in the States and being able to work on fun stuff!

Chris said...

Hi Flip,

thanks for your revelation about taking these big steps in your life any animator who's trying to reach that goal is dreaming about.
Your article is excellent regarding to bridge the gap between your personal and professional life. It's good to hear everything works out so well in the end. :)

Wish you the best,

Chris

L Rossi said...

Wow....I'm not joking when I say, a few bullet points actually made me shed a tear... :)
I've only read a few posts so far, but i'm gonna make sure I read the rest as this is what i've needed....
Thanks,
L

Anonymous said...

Absolutely Phenomenal Post!!! Im a recent graduate who's only been in the industry for half a year now and that really helped answer alot of my questions regarding the industry! I really respect how you followed through and achieved your goals.

Much Love from Canada, Bro.

Jason Theaker said...

Hi Cameron
Wow man what a story! Moving your wife and one month old baby, with only a two month contract! Man my wife wouldn’t have been so keen!
Anyway, strange thing is that I use to work with you at Warthog. I’m not sure what games you worked on but your name ran a bell when a student mentioned you to me, but we probably passed by each other. Anyway a very entertaining story and it’s so good to see you fulfilling your dreams!
I now teach animation at Bradford University and if you’re ever in the UK, it would be a real honour if you would come and show the students some of your work and talk about your experiences. That is if you have time...
Anyway glad to see you doing so well

Take care
Jason Theaker

Ufukkiblat said...

very inspiring, thanks for sharing this.

i will remember what do you talk about this..

thanks again

cheers,

vian