ANIMATION

Personal Development Plan

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Job description1

Skills needed2

Job duties3

Work life4

Development of essential skills5

Conclusion7

References8

Personal Development Plan

Introduction

From the many options that are available in the Special and Visual Effects industries, I have always aspired to take up a career in Animation. I want to be an animator. But before I embark on my role as a professional animator, I need to see what is that it takes to be an animator in that what are the skills required in this field. I have also researched on the responsibilities of the role, the set of duties that are to be performed by an animator, the working methodology used by people in my role, how to network in this field, what people are involved in the field and lastly how other people in the fled managed their career. The findings of my research are summarized hereunder. In the end, I will discuss my personal plan regarding how I want to develop my skills essential for a progressive career in the field and how will I go about managing my career.

Job description

As the name suggests the job of an animator is animation. Animation may be defined as the creation of an illusion of movement. For this purpose, the animator draws or creates multiple images. Each movement is the result of a number of pictures and each picture in a movement is called a frame (Mogel, 2000). These frames are created either digitally by the animator or they can even be drawn or modeled and puppetted. The animation can take the form of 2D, 3D animation also called the 3D model-making animation, and computer generated animation. The motion pictures that we see in the movie theatres are the product of the computer generated animation. Most work that is done on television, for advertisements and other visual effects also comes under the ambit of animation. Cartoons are the best example of animation and the computer games that have taken over the world by storm is again the hard work of the animators. Hence, it would not be wrong to say that an animator's job is not only interesting but also has a lot of scope as well as many dimensions to it (Flavell, 2010).

What makes an animator stand out is the aesthetic sense and artistic abilities of the animator.

Skills needed

Artistic Ability - In a career as an animator what is most important is creative thinking. Artistic skills are important in that it is the job description of an animator to remain creative and think out of the box. You have to know how to draw, that is the basic for an animator. Moreover, you have to have a clear understanding of composition.

Technical Skill / Software Knowledge - an animator should remain updated with the status of the information technology usage in the job. For instance, CGI or Computer Generate Imagery is now used widely. This technology is used not only in animated movies but also in the bestselling action films (Flavell, ...