Jamie Floodgate Lead Animator at Blue Zoo

Jamie Floodgate

Many congratulations to Escapee Jamie Floodgate, who has recently been promoted to Lead Animator at the London animation studio Blue Zoo.

Jamie applied to Blue Zoo on the strength of his animation demo reel which he put together after taking our 12 week animation course at Escape Studios.

Jamie wasn't initially successful applying to Blue Zoo. Undaunted, he continued to polish his animation skills, working on an entry to the 11 Second Club monthly competition.  The second time around, everything fell into place.

Jamie Floodgate Animation

Persistence Pays
Jamie wasn't initially successful applying to Blue Zoo, and at first he was turned down.  Undaunted, he continued to polish his animation skills, working on an entry to the 11 Second Club monthly competition.  The second time around, everything fell into place.

In Jamie's own words:
"Maybe this could be some motivation to pass on to your students; Blue Zoo told me why they’d rejected my [initial] internship application and then, shortly afterwards, they brought me in for an interview - for a position as a junior animator. What made the difference? It was my latest 11 Second Club acting shot. They told me that when they saw that - they could see that I was ready."



LinkedIn
Jamie also used the power of LinkedIn to build connections with the animation industry, host a link to his demo reel, and make it clear to recruiters that he was available for work.

To see more on why animators should be on LinkedIn, read this blog post.

Rejection is normal
Jamie's story reminds me of working at Disney in the 1990s. The old hands would say that newbie animators who applied to Disney for the first time would always get rejected, no matter how talented they were.  The reasoning behind this apparently cruel approach was that they wanted to weed out the candidates who lacked the grit and determination to apply a second time, and even a third. 

To see why animators should not be put off by rejection, read this post on why animators should be the rhino.

Escapees at Blue Zoo
Jamie Floodgate joins the many other Escapees who have started their careers at Blue Zoo. These include:

• Titi-Marion Giusca - Animator at Blue Zoo
• Sasha Fusini storyboard artist at Blue Zoo
• Maciej Osuch - Animator at Blue Zoo
• Callum Wylie - Intern at Blue Zoo
• Daniel Lötter, animator at Blue Zoo 
• Tim Jones, Junior Animator at Blue Zoo
• Fred O'Rourke, storyboard artist at Blue Zoo
• Marc Godfrey, animator at Blue Zoo

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2023,  follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.