Tim Allen himself gave this lecture as we joined the animation students to hear him talk of how he got started in the animation business and some highs and some lows of working in the industry. It was very interesting to hear what he had to say about working professionally and the pressures that are put on you as an animator. Tim works solely in the field of stop motion animation, an area I am fairly interested in, it was great to listen to the man who was the main animator on some of my favourite kids TV shows. El Nombre, Fireman Sam, Postman Pat
My personal favourite claymation TV show on earth is Creature Comforts which Tim Allen worked on too! I love the accuracy of the human characteristics portrayed through the clay animals and often with hilarious audio recordings the animation compliments and enhances them excellently!
Tim gave us some good advice during the talk,
- Keep a record of all your work.
He said this so that you always have a record of where you have come from, the progression of your work and your style. Also you have a good bank of work to show agencies and clients when trying to secure a job.
- By 'just doing it', you gain experience and have a lot of opportunity to practice and inevitably you get better.
I wholeheartedly agree with this one, the more you do the better you get at doing. Practice makes perfect. There are loads of cliche phrases for a reason, it's the truth. The more i practice drawing and freehand typography the better i become at it!
- When putting together a showreel (we can translate this to portfolio) put your best work at the begging to grab their attention and then your best at the end, to leave them with a good feeling at the end, wanting more.
This is obviously a very helpful tip, i will have to find out weather it is true for graphic portfolios too but I think it sounds like a pretty sound piece of advice.
From Tim's talk I gained knowledge of a different field which is always useful, I was inspired to get out there and just DO more. He gave me a down-to-earth insight into what the real creative world is like and it was very refreshing to hear.
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