Study Task 3 - Animation Studio Research - Laika

So, my chosen studio for this task was Laika! I really enjoyed learning about how Laika have developed as a studio and the history behind them as I had no idea about them being the sucessor to Will Vinton Studios and the ways that they have developed use of 3D printing for their animations. I feel that even after finding out the history I still would love to work for them someday.

The main point to this presentation I felt was to try and start to get connections with the studios that most interest you so that it doesn't seem so daunting when leaving university. The main way that I got in contact with people form Laika was either finding them on twitter/personal websites and finding their personal emails from there. This way I was able to get straight to them into their personal email inbox. I sent out quite a lot of emails to different people and I was quite surprised to get an email from three separate people who all had their own different experiences with Laika.

The first person to get back to me was a past intern Caitlin Low. Her showreel is below and she gave me lots of tips on how to get a good showreel and be noticed by big industry studios such as Laika. I found it really useful to talk to someone who was only a few years ahead of me and understand the kind of standard my own show reel will have to be up to! She also left a link of her blog about the time she spent at Laika: http://morestopmotionplease.tumblr.com/post/129057520389/what-i-learned-as-an-intern-at-laika

Caitlin Low Stop Motion Demo Reel 2015 from Caitlin Low on Vimeo.


The other person I got to speak to was Hasani Walker, an actualy employee at Laika and talking to these kinds of people really helped me get an insight in the processes and things you have to do if you want to get somewhere. Hasani also spoke about talking to people who were in charge of recruitment and making the effort to go to lots of conventions and actually meet these people in person.








For the actual presentation I felt it went quite well, I tried to be prepared as possible with presenters notes and queue cards, however I'm still getting used to speaking in front of an audience. I did get my queue cards a little in the word order which made me stumble at some points, although I did practice quite a few times so I was able to remember what different facts came next. I really liked this task, especially reaching out to industry professionals and I am still currently waiting on a second reply from an actual Laika animator! This studio research has helped me feel a little more motivated about getting someday to work at a big studio even if others feel it's too far fetched.