Meet the Speakers: How to Break Into the Animation Industry

For anybody out there that is trying to break into the animation industry right now, this one is for you. This Thursday, May 21 at 10 AM ET, we are sponsoring a live talk over on Manuel Alonso’s YouTube channel called How to Break Into the Animation Industry, and I am incredibly excited to actually give this one a little bit of a shout out.

The whole thing is live and unscripted. You can drop your questions in the chat and they actually get answered in real time. No pre baked Q and A, no script. Just two working pros having the kind of conversation most aspiring animators only get to overhear after a few years in the industry.

Why we are sponsoring this

I have been around for 20 plus years in this industry, and the one thing I will say is that the path from student to working animator is still way more random than it should be. There is no one place that you can really go to and get the actual answers, just a lot of recycled advice and a lot of generic videos that say roughly the same thing. That is basically the reason Animworks exists in the first place. We want to make that path less of a guessing game by curating real talent, looking for actual compatibility between artists and projects, and treating this whole thing like a community rather than a list.

Sponsoring a live talk like this is one of the most direct ways we can give back. There is no upsell, there is no webinar funnel. It is just two working professionals telling aspiring animators what they actually wish someone had told them. That is exactly the kind of thing we want our name attached to.

If that’s you, definitely block out the time.

Manuel Alonso, 3D Character Animator (Host)

Manuel is hosting this one on his own channel, and I think he is exactly the right person to steer the conversation. He is a 3D character animator with credits across Steamroller Animation, Puppetworks, and LambdaClass, and he has more recently joined DIGIC Pictures, where he is working on the upcoming animated Netflix series based on Magic: The Gathering.

He trained at Universidad ORT Uruguay and went through CG RIFF’s Facial Animation Bootcamp. His work leans really really hard into nuance, the weight, the timing, the small acting choices that make a character read as a person rather than a rig.

What makes Manuel the right host for this talk is that he is still close enough to the early part of his career to actually remember what nobody told him. That is incredibly valuable, because the further you get in, the easier it is to forget what you did not know on day one.

Instagram: @manuelalonso.anim LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/manuel-alonso-3danim

Alessandro Camporota, Senior Animator Manager

Alessandro is the other side of the table on this one, and his CV is the kind you definitely want in the room. 15 years of credits across games, VFX, feature film, and TV. He has worked at Sony Pictures Imageworks, Method Studios, Crytek, One Animation, Ubisoft, and he is currently at Riot Games as part of the Hong Kong and Singapore studio team. His on screen credits include Insectibles and The Oddbods Show, and during his time at Ubisoft Singapore he was actually leading animation work on the studio’s game projects.

What I love about Alessandro is that outside of all that studio work, he actually mentors. He runs sessions, he runs live talks, he makes time for animators trying to figure out their next step. He is basically the person you want answering the “is my reel good enough yet” question, because he has been the one sitting on the other side of the reel review for many many years.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alessandrocamporota YouTube: youtube.com/@acamporota

What you will actually walk away with

The talk is built around the questions aspiring animators ask the most. Expect real, working professional answers on:

The reel itself, and what it actually needs to get noticed today. How to land your first opportunity, and what a realistic first step actually looks like. The role networking and visibility play, and the parts of that conversation that get a little bit overstated. How to pick a direction early on without locking yourself in. And a clear read on what the current industry landscape actually looks like, including where studios are putting their headcount.

In a nutshell, a clear, honest, practical view of how to build a path in. No shortcuts, no false promises.

Tune in live

Thursday, May 21 at 10 AM ET on YouTube. Link down below. Make sure you bring your questions for the live chat, because that is the part most people skip and it is genuinely the best bit.

I hope you guys can make it. Fingers crossed for a packed chat.