How to get an Animation job?

Question

Do you think an animator should focus on his:
(1) Technical skills (if he CAN'T do Flash) as an "artist" of drawing the human form, or
(2) His ability to contribute good sense of timing or action in telling a story in group meetings like brainstorming?
What are they looking for? (Remember: No Flash!)

Answer 1

Rhubix answer was quite exhaustive and I hope it'll help you define what you want to do exactly. Furthermore, there are many types of animators out there in different industries that require different sets of skills.
Personally, I will ALWAYS prefer an animator that knows his basic principles over anyone else. If (s)he can make show me a character (animal or whatever) he animated convincingly on any medium, then that's what counts. The rest is just technical and tools which any monkey can learn to use. Not necessarly the other way around.
So in parallel to your answer, a bit of both;
1) Drawing the human form or at the very least know what an action line is, flow of silouhette, etc. Artistic sense is paramount.
2) good sense of timing on the action level is also extremely important. For narative, scene timing is important as well. Brainstorming and inspiration should be the first characteristic of anyone wanting to go in a creative job.

There's no clear cut answer to your question, sorry.

Answer 2

If you want to be an animator specifically there are still places that draw on paper and photocopy onto cell. Really good drawing skills, being able to stay on model, understanding movement and secondary action are all really important to an classical animator.
Aside from literaly animating there are other jobs in the animarion industry.
Clean up and inbetweening- filling in the drawings between the animator's key drawings. Again the above is important, - aside from staying on model though the inbetweener is expected to match the line quality of the animator and be able to do very very clean drawings.
Story board artists - good drawing skills as well as creativity with camera angles, understanding the limitations of the camera movements, keeping everything consistant (not having characters jump from place to place in the room) are all important.
Layout- good drawing skills, excelent perspective skills, understanding field guides, camera movements, proper lableing. creating solid clean drawings, and knowing how to seperate things into layers.
Flash is certainly an asset now-adays but not absolutly essencial. if you can learn it do, but in that absense excelent drawing skills are really the most important thing.
Animators don't determine anything to do with the story - Story board artist determine the compositions and most of the relative poses for the characters. The animator takes thoes poses and gives them life.
so... as long winded as that was to sum up- 1 is way more important then 2

Answer 3

Create Your Own Animations - http://3dAnimationCartoons.com/?xmfh

Answer 4

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Answer 5

since animation uses your hands, would it be like a hand job???