Andy Doran - Menagerie

Over reading week I met up with my old tutors from when I did my foundation course, and decided to rack their brains for any animators in Warwickshire, (where home is), that I could get in contact with while I was back. Unfortunately they couldn't think of anything at all, but one tutor suggested a friend of his who he knew touched upon animation, who is now based in Manchester...

Andy Doran
I contacted him through his company website; Menagerie, to ask what he studio/workspace was like, and if I could come along to visit; I asked about the difference between working in a classroom environment and as a freelancer/in the industry; and also any advice on 3D and animating to sound.

He emailed back pretty much instantly and gave a great reply about where he's working now, what he does and some advice for me too. Here's a few snippets...

Andy said as he works as a freelancer, he spends most of his time at home and occasionally works at a few agencies in Manchester, so visiting his workplace wasn't really possible.

"Since leaving college (a long time ago) my role has changed at the same rate as technology - I initially trained as a graphic designer and 95% of my work was print based. However, I was a musician as well, so felt I needed to combine music and imagery and so I got into using 'flash' and 'director' when it first appeared. In the early days of the web, you had to keep filesizes really small, so you had to keep animations pretty simple in flash... which was fine, but I quickly got bored with constraints and I soon got into Adobe After Effects, which allowed me much more freedom."

He highly reccommended getting to grips with After Effects, which is good as that's what I'm doing!

He also mentioned his experience of 3D, maybe worth a read up on the software?...

"I also got into 3D through using Cinema 4D, which is one of the easier 3D softwares to learn and then started to combine the two [After Effects] together."

Some good advice about freelancing; a good way to work, and a good way to use your time...

"The thing is, you never stop learning, and that's one of the big demands of being a freelancer - if you want to be hired, you've got to be able to say 'yes' when some agency says, 'can you do this?' - that's not to say you won't get any work if you just concentrate on one area - most freelance animators specialize in one area such as flash, 3d or after effects, but I personally get bored quickly and like to learn other things.

The other side of freelancing is you become very conscious of your time - always watching the clock. I can spend half the week working, and the other half learning stuff, so rather than just going through software tutorials and creating useless demos, I always make sure that when learning a new technique, I end up with a digital file (like a motion graphics sequence) that I can sell on one of the stock animation sites"

A bit about the transfer from classroom environment to working in the industry...

"I would say, in the animation industry, the hardest thing to get used to, after being in the classroom, is that usually you're following a brief made by a team of art directors/designers and that sometimes, it's hard to stick to that brief if you feel compelled to do things your own way - you have to get used to doing a lot of 'bread and butter' jobs as well as the really exciting jobs."

I really appreciate this, I guess it's one of those things you kind of guessed, but till someone points it out you don't really think about it. I think it helps me realise that my struggle for material could be solved by looking for a brief on the internet and just trying out planning it and maybe starting a snippet of it - just to get a taster of what to expect.

And a final piece of advice regarding working freelance/full time...

"If you're happy working hard, taking a few risks and doing new things then freelancing is for you, if you like strict routines and relative security then it's probably better to get a full time job."

So I was pretty overwhelmed with the response from Andy, there was so much info there and he sent a few extra links over that he hoped would be useful, one being Motiongrapher: 'Cream of the Crop', it's an amazing selection of 'Motion Graphics, Design, Animation, Film Making and Visual Effects'. 

Also http://freelanceswitch.com/, a website dedicated to and run by a community of freelancers, offering a helping hand, advice and a catalogue of freelancers, and people in need of freelancers - basically, a good place for freelancers to start!

Thank you Andy!!