JAMES TAYLOR of Arcus Studios - [Artist Talk]

Today, we had the delight of James Taylor coming in to give a talk to our course about his work and the work of his studio. James is the Creative Director of Arcus animation studio, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They have worked on a number of animations, both personal and commercial, for clients such as BBC Bitesize.

Some notes I've taken away from the talk:

• James used the help of DigitalCity at Northumbria university to help pitch and set up Arcus as a new business.

• In its early days, Arcus produced small animations to solidify working together as a studio, a short film, and they entered into a competition for E4 EStings, which they won.

• James mentioned that although it's necessary to work on commercial projects and adverts that might not make you as satsfied as if you were animating something more personal or story-driven, there is always something you can get out of every job. This could be learning a new skill or something like refining a specific shot within the animation to use in a showreel for promotional purposes. It is up to you to decide how you can use the projects to promote and improve yourself.

• He discussed that it is always good to have a plan going into projects. No matter whether you're unsure of how long something will take or if the schedule changes, you should still make a plan, as you can always adjust it as you go along.

• In the screenshots below, you can see the general software pipeline that Arcus uses. James mentioned that Toon Boom Harmony has boomed recently so the studio has been using that a lot more, especially since character rigging is better in Harmony than it is in Adobe After Effects.

• Tips for personal/professional growth:

  • It is important that we can learn to take (genuine) criticism well as artists sometimes can't see their own flaws and critiques/feedback genuinely improve the work being produced.

  • Take online courses that will help you to learn software or develop your skills in specific areas.

  • Engage with people online (e.g. Twitter/Instagram) and make a presence for yourself and your work online.

  • Sketch daily—this will help you get better at fluid and confident drawings and encourage you to draw more quickly, which is a skill needed to work in animation.

  • Take every chance to seek out experiences that will inform your work and help you to build up mental notes about things, e.g., cool outfits, interesting environments.

• Portfolio—demonstarte that you are adaptable and can bend your work to fit different styles as this shows versatility. Show evidence that you have a good understanding of the principles and that your work has good flow to it.

• Experience—it is good to know if people have worked in a studio before so that employers can see they have studio experience, but generally most will look at the portfolio first and foremost to see if you can demostrate the skills they are looking for. Having specific grades or a degree in animation isn't a make-or-break factor, though it does show that you have exposure to working in animation already.

Overall, I thought James' talk was very insightful and the tips/advice he gave us during the talk will be very useful for helping to promote myself and give myself a headstart in what the studios in the industry will be looking for. I was happy to hear that the studio uses Storyboard Pro and Harmony for their work more now. Although I only just started learning these programs for my recent university project, it is good to know that the skills I have learned and will continue to learn in these programs will be beneficial when looking for work at places like Arcus.

You can see below some screenshots of slides from his talk with very helpful tidbits:

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