Seems kinda obvious, but they are looking for animation skills! For entry level positions you need to be able to demonstrate a certain level of basic animation skill. Nobody expects you to be perfect but you also need to be economically viable for them to hire and know you can produce a professional level of animation. Communication skills are SUPER important because as an animator I take my brief from a director, I talk to camera, lighting & rigging crew about setting up shots, I speak with production crew about how long it might take me to do a shot. Stop motion is very much a team sport. It's about being professional, showing up on time, knowing how to get along with colleagues when you are sometimes under a lot of pressure while still having fun and a sense of humour.

A strong showreel is very important. To make it stand out you need to demonstrate solid foundations in a range of movements - walking, running, weight shifts, lip sync, comedy timing, expression changes etc

Keep your set up’s simple, you don't need elaborate sets because that's not what you are trying to demonstrate and it could be distracting. Plan your shots and practice them- don't just use the first thing you shot. Do a block, do a take, if you aren't happy with it then analyse what is going wrong. Get a friend or teacher to look at it with you to see where you could improve and just keep refining until you are happy with it.

Don't be pressured to make a film as your final submission for university, most places will allow you to submit a showreel instead. This isn’t a directing reel - you are trying to show off your animation skills to get a job. Sometimes the overall quality of a short film suffers as it's a lot of work for one person to be good at so many skills. It’s a good idea to collaborate and animate or puppet build or set build on many student short films. Pick a skill you want to demonstrate and do that really well.

Work on your skills, get good. Make a decent showreel for animation or portfolio for puppet/set building to show off your skills. Do lots of work experience and build up your network of connections. Be diligent in your work while doing work experience but the MOST important thing to do while there is to talk to people and make connections. Its true that the hardest part is to get your foot in the door, but once you’re in it becomes easier to get future jobs. I did my first stop motion work experience in uni and since then every set Ive walked on to I’ve known at least one person from a previous shoot. Stop motion is tiny so build a good reputation and word of mouth will help you get more work.

It depends on the shot! If you have one puppet within easy reach on a static shot its much faster than lots of puppets far away necessitating set climbing on a motion controlled shot. If youre sculpting mouth shapes then it takes much longer than if youre using replacement faces. Any kind of sculpting will slow down your animation. It also depends if its a feature or a TV series. On features you tend to aim for 1-2 seconds of animation a day on average. On high quality series its around 7 seconds a day. On series where you just need to churn out footage it can be as much as 15-20 seconds a day. its all a sliding scale of time vs quality.

The amount of creative input you get depends on the show, the studio & the director. Generally the bigger the thing you are working on, the less creative input you are gonna have. However I have worked on big films where the directors were super receptive to input and working out the shot is very much a conversation. In small studios it's more of a collaborative process because you’ll usually be working in multiple roles. I do enjoy giving my input but there is actually something very satisfying about really nailing a brief that you have been given - I see it as a challenge to work in a specific style.

How long is a piece of string? Its another time vs quality conundrum while also factoring the price of materials.

A wire armature is cheaper than a ball & socket armature because the materials are cheaper and its faster for us to make. The downside of wire is that it will eventually break (hasn’t happened to us yet but its a possibility) whereas ball & socket armatures can keep working indefinitely. We can help you to decide which would be more suitable for your project depending on how much animation you need to get out of it and the quality of that animation. Silicone is more expensive than latex because of the initial material cost and the additional processes to mould, cast & paint it. Depending on the look you’re going for silicone can look nicer as we can achieve a beautiful semi-translucent effect which better emulates skin than latex which is fully opaque. These are just two examples of why a puppet might cost more or less, there are many more considerations too. If you’d like to commission a puppet then please get in touch and we will be happy to talk through al the options with you. We will ask you some of the below questions to help us estimate cost & build time

What is your scale/how big does the puppet need to be? How many of them do you need? What is the performance it needs to achieve? Do you have an animatic? When do you need them by? Do you have artwork and is it signed off by the client? Do you want puppet maintenance on set or just puppet build?

We use a whole range of materials to make puppets including foam, rubber, silicone, wood, fabric, paint & fur. Every puppet will have some kind of armature which will usually be made of aluminium wire or a ball & socket construction. So long as you ensure the puppet can move correctly then there isn’t really a limit to the kinds of materials you can use on top of the armature.

When animating I’m usually manipulating plasticine faces while the puppet body will be made of other materials, sometimes made to look like plasticine – this means less work for me keeping it clean & in shape while I animate. Ive animated using needlefelt which can be used to sculpt the shape you want by jabbing it with the needle. Sometimes puppet faces will be made of a set of hard replacements which can be swapped out to change expression and these are made from a range of epoxy resins.