Glenn Barnes, Creative Director for Big Sandwich Games
Working in an environment that is the crossroads of technical innovation and artistic exploration, with a team of intelligent and creative people is definitely the best aspect. On the downside, it's a lot of hard work... but in the end, that's part what makes it so rewarding, to deliver a top-notch product.
Sean Hall, Animation Director for CRASH+SUES
Time restraints are the worst since the perception seems to be, in the commercial world at least, that computers make everything quick and easy to do. That may be more and more true, but some parts of animation will always take time.
The best part is that you get to make something from nothing. You can take something that only exists in your head, and given time, make something totally new, and bring it to life. It can be very satisfying.
John Ryan, Animation Director and Founder of DAGNABIT!
Best aspect: the creative challenges of bringing a successful vision to the screen.
Worst aspect: the feast or famine nature of the beast.
Mark DiGiacomo, Founder of Digital Elixir Studios
Finding clients who understand the complexity and cost involved with producing animation that sells their products and/or actually has an impact in the market place due to quality and creative approach.
Peter Adamakos, Founder of Disada Productions
Animation is pure creativity: A blank piece of paper (or screen) becomes a brand new world with motion, color, sound and characters.
Worst aspect? Nothing about animation itself-- Just the attitude of some people in it today.
Jon Gallo, VP and Director of Motion Design at DraftFCB
The best aspect is seeing something come to life through motion. Every individual frame within a complete piece of animation can and should ideally exist as a work of art. When a series of these works are sequenced together the resulting visual story, be it narrative or abstract, has the potential to affect an audience more powerfully than it's individual components. In the art of animation, the whole is more than the sum of it's parts.
The worst aspect... waiting for renders.
Link Starbureiy, Creator of Egglepple
Animation is completely non-linear, so the fact that one can literally create anything they want is the best part of the job. The only drawback, in my opinion, is the amount of time it takes to render. The natural course of computing will lend itself to faster processors and real-time rasterization, which is pretty neat.
GrissyG and Dismas, Founders of GrisDismation
The best aspect of working in the Animation field is the complete ability and boundless freedom of expression in one of its purest forms. Although, there is the aspect some would consider worst or what we like to consider, the understanding that not everything happens over night. It may happen over long nights but not always over night. It is the long hours that an Artist has to put into an Animation to make it happen. That agonizing excitement of wanting to see your project complete but knowing there’s a long journey ahead of us. It’s the idea of seeing and knowing the end goal in your mind but having to endure the wonderful process and time to finally see your totally worth it end result.
Mark Cappello, Founder of Invisible Entertainment
I think the best aspects are those intangibles that can drive a passionate artist to be consumed in the art and the process of creating and visualizing great stories. Unfortunately it’s this very trait that allows us to be taken advantage of quite easily, and I guess that’s the worst aspect. It’s a difficult industry where I find myself in it after 15 years because of sheer passion and desire as opposed to a great steady salary and retirement plan. Too often I’ve seen great talents snuffed out by the cruel economic realities and the frustration of an artist having to bend to what is truly a commercialized industry.
Kevin Webster, Founder of Maximilian Zillion Animation
Best - Creating worlds and atmospheres that are wholly and uniquely autonomous.
Worst - Mind-bendingly anal-retentive. But it can be very zen.
Brad Graeber, Co-Founder of Powerhouse Animation
Animation is hard work. Many younger professionals and students don’t realize this until they get into a pipeline with real deadlines. Sitting down and creating images at 24ths ofa second can be a daunting task, but done properly it has the greatest reward ofanything I have ever participated in. Seeing all of the hard work the team put into a project on television or in a game; watching an idea literally come to life from nothing is quite magical.
Nadine Zylstra, Sesame Workshop
The best is that anything is possible- one moment you’re in the air and the next under the sea. You’re only restricted by the ideas you can dream up. In the past, the biggest challenge was that creating animation was time intensive but with all the incredible software available today, that’s hardly a limitation anymore.