Study task III - professional meeting : Kate Lander

I had a lovely opportunity along with the rest of animation in talking to Kate Lander - who works as a Recruitment liaison officer for Brown bag studio, to learn about what the studio are expecting from graduates who want to join them, as well as some hard facts about the working in an animation studio. This was definitely an extremely helpful and insightful conversation, as Kate approached it with a no-nonsense attitudes and laid out specific details regarding pipelines, expectations, salaries, work loads, even the impact that Brexit had had on studio business.  This, coming straight from a potential employer, and a sizeable on at that, means that more than likely it can be transferrable to other studios as well, and not just limiting to animation but to game, film,... Some of the notable information for me included :

+ Specific details regarding employment for graduates :
- Starting positions are usually Layout artist, and Backgrounds
- The starting salary is around 18k-20k
- The estimated time for a Junior position is 2-3 years
- Most are on short terms contracts that lasts around 6-9 months and will be extended if another project is briefed.

( These information are absolutely helpful, as it helps me to formulates my strategy much better, as im dealing with specific numbers)

+ Expectations when working professionally for Brown Bag

Money is business and business affects design 

(Kate brought up an fascinating example about one of their series where the designs were changed from cats to dogs, since Disney conducted a survey that concluded that cats simply don't sell as much merchandise as dogs)

Speed . is . everything 

Kate repeatedly mention this factor as one of the major factor for Brown Bag whenever they work on projects - which is also of the key reason why they tend to look for artists from a more professional pool rather than newly graduated ones.

(animators at BB churn out around 8 shots of animation per day, and storyboard artists takes around a month per episode for storyboard artists)

In regard to this matter, I feel really happy about my own art philosophy of speed and efficiency that had been a cornerstone to all of my university projects thus far ( as noted in the past studio practices posts). It is certainly a boost in confidence to know what you're doing right now is a move in the right direction, and I certainly feel that I'm more prepared than most to work in that professional pace. 

Overall, a short but absolutely fantastic talk !