CV Workshop

As part of PPP, I decided to attend a CV workshop to learn more of the different CVs required and how I would go about adapting or creating my own for different jobs. As I only have the standard CV, I wouldn't have had much clue about making a creative one without going to this workshop!

Here are my notes about the different CVs.

STANDARD CV - For part-time jobs/vacation jobs

• Contact details
• Education & qualifications
• Work experience, embed your skills into the text
• Interests
• Referees (2) Tutor & employer

SKILL BASED CV 

• Personal details
• Optional personal statement (few sentences)
• Brief outline of education
• Brief outline of work experience (in this case go over what you've done)
• Expansion of skills (talk about skills needed for the role and where you had gained these from)
• Brief outline of interests/activities
• Referees

ARTISTS CV

• Clear font that can be easily photocopied
• Contact details
• Website and blog
• Education from first degree onwards
• Awards you have won or been shortlisted
• Solo or group exhibitions including your exhibition name/gallery location
• Competitions/live briefs
• Residencies
• Commissions (show the outcome)
• Publications (outline where people have written about you)

CREATIVE CV EXAMPLES

Here are some examples I found online of creative CVs and this showed me that they are very different in comparison to a standard CV, I feel the most important thing here is showing off your creativity and showing what you look like before they even get to meet you!

I really benefited from going to this workshop as I learnt the different types of CVs as well as what employers look for and what you can do to make sure yours doesn't just go straight in the bin. My next steps are to create my own creative CV so that when I leave university I will have one ready that I will have worked on and planned out properly with the right guidance.

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.