Irish animation teams and companies have been attracting international attention for their work of late, and this week’s career memes take a cheeky look at their profession.
Brown Bag Films’ Give Up Yer Aul Sins and Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty received Oscar nominations for best animated shorts, and Cartoon Saloon’s The Secret of Kells had been up for the feature animation Oscar in recent years.
In the past couple of weeks, a short Irish animation titled CODA won a prize for Best Animated Short Film at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
Animators create images that appear to come to life in ads, films, videos, games and websites. They do this by using software, models, drawings/illustrations, and/or objects made of clay or other materials, and then capture images in stages of movement so when viewers watch those images at speed, they appear to move.
Animators can work for animation studios, on contract or on a part-time basis during usual office hours, though overtime may be required in order to meet deadlines.
Good animators tend to possess excellent artistic skills, creativity, patience and good IT skills, in order to work with software. They may also have a degree or diploma in multimedia, film and/or animation.
In Ireland, starting salaries for animation graduates are about €25,000 per year, according to FÁS.
