Career Advice

[Steve Roberts]

You might want to post this in the Broadcast design COW forum. 🙂 Many of these questions have been answered there or in the Business forum.

But anyway, I’ll try to give my opinion:

1. Jobs: all three. TV stations pay less, according to my sources. Freelance can pay more, but you have to pay for your own gear. You can make more if you approach direct clients, but you need to be a designer, not an operator doing what a designer tells you to do. It depends on how much autonomy/freedom/lack of security you want.

2. What do they look for? I’d say a killer reel that shows you can do what they want you to do (well), and a pleasant personality. Polish your presentation materials and style. They don’t want someone who seems careless, because it will show in the work. Education is only looked at if you’re looking for a teaching or in-house corporate position.

3. Specialization: I’d say that you should choose between motion graphics and visual effects. It’s hard to be excellent at both, in my opinion. Find out what your prospect (target) does, and make a reel that appeals to them and makes you appear useful to them. Have more material than you need so you can tweak reels to prospects. (ideally)

4. Not sure what you mean by “options”.

5. Minnesota: Yes, I have some clients out of the country. It can be done with an FTP server (try bulletproof and no-ip for the URL), but don’t underestimate the power of a face-to-face. To answer your question, I’d say “yes”, but work with direct clients usually require more face-to-face meetings.

6. Gear: You’ll need portable hard drives at some point for footage from clients. Lots of extra space for shuffling stuff around. Also, if you choose to work direct for clients, get a Windows box with AE as well. Business clients like WMV files for preview, and if you speak Windows, things will go a little bit more smoothly.

my 2 cents,
Steve

[Christian Remde]

Here’s my 2-cents…

1) Where are the jobs? It depends on what you want to do…major cities like New York or L.A. have quite a bit of work (L.A. more than NY) for motion graphics and VFX…Los Angeles also has a huge DVD menu market right now. If you’re looking to stay out of the big cities, then look in the secondary markets like Texas (Houston and Dallas) or Seattle. If you want to stay in Minnesota and work remotely, then you’ll need an amazing reel. Clients want to see that you can handle the job and bring some creativity to it. If they see a great looking reel, then meeting you doesn’t become as important…

I got into the motion graphics arena by going to work for a company that specialized in Wedding/Event videos that sometimes did a little corporate work…The jobs weren’t great, but it gave me a good knowledge base and gave me a chance to get comfortable with the equipment and the software while getting paid. It also allowed me to get a reel together that got me my next job at a place that pretty much only did corporate jobs…I was there for a while and added to my reel. That got me my next job and so on…

2) Equipment – If you’re going to freelance, you’ll probably need a faster machine. 90% of the freelance jobs I get are very time-sensitive and redering on a slow machine can kill you and possibly lose you a client. I don’t think you need to get a Windows box though…I bought discreet Cleaner to make WMV movies for clients who want to view them on a Windows machine and no one has ever complained. That $595 program is a lot cheaper than having to buy a whole new Windows box as well as a different version of AE and any filters that you use…

That’s about all I can offer…I guess what I’m saying is, start small…get a reel together and work your way up…start knocking on doors, meeting people. Even if a company doesn’t have a job opening, go in and talk to them. Make sure they remember you so that if something comes up, they’ll think of you…this industry is very chatty and a lot of jobs that I’ve got were through word of mouth.

Good Luck,

Christian Remde
https://www.christianremde.com

[Dario]

Great advice gentlemen. I’ll cut, paste and post in the other forums you recommended Steve.

Reading your responses is encouraging and helps me believe I can make a go of this. Until now I hadn’t recognized the distinction between motion graphics and vfx. It was kind of a ‘Doh!’ moment. Of course they’re not the same thing. Still, it seems that all the packages (AE, Combustion, Motion) can do some of both. I would imagine though that the majority of vfx work is done for film and then on a dedicated system at a company with equipment one can only dream of.

So it seems Motion Graphics is the route I’m on. I suppose I can add some simple vfx now and then depending on the job.

I do have the ability to export WMV files through Flip4Mac (I have Sorenson too) and I know Flash pretty well. I’ve put up some vids now and then on my site.

Once I’m past the initial learning and have a reel I’m sure I’ll need a G5 (or 2).

I wonder whether a miniDV cam is in order? I was looking at a 3CCD Panasonic GS400. However, how much video is used in motion graphics work?

Any ‘must have’ plug-in suggestions (I have AE 6.5Pro with all its plugs), plus:
most of the Trapcode plugs
Dissolve Factory
Composite Wizard
Image Lounge
Digital Film Lab 2

-Now I know where all my money went!