Explore: Media

Storyboard Artist
Freelance

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	JAMIE I
00:02	My name is Jamie I and I’m a storyboard artist and animator.
00:06	A storyboard artist pretty much is the person who first gets hold of the scripts, they’re the first person to really pre-visualise the film and to do so, you normally draw the film in little pictures and go through it with the director.
00:22	I worked on a project for Aardman actually, called Gulp, which is a little advertisement for the Nokia folk, which was really good. I also worked on some stuff for Cartoon network, Nickelodeon, but very sort of small things, like online games and things like that, And now I’m working on a TV show.
00:42	At secondary school I was quite quiet and used to, as you can imagine, end up drawing a lot on my maths books and English books and everything else but yeah, I used to be quite like that and so I actually chose my GCSEs to study digital graphics and in doing that I found animation and the teacher was really good for me and said, you know, you can carry on doing this if you want and just do it for your GCSEs, so I did and I loved it and then one day I went to college and then one day I saw the front of a magazine, saw Aardman were in Bristol and I saw Wallace and Gromit on the front and they were talking about the school there and I, nowhere else, I didn’t check anywhere else, I just went for that school specifically and went there and studied there.
01:34	The process I went through to get the job, I practiced a lot, specifically storyboarding. I think I ended up drawing a lot more than animating and anything else and I love storyboarding because I remember one say seeing a Walt Disney tape and seeing someone pitching their ideas and I was like, who’s that guy, what job does he do and learned more about it and I was like, I’m going to do that and I ended up watching a lot of videos on the internet, learning how to start off storyboarding and then I managed to get a few jobs which gave me a bit of experience and then, finally I ended up going on a course with Frank Gladstone, with Lupus Films and Creative Skillset. It was a course just primarily for storyboarding. It actually not only kind of taught me new things about storyboarding but reaffirmed what I already knew and allowed me to find new opportunities with that sort of, OK yeah, I know I’m able to do a good job now because I know what I’m doing and Frank Gladstone was extremely experienced, so I think that gave all of us that opportunity to go out there and be able to say yeah, I can do this.
02:53	Yeah, I quite like freelance life cos you’re working on new projects, it’s always fresh, it’s always new and sometimes you meet people who want to actually innovate as well and actually want to make things through kind of their own sort of, their own sort of novelty and insight, if that makes sense. It’s really good freelancing, in the sense that you don’t know what the new job’s going to be about. You might go in there and you might be just colouring with crayons and a piece of paper but you actually might be doing something completely different and something that you’ve never tried before. It’s kind of quite good that way, keeps it fresh, keeps you fresh and feeling creative.
03:44	I think the best way to get into this business is probably, into animation, is probably, I would say, draw a lot, do a lot of drawing, do a lot of observing, watch people because at the end of the day you’re making things move and the best way to make things move is to watch real life happen. I also think that, in terms of qualifications and in terms of the type of things you need to get into the business, you don’t necessarily need a qualification in animation. People don’t really look at your qualifications when you apply for an animation job, usually, they kind of just look at your portfolio and look at you and whether they think you’ll be right for the job, whether they think you’ll be suitable for that particular project. That’s why, that’s another thing as well, when people go for those projects, you shouldn’t take it too personally that you didn’t get the job because it might be that you just, they found someone else who had the right sort of, a particular design or a particular storyboard that caught that director’s imagination and decided to go, OK, you’re suitable for this project, we’ll take you on. So that’s why it’s important just to keep going and just sort of, there’s always opportunities.
04:55	End of Jamie I

Jamie was quite quiet at school but managed to express himself through art. A chance reading of a magazine gave him the idea to study at the Bristol School of Animation, which has very close ties with Aardman Animations. He has continued to develop his skills and recently completed a storyboarding course, ran by Lupus Films in association with Creative Skillset, and is now a freelance storyboarder.

More information about Artists

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£35,880

average salary

The UK average salary is £29,813

average weekly hours

There are 37.5 hours in the average working week

65% male

35% female

The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male

Future employment

Future employment?

Description

? Artists create artistic works using appropriate techniques, materials and media; design artwork and illustrations; and restore damaged pieces of art.

Qualifications

No specific academic qualifications are required although a variety of vocational qualifications, degrees and postgraduate courses are available. Entry can be based upon portfolio work.

Tasks

Conceives and develops ideas and ways of working for artistic composition;
Selects appropriate materials, medium and method;
Prepares sketches, scale drawings or colour schemes;
Builds up composition into finished work by carving, sculpting, etching, painting, engraving, drawing, etc.;
Approaches managers of galleries and exhibitions in order to get finished work displayed;
Uses artistic skills to restore damaged artworks;
Liaises with writers and publishers to produce book illustrations;
Markets and sells finished work directly to customers;
Produces works on commission basis for clients.