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Games and Animation Apprenticeships: All you need to know

October 13, 2020 animation jobs

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By careermap.co.uk

Games and animation Apprenticeships are an excellent platform to kick-start your career while earning and learning and creating a strong foundation for you to build a career within the games and animation industry.

What do games and animation Apprenticeships involve?

Games and animation Apprenticeships combine classroom based learning with on the job training enabling you to obtain industry specific qualifications, highly sought skills and credible experience all whilst getting paid. Game and animation Apprenticeships are an excellent alternative to university where you’ll get the learning and development opportunities and work experience to launch a long and fulfilling career. There are a wide range of roles within the games and animation industry. Let’s look at what you could be doing:

Game Designer – Game designers come up with innovative game ideas. You’ll develop the rules of a game, setting and characters, story, props, vehicles and weapons and how the game can be played. During your Apprenticeship you’ll be working alongside game designers, programmers, artists, producers, animators and audio engineers to ensure the game developed is a major hit in the games market.

Animation – Animators create a sequence of images and drawings and make them come to life to produce a computer game using a range of software.

Games Tester – As a games tester you’ll work as a team to test the game that has been put in front of you. This will involve testing various levels and versions of the game, finding any faults and comparing games with other games available on the market. You will also proofread instructions and packaging to ensure no spelling or punctuality mistakes have been made whilst also ensuring copyright standards meet regulations.

Games and animation apprenticeships

Apprenticeship Standards

Apprenticeships frameworks are currently being changed. By 2020 all frameworks will be replaced with standards which focus on both the apprentice and employers needs. Currently approved for delivery are the following standards:

Junior 2D Artist (Visual Effects) – Level 4

Software Development Technician – Level 3

Assistant Technical Director (Visual Effects) – Level 4

Still undergoing developments and not yet ready for delivery are the following:

Video Games Quality Assurance Technician – Level 4

Animator – Level 7

Skills needed for games and animation Apprenticeships

Games and animation Apprenticeships will equip you with a range of essential skills to succeed within the industry. You’ll learn technical skills and understand how to use software while building your knowledge of graphic notion, colour theory, time and space, originality and the ability to use analytical skills and close attention to detail.

Stanislavski 7 Questions for Actors & an Animator

October 9, 2020 animation jobs

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Stanislavski 7 Questions

Stanislavski 7 Questions have stood the test of time in bringing an animation character to the big screen. Recently one of my animator students have been preparing for this month’s 11 Second Club Competition. This month’s line of dialogue is very short, just a woman’s voice saying “what’s happening?”. 

The rest of the eleven second clip is made up of sound effects – the spooky sound of a siren wailing and distant rain.

All this makes for a very open brief – the scene could be about almost anything, and this permits a great deal of flexibility and creativity.

An open brief can be a good thing – it allows for plenty of invention, but it also presents a challenge – what is the scene really about?  And how do we interpret it?


Start with Your Character – Who Is It?One solution to this problem is to think about character – who is this person, and what do they want? Animators are actors, which means that we must think hard about our characters wants and desires.

Stanislavski 7 Questions
The great Russian actor Constantin Stanislavski suggested that an actor to should ask seven questions to understand the nature of a character.  Stanislavski is considered the father of the “Stanislavski System”, which heavily influenced “The Method”, the acting system whereby an actor immerses themselves into the character in order to create a truly believable and convincing performance.  Stanislavski suggests that there are seven questions that an actor (or animator) should ask themselves to understand who their character truly is:

  • Who am I? Start with the basics and then fill in the gaps with your imagination
  • Where am I?
  • What time is it? 
  • What do I want? 
  • Why do I want it?
  • How will I get what I want? 
  • What must I overcome to get what I want?

School Run by Lee Caller

Who am I? Where am I? And what do I want?For practical purposes, we can boil this down to three essential questions: Who am I? Where am I? And what do I want? Answer these three questions and you are well on your way to creating a scene that is meaningful and interesting. Remember this basic point: if you don’t know what your scene is about – your audience won’t either.
Victoria Bailey 11 Second Club Below is Animation Apprentice Victoria Bailey’s take on a past 11 Second Club entry. 
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