I am in the 11th grade and I am just starting to learn about all the career options that I may be interested in, but I am not sure I have enough knowledge on certain careers, such as storyboard artists, or animators, or just working with anything in cartoons in general, what would be some helpful advice for choosing one, and whats a day in the life like for both?

Hi Stephanie,

While I'm not in the animation industry specifically, I have worked in the video game industry for over 13 years. These jobs are not exactly the same but there are some general similarities in art jobs across industries. Also, I have done story boards for cinematic sequences.

The day-to-day life generally involves meeting with art directors and the creative leads to figure out what will be required. For storyboards it involves working with the script and writer to figure out what exactly is going on and what needs to be communicated. From there a lot of reference gathering would come next and then you start sketching out quick gesture scenes laying out the composition and action in each scene, blocking out the potential camera movements and where everything of significance in the scene will be.

From there you'll then get feedback from the director and writer to see if you're matching their vision. Then more revisions will follow and on until everyone is in agreement. Finally polish pass will be next but storyboards are generally pretty loose so there might not be a lot of cleanup required.

For more general art tasks, like concept, character/environment design, etc, it'll be a similar process: a lot of meetings to come up with a solid idea of what needs to be completed, reference gathering, feedback and revisions, and with concepts the polish phase will be more involved and detailed.

Youtube will have many different videos from animated movie DVD extras where the production companies go "behind the scenes" and show a little bit about what goes on in the studios. Look up some of your favorite animation studios and see if you can find a behind the scenes video for them.

Good luck and I hope this information has been helpful.

Sincerely,

Andy

First you need to figure out what it is you like to do. Once you have an idea of that then you look for opportunities to start in that direction. Don't worry if you'll make a career out of it. You'll probably change your mind a few times as you move along within the industry, that's OK. Even if you change your mind you still will get experience and knowledge that will always be helpful.

Start by getting into a internship in your area. Check with local ad agencies or if there are any studios try there as well.

Best of luck and I wish you success.

This is a great time to start thinking through your career options. Once you find an area of interest, see if you can connect with professionals in those fields and do a job shadow or contact them for a 10 minute phone informational call. Have a list of questions ready and get as much knowledge and career advice as you can. Make sure to stay in touch with them via LinkedIn and send a thank you card after meeting with them.

In addition, Khan Academy has a great FREE course with Pixar where it covers all of the questions you asked about animation, cartoons, storyboard artist and more: https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar/

I hope this helps and wish you all the best!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Ayanna Murray

Talk to your guidance counselor to get a list of companies and organizations where you can shadow for the day. You'll get on the job insight to what their daily work is like. Be mindful of how you feel as you watch or engage that work. Does it give you energy? Can you see yourself doing that or wanting to do more of that? If the answer is yes, keep pursuing that. If the answer is no, then start tacking in a slightly different direction. It seems like you already have a good idea of your wheelhouse, so it 's just a matter of honing and getting more practical and direct. Good luck!