Gettin me some of that thar work experience!: An update on how that business is going. (Part I)

After my work experience fell through over easter, I became a bit disheartened with the prospect of looking for help with my career forwarding elsewhere.
It needed doing though.

My first reaction was to look on work finding sites or online classifieds like Mandy.com and Gumtree.com, searching for animation companies who were looking for interns or people to fill work placements.
Sadly this turned up very few results for companies that I'd be interested in working with who were offering part time work in a situation where I'd be able to work without having to lose money on living expenses in the south. Results like this for an unnamed animation company in Birmingham who would want the prospective employee to work from home, making trips to Birmingham from time to time to meet up with the client.


My assumption in this situation would be that the company would pay for travel expenses but I don't know because I didn't follow up the ad. I didn't follow up the ad because I knew with my skill I would be unable to fulfill the employer's requests. I didn't reply to this posting either for reasons below.


I have adequete knowledge in flash, but my understanding of character animation is just starting and would be unable to support a need for walk cycles, perspective and other elements. This was my reasoning at the time for applying but, if I had sent them something I think I could've stood a chance at least.

Anyway, I came to the conclusion that the anxiety I was feeling from not being able to find a suitable, easy enough place to fit myself was because what I was currently searching for was actual work and not work placements. I needed to aim softer and to do this, I needed to start mailing the companies who were offering this work and asking them for placements instead.
I would've been ok with skipping this step and just trying to get the jobs they were offering but then I figured I would continue to hit this wall of not being skilled enough to satisfy any jobs going.

What I want

I took some time to review exactly what it was that I was trying to get out of a placement after the awkward and unsure e-mails that I'd sent to Masspro. I finally came to the conclusion that yes, I can offer these companies my services and what skill I've begun to develop, but ultimately the purpose of me getting one of these placement dealies is for the body I work with to give something to me as well. Some kind of development of skill in a professional context.

This professional context I decided recently is in the field of animation, more specifically character animation and its development and conceptualisation. I don't have the skills for it yet but I would also be interested in working in the art department of the video game industry.

These are the current skills that I have and can demonstrate to some degree when asked instantaneously by a potential work placement:

Drawing (conceptual, anatomical), Photoshop use, Hand-drawn animation, paper marionnette-crafting, book making, word processing, Aftereffects use, Flash use, basic character animation skills, storyboarding, good team working and ideas generation.

Any of these skills would be factors I would be looking to put to use and develop.

Additional skills that I would like to develop would be:

3D animation and modelling, (Maya, Softimage) advanced character animation, a deeper sense of professionalism and experience in a studio enviroment.

Using this information, I was able to start emailing studios about the prospect of me working for them during the summer or soon after.