Shots | Shifting Animation’s Creative Focus

Shots caught up with Ruben Vandebroek, Head of 3D at The Mill, New York to gain some insights on how animation is adapting and what The Mill is focusing on as animation becomes more and more advanced. Answering these questions from quarantine, Ruben speaks about how to stay focused, sharp, and keep your animators happy while working from home.

We know it’s the question on everyone’s minds, so we’re going to get it out of the way first – How do you feel COVID-19 going to change the animation industry?

Many things are already changing, but change isn’t always bad and I definitely think we can implement some positive learnings from this. First, more clients are asking about different solutions, ranging from re-using live-action footage to augmenting stock footage, and matte paintings to fully animated CGI content.

A second obvious change is that we are all working from home. We are connected remotely to our machines in the office, giving every artist exactly the same functionality and access to all our software and proprietary tools. We communicate mostly through webcam, group chat and discussion boards. I hope some of this workflow will stick around after COVID-19 and we can implement some of these elements into our regular workflow.

Read the full article on Shots here.