PRA Declassified

A media graduate recently asked me an interesting question. He wanted to know how to break into the industry when everybody is asking for a minimum of 2 years experience. He also asked if his time studying counted towards these two years.

My response…

There’s an experience gap between finishing studies and finding an entry level job at a studio. After that, there’s a big gap between being at an entry level standard and a professional standard.

We recently surveyed people who work for us and people we know about what it takes to be a professional in the animation industry. We calculated that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of hands-on work to be able to consider yourself a working animation professional. 10,000 hours roughly equates to 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for 5 years.

A university degree will typically get you to about 4,000 hours. But to have enough experience to get an entry level job, you will need about 6,000 under your belt. After that, 2 years of solid work should get you to the 10,000 hour mark.

0 – 4,000 hrs

This can include your study as well as personal projects you do in your own time. These days, submitting images to forums like CGtalk are a very valuable way of building up your experience. If your animation course doesn’t get you to 4,000 hands-on hours you may have to do a postgraduate course to get there.

4,000 – 6,000 hrs

Animation is all about creative problem solving. The more problems you know the answers to, the better you are as an asset to a studio. It’s also about knowing how to work in a team with expectations imposed on you. Some of this experience can only be found outside the classroom. The way I see it, is you have a couple of options:

1. You build up your two years experience working with other recent graduates, or small startup companies. People who are in the same boat as you. It’s all about learning as much as you can and getting practical experience.

2. Do as much work experience and placements as possible. This usually requires you work another job at the same time to survive. Try to get as many hours under you belt working in a professional studio environment. This is all about persistence. If you plug away at it for a year or so, you’ll soon end up with the experience you need to land a good job.

6,000 – 10,000 hrs

If you were to come and work here or any other studio, even as a junior, 95% of what you will be asked to do you would have never done before. This is why it’s a big undertaking for a studio to agree to train someone up. Smaller studios may simply not have the resources to do it. After a couple of solid years of working, you should have enough experience to consider yourself a professional.

Here’s a case study of one of our lead artists:

This lead artist spent most of his high school drawing. After school he did a 3 year degree in visual arts. During this time and aside from his study he also worked on amateur short films doing anything from VFX, storyboarding to design work. After study, he spent another 2 years working on whatever jobs he could, illustration or whatever. Then he came to the PRA with a reasonably well developed portfolio and experience of working in team. He worked for us part time for a year or so and now works full time.