Maria Robertson Reports From The Mill

The Mill

Third year undergraduate animator Maria Robertson has recently completed a summer internship animating at London VFX and animation powerhouse The Mill.

Maria interned at the Mill for 12 weeks over the summer, working on live client briefs and honing her skills as an animator.

 We asked her a few questions about her work, what the experience was like, and what advice she might offer students looking for summer internships.

Maria Robertson

Escape: How was your experience at the Mill?
Maria: Interning at The Mill was an incredible opportunity. Not only was I able to contribute to actual projects in production, but also listen in on meetings and watch how directors, producers and project leads would review work across the different departments.

Additionally the working environment there is very welcoming and invigorating, with lots of internal events to meet with the other employees and discuss the work being done across The Mill’s studios worldwide, as well as in the industry in general.

Escape: What projects did you work on?
Maria: I worked on mainly one project, a music video which is set to be completed around October. I was able to join early on, and watch the different aspects of production develop into its final stages, just before leaving in September.

Escape. What were the challenges involved?
Maria: Some of the challenges included helping to determine the style of movement for the characters. It involved doing various animation tests, using different approaches with varying degrees of extremity to help the directors figure out what they liked best.

I also found myself researching and experimenting with different workflows to help deal with the heavy assets and data, in order to get the work done more efficiently.

Escape: What did you wish you'd know before you started?
Maria:  I wish I had known to be more open to help earlier on. Initially I was more hesitant to ask as I wanted to limit the number of times I disrupted people, especially for minor issues.

I believe it’s important to try and investigate issues on your own, instead of immediately asking for help. I often found you can find solutions and clues online, and even find alternative methods and tricks on the way that can turn out useful later on. And when it's taking longer than expected, you can then look to others for help.

But when working in a large team, you’ve got to keep in mind whether any errors you see could or are potentially affecting other aspects of production, even if they initially seem minor. Reporting them as soon as possible helps to avoid complications down the line.

Escape: What advice would you offer undergraduate students looking for an internship?
Maria: It really helps to get out there and meet people in the industry in person. Events such as Escape’s Evening With events and Showcases have been immensely helpful in getting to know and talk with people one-on-one, get advice or just talk about the craft.

It’s also super useful to have different demo reels ready for the variety of companies out there, so you can show something at a moment’s notice. Especially if you don’t have a specific area you want to specialise in yet, like me. Hence I have a reel prepared for Games, VFX, Feature Animation, and an overall general animation reel.

Additionally I found it very important to have your reels on you at all times, prepared for different scenarios both online and offline. If someone asks to see your reel spontaneously, you can just quickly pull out your phone in no time, which is what happened at the Escape Showcase this year.

I store my reels and CV on a spare USB, and on the online “Vimeo” and offline “Documents” apps on my phone, which has come in handy many times. I’ve had the internet stop working, apps crash on the day of the interview, reviews suddenly moved to rooms with no computer, but luckily I had a back-up for each one so far. So come prepared!

Maria's work
To see some of Maria's excellent animation, watch her demo reel below. Note how clearly Maria sets out her contact details at the start - email address and phone number are clearly stated, making her easy to contact.  Also note how Maria has used AfterEffects to embed the reference elements, such as live action footage, into her shots.  She has created a kind of animation "progress reel", showing how she got to the finish line with her scenes. This is very useful information for any animation supervisor making hiring decisions - because it shows clearly how she gets her results.

Maria Robertson - Spring 2018 Demo Reel from Maria Robertson on Vimeo.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link.  To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here.  For the next 12 week animation course, click here. And to apply for the next evening class in Producing Animation, see this page.