 Welcome back to Pro Tip and today I'm going to talk about how to level up your animation game while you're having an actual animation job and this is going to be a pro tip just because it is about when you're professional what do you do you have your day job how do you progress how do you level up how do you get to that next level in your career in terms of your animation skills and this is based on a question that I got on my youtube channel one of my clips it's a great question and let's dive into that now I say this though but first hi my name is JD and I do animation lectures like these I do animation analysis clips I do acting analysis clips I do feedback I do product reviews I do reviews I do a bunch of stuff this is the beginning pitch for my channel browse around you like it subscribe it's awesome and if not maybe I'll convince you later but that's that's gonna get a sneak in that pitch in there now disclaimer what I'm about to say now only worked for me so I'm not going to presume who you are obviously I don't know it is all very subjective but these are the things that helped me this is what has helped me in my career and maybe you can pick one or two or everything out of no so this is not generally speaking this is just what has helped me and hopefully it helps you so subjective thoughts ahead and the first thing that I want to mention that has helped me tremendously is teaching so what can you do to level up your game teach now I know without common complications like where do you teach do you have the experience to teach I totally get it and I have substitutes for that later well let me explain to you why teaching has helped me there's nothing like having to break down your own process and being able to explain it to someone else that has been the biggest driver for me because as you work you do things sometimes by instinct or you're used to it it's a workflow it's just something you just do because it works for you and you never had to explain to someone why why does it work for you what are the steps that you're taking to make this work so when you teach you have to look at your own workflow you have to break it all down and you have to distill it into an explanation you know a lecture in text form in visual form or with examples where you examine yourself and you make it digestible for someone else and so by re-examining what you're doing it's almost like you're going over your own process reaffirming it and maybe realizing oh maybe I shouldn't do that and be sure it'll better so it forces you to tweaking your workflow as well so it's kind of like a back and forth that's super beneficial but breaking things down is so helpful in understanding the steps what do I do and what comes first and what comes next because when you show something to a student and they go well why do you do this you can't tell them I don't know that's just how I do it it works for me that's just not good enough why does it work and how do you do it and are there any other ways and that's a great way by teaching because you can't just always teach your ways sure you can say this is how I do it this is how and they can try to follow that but you will notice quickly that when you have a classroom full of I don't know full maybe five students 10 15 20 21 like right now not everybody works the same way not everybody learns the same way others have you know technical limitations they don't have the same tools that you have add-ons or physical things like in terms of tablets or whatever so you are forced in finding ways to teach your workflow but adapted to different personalities different ways of working like for me I don't do steps because of the work that I had at ILM you just didn't do steps because of live action plates and how it's smooth and you got stuff pop around it doesn't quite work so for me I just never really did steps but a ton of students do so I still had to learn about it I still had to practice it at home so I could help them and teach them and talk about the best practices about that workflow so it's really there's so much where you learn more to help other people so that is immediately going to level up your game and as you teach other students you get to see their work obviously and the biggest factor with that is that it humbles you and it motivates you because some students they it's it takes a long time for them to get to the next level and that already is going to force you to find other ways to teach so whatever you said after a couple weeks still doesn't work got to find another way to make it click doesn't always work but again forces you to re-examine your workflow whatever method you're teaching and then finding other ways to teach that and once it clicks and you see that progressions holy crap that's really good and sometimes you get students there are off the back right off the start really good already and then you're going damn you're gonna take my job away like this is going to be this is really humbling I need to do better I need to work faster I need to be more efficient I need to do it blah blah blah blah so it's they're such a back and forth of this is cool you can show them what lies ahead what the gear is going to be that motivates them that inspires them and then you see their work and you go wow this is really good I gotta level up as well this is constant back and forth of learning and inspiration which is so cool when you teach that being said totally understand you might not be able to get into one of those online schools to teach for whatever reason financially your portfolio your experience I don't know I mean brick and mortar school is tricky now with the pandemic and everything so being on site somewhere went out the window potentially so what do you do you don't have to be a quote unquote teacher meant that whatever you can still provide knowledge online you can still critique other people's work you go to forums and check things out you can offer help bunch of people post a link to in their shots and ask for critiques you can go there that could be your outlet of providing help and your information you can go on social media right you can go on twitter instagram you can post your own clips dissect them there and do a thread like this is how I did things this is what works for me and so on so the current online social media whatever infrastructure you're exposed to you like facebook groups whatever you want to do is a great outlet a to teach but also to critique or youtube you can do that me doing my friday lectures and especially my thursday academic analysis tips which I will always plug it has really helped me level up again because I have developed a critical eye when I watch something like I take notes as much for myself as for the channel obviously I like to help people but selfishly this is all for me too I watch something and I go that's a cool acting choice and goes into my memory I put it on my blog where I have my whole list of things same thing when I do lectures I go okay I know how to do this but they're really know how to do this and then by researching and practicing and preparing this whole thing for the channel it's like a revision for myself like I relearn it again and you don't have to use youtube you can go on instagram reels you can go on tiktok there are many ways where people teach so there are many many outlets where you don't have to be in an official school you can teach other ways online so teaching absolutely recommended it's the best thing that has happened to me I love it it's also a ton of fun on top of that it's not just like the dry learning it's so much fun to teach talk to the students and have that back and forth it's so great now that's one thing the other thing that has helped me which is tricky because it's it involves a lot of time is to animate at home so or where we are I know like wherever you go somewhere trying to make so when you look at your job and this is why this is a pro tip because you're professional you have your whatever nine to six nine to seven whatever your schedule is that is your block you can't really touch maybe over lunch so what do you do you have the morning you have the evening and this is why it's tough because you got to take time away from something time away from sleep which I don't recommend but maybe some of your hobbies stuff that you like to do don't take time away from your family but there might be a day or two where you go listen today got to work sorry and someone has to help out and rebalance you know the family work or house chores or whatever it is or maybe it's just weekends I don't know but that's the tough part is finding the time in your busy day to do this so you just have to be okay with sacrificing something maybe like to play video games you got to start that for a couple weeks right there's always something that will suffer but you got to just look at and balance what is worth taking away time wise and putting that into animating but animating at home is really great just because for me what I do is I animate stuff that I don't do at work so island used to be all fairly photo real sometimes you got rangoes you got a space jam too but it's mostly realistic a lot of camera work I mean I still like to do that when I do my own stuff but what I do is I try to do something style wise that's different than what I do at work same thing with teaching so I work I used to work in photo real but all my teaching has always been cartoony even a creature work even though it's set up as being photo real you know kind of like you do a horse trot a horse cycle like just kind of emulating reference features not a huge fan because most of the students when you ask them they want to work at feature companies or tv shows or anything cartoony I try to tweak the silence so that even the creature work is cartoony based so if even was always work realistically but teach and learn and do everything at home cartoony to have that balance and that has always been a huge help because you don't come home and do your own thing where it's the same thing again and I'm not sure if that's going to help you level up maybe if you're stuck at work doing the same shots all the time so maybe you're typecast with certain thing and you want to level up within your work and do other shots then maybe practicing at home other things and then showing that your soups and leads say hey I can do this as well might be a good way to then get other shots and then level up so you don't have to do something that's a different style but I will definitely help you see other things and just be more versatile but if you're stuck with a certain style at work and you want to do more at work then that's what I recommend and again it takes time but you got to animate at home do something to show to someone hey I can do this as well because they don't know like if you assume they know but they don't but since you're in a topic of work let's continue with this so either you animate at home it's one thing but at work you can also ask for other shots you can push yourself and ask hey can I do this safely of course you don't want to go crazy and ask for something then you get it and then you can't deliver and that's not good for you so look at what the shots you're doing right now which shots you would like to do and are any of these shots available in the sequence then ask your lead in soup hey is there is there room for me to do this can I try out one of these and then that way you can also level up so you're not passively waiting for someone to give you something new to show what you can do you are actively asking can I do this I can show you that I can and then you level up that way and again if you're not given the chance to do this do shots at home and then you can show them they can see oh yeah he or she can actually do this let's give them something else so for me it was mostly VFX cameras and vehicles and creatures and digital and stuff like that and then we have Space Jam 2 and I did those cartoony tests and people were I mean this was why I was told I'm not saying like yeah this is normal but I was told that when they saw this they said oh that's really cool who knew JD could do this and that's just a reminder of but they don't know if you don't tell them if you don't show them they don't know it's not like they want to hold you back maybe there's someone there watch out politics there but if they haven't seen what you can do how would they know that they can give you those shots again as for those you can prove yourself or work at home and show them what you can do and that's not just with your lead in your soups on the show let your managers know let them know these are my goals I want to become a lead in couple years whatever or tomorrow whatever or a supervisor or something else in your field because again if they don't know how can they help you so tell people what your plan is what you would like to do and hopefully you'll get a response where they say listen you got to work on this this and this first before you get to that level actually years ago remember sending out all the soups hey I would like to be a lead I would like to be on that next level and learn all this and do that and then I got a couple soups riding back okay well you need to do this first this is what's asked of you blah blah blah blah and it was great I got a list and they knew what I wanted to do and actually not not long after that props to Scott Penza who is the amazing animator that I am he gave me a chance to be a lead on Transformers 2 it was great it was really difficult show and I learned a ton and again this is only because I ask and people heard it's like okay well let me help you and then you have that back and forth and feedback and then you can level up again if you don't know tell them just don't assume that people know what you can do what you want there has to be a communication something else that helps out work is that you don't just want to do your shots don't be in that bubble of oh this is my turnover these are the shots that's all I'm gonna do work for the team so start creating libraries and cycles and just do more where the team can benefit from this hey they're gonna see your team player you might get other work that you haven't done before to expand on this to help the team it's just try to look beyond the confines of your shot and look overall what's the need of the sequence what's the need of the show what is the need of the team and then expand your skills in whatever areas you can do maybe gotta learn something else and by providing help to someone else just like we're teaching you will level up because you're gonna do something new something else that will help other people that's going to be the motivator in all this so don't be stuck in that bubble totally understand that you are at the beginning to pretend you just got the job you want to prove yourself you get your shots you want to do a good job there but as time goes by take those blinders off and then look at what's out there how else you can contribute to the show and help out the team and lastly if that doesn't work you might be stuck at work where there's just no way to level up they're just not different shows that will work for you or you just never get those shots that you like or it's just a smaller company and you can't level up because there are only so many spots or it's a massive big company and there's so many people in line waiting for the next career opportunity where you just can't level up that way can totally happen tough things then and you gotta switch jobs there are lots of people that switch jobs all the time and switching jobs not that I have a huge experience like barely an experience for this but by switching jobs a you get a new network of people you will learn new tools there are new workflows you have to adapt to a new pipeline so there's so much you will learn by switching things around for sure I've noticed this is because I switched from ILM to Warner's and it's with feature to TV totally new I'm learning stuff every day it's great and I imagine you this all the time maybe every two years or so obviously you will level up a lot but then the tricky thing is can you do this if you're single and you got the financial means and I don't have to work visa type thing that's one thing but you got a family you can't constantly always move kids in school so it's it's a tough one but it has definitely helped me because after a while I've noticed that I have stagnated I wanted to do more things and I wanted to do different types of shots but then you have to look at it it's just not what the company provided and I love what I was doing but I want to go a step further and it's not the fault of the company it's not the company's portfolio it's not what they do so then you have to look at okay where else do they do something so for me what I started to do is I started to work on my demo reel in earnest and actually started taking notes and then so I don't know what you're gonna see this but it's basically notes and notes and notes and notes and notes these are a the shots that I started so I have a bit of a diary thing of it's going to be for my lectures and for my courses where I wrote down like my process and what I went through but then after that I have these two then it's just lists lists of shots and shots ideas so that's what I had to do I made that list I started working in earnest on a reel I was determined I'm gonna do something else different style cartoony and switch companies if I can because again I'm older I'm also more expensive it's not easy to kind of switch around after a certain time when I started the shots put them online I marked on LinkedIn open to work that was a big change it was kind of bittersweet because I mean I love ILM and then the moment you put this on like I'm gonna leave it's it's sad but it's something you had to do but the moment you did this I got approached by a bunch of people were like hey I didn't know you've been there for quite some time open to what so that kind of got the whole ball rolling interviewing a bunch of companies and they got an email from Warners they saw what they told me they saw my academic analysis clips they liked my thoughts and like the thinking about acting and stuff like that they checked on LinkedIn saw the status open got an email and within about two weeks that was it contacted we talked about we have you know negotiations about salary and a contract and that was that and then I switched super helpful that it was remote and it still is so that was a massive factor and everything just aligned and then now I'm off to new adventures scary of course because it's different company different people different type of work I love it though it's like there's so much that I'm learning it's the team is great but it's going to be different and it's going to be for a couple years I mean it's going to be done I can't say when it's done and then after that I gotta look at well what's next can I stay there so next project do I need to switch so I did pull myself out of the comfort or the this security quote unquote it's always super secure but I've been extremely lucky like 17 and a half years at one company but it is going to be now a different world that I willingly put myself into so scary nervous but how it goes you gotta change things up and if you could do this on a more frequent basis just look at how much I'm learning right now you will level up a ton but again it comes like after a while at work you make friends these are your work friends you've known these you know in my case save over 17 years so it's a tough thing to constantly change as well so I'm not saying that's like an easy thing to do or that's like super recommended and again this is very subjective and it all depends on your situation but there you go so longer clip as I'm seeing here but this is what has helped me so teaching doing stuff at home helping out doing different styles and then at the end if that doesn't work switching companies it's kind of like it's you have to kind of look at what can you do and how far can you escalate the situation into leaving a company if that's a big deal for you I don't know that's my list let me know in the comments I'm super curious I would love to hear from people if any of the professionals are watching my channel what you have done like what was your way it would be great to get kind of a thread in the comments of oh yeah but I also did this and this has helped me and like maybe learning a different software that's going to be like a whole other thing that's going to be helpful like what did you do I would love to hear thoughts from anybody out there that's working currently how did they level up or maybe if you are at that stage where you can't level up maybe you've heard all of this and you say I can't do any of this because of ABC what else can I do so then maybe I can do a part two I don't know so maybe I can help you with that so comment let me know I'm very very curious because again it's very subjective depending on the city or the company the city the country everything so let me know other than that again it's getting kind of long so I'm going to stop thank you for watching to the very end thank you so much subscribe my usual pitch at the end so maybe this was helpful you don't want to miss any more future uploads I don't know and of course get a pitch for my workshop if you feel like those tips are helpful then you feel like maybe I can help you work you on your shots in your spare time while you work at a company and you want to level up my workshops are open you know the pitch you can sign up at any time link in the description with all the information I would love to help you if possible and so let me know I don't sign ups are always open let me know and that's kind of that I'm leaving it at that again it's kind of longer clip thank you for watching hope it's helpful and hopefully I'll see you in my next clip