I started my career in 2012 after graduating from Animation Mentor. I landed a contract with Ragdoll Productions in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK – the creators of Teletubbies. I worked on the Adventures of Abney and Teal within the Animation Blocking and Animation teams, where storyboard concepts and layout was developed before bringing the characters to life. The stories grew very organically as all the creatives had the chance to bounce ideas around with their teams to build and improve story lines. 11 months with Ragdoll taught me a lot about studio life, and I found a real love for the brainstorming and the concept building stage.
Although I had always dreamed of working for a company like Pixar, I felt that a more independent career route would allow me maximum creativity freedom. Moving forward, working with smaller teams has afforded me the chance to do a lot of hands-on skill development, the opportunity to learn from creative directors, and the chance to focus on building my personal style. Currently with CSC Media Group in London, I pitch concepts, create characters and complete animations for our numerous kids, music, and movies channels.
The importance that Animation Mentor placed on the development of personality within every character has really helped my work shine in the small studio environment. I love utilizing all the skills Animation Mentor taught me during my involvement in the full evolution of a project. My current projects are extremely open-ended, and I’m thankful to have the flexibility and confidence to consistently try new approaches, from stop motion through to 3D. Two recent projects I’ve been particularly proud of are ‘Imagination Month’ and a countdown chart for our channel Scuzz. I created everything from scratch, picking up new techniques as I went, and it’s been rewarding to see them both played regularly on air.
Aside from my current 9-5, I am constantly working on self-initiated projects. I continue to find these projects very key for generating interesting freelance opportunities in the fields I am most interested in. As an aspiring Creative Director, I think it’s really important to do the work you want to be doing, so I continue fine tuning my strengths and learn new skills through personal projects. So far these have ranged from my recent competition entry for Pictoplasma which was just featured in their internal exhibition during the Berlin festival (which will now be displayed in Mexico city), to directing music videos like the one I’ve just finished for London musician Paul Orwell.
Social media obviously plays a large part in promotion these days and I’ve worked to stay very relevant in networks such as Behance. It’s a great outlet to gain inspiration and meet like-minded creatives, as well as presenting a great storefront for my work. My online presence helped me to be hand-picked by Adobe to compete in their recent ‘Creative Jam’ among the UK’s top creative talent in the first ever UK New Creative Meet-up. I know exposure like this will allow me to continue doing the work I want to, as my projects will only be getting bigger and better.
Thanks for reading and your time,
Joseph
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For more from Joseph, check out his website
Follow his work on Behance
