Visiting Practitioner: Fraser Maclean

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of watching Fraser Maclean present his experiences in the industry, and it is easily the most fascinating talk I've sat through this year. He spoke with such passion and enthusiasm for animation, that I could have easily sat there for hours and listened to what he had to say. 

Though I don't remember much about his talk - other than the work he produced for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and his book Setting the Scene that goes into great detail about staging in animation - it's his stories and struggles with the animation industry that really stuck with me. 

Setting The Scene by Fraser Maclean

He spoke how he had originally been studying Fine Art and Graphic Design, and showed us his early life drawing work that had been looked down upon by different companies and institutes. It was reassuring to know that he too hand struggled with knowing what he wanted to do, and that he had overcome rejection to eventually land jobs in the animation field. Even more assuring that when he had managed to secure a job to produce inbetweens (I can't remember for what film), he didn't even know what that entailed, or how he was going to do that. He had placed the blank frame paper physically inbetween two other keys rather than on top, and had to keep flicking back and forth to try and work out the pose. This resulted in the producer standing over him and asking "What the f- are you doing?", but it goes to show that if you are passionate about what you do, and are persistent and willing to learn, then you are rewarded. 

This seems to be the key, and something that I am definitely going to have to get across myself when it comes to applying for jobs. He told us how Richard Williams first got his job at Disney; He had traveled for 5 days/nights to the other side of the USA, and walked around the studios with his portfolio until security found him, and he asked for a job. Now I'm not saying I aimlessly wonder around studios and physically get my foot in the door, but it's clear that passion and persistence is favoured; you've got to PROVE that you want to work.