OUAN602 - Visiting Lecturerer: Bianca Ansems

On the day of the Extended Practice hand in and a week before the final PPP3 deadline we had a visiting lecturer, Bianca Ansems. Bianca is a storyboard artist and animation director, living in London, UK.

'She is a storyboard revisionist at Cartoon Network, and before that storyboarded a.o. the cutscenes for the game ‘Volume’ (Bithell Games), several episodes of ‘Toot the Tiny Tugboat’ (Lupus Films), an advert for Gucci, and several shorts for the British Council (Slurpy Studios). She also has worked as an animation director for clients such as the BBC, House of Fraser and the City of London. She studied at the National Film & Television School and AKV St.Joost (NL), with internships at Aardman Studios (UK) and Studio Lutterbeck (D). Her MA graduation film ‘Playing Ghost’ picked up several awards and screened at over 40 festivals including Hirshima AFF, Anima Mundi and Stuttgart AFF.'

As a visiting lecturer she was one of the favourite visiting speakers that I have seen, both for her honest first hand experiences of the industry but also the positive attitude she had towards freelancing and being a generalist within the industry. These are both things I think I do or am, and want to pursue. It was very motivating and in some forms reassuring to have her talk so openly and enthusiastically about the freelance side of the animation industry and being a storyboard artist that doesn't or has gone through stages of working completely freelance. She mentioned that through her freelance career she has only endured two weeks total without knowing where the next job was coming from. This sense of stability without being tied to a specific role was quite reassuring, and she spoke about her love for freelance and being able to manage her own work and time which is something I really want to be able to do myself. Furthermore, her freelance work is very general and after looking at her online portfolio it is quite evident that the breadth of her work is very general similar to my own. Her website contains animation, storyboarding, illustration and a few other roles she has adopted through her freelance career. She spoke at some length about clients and the way the communication usually goes. Most of the jobs Bianca said she gets come through e-mail, which is something to keep in mind. In addition, she said that it is best to be as professional and as polite as possible when working in this way, because if you don't word will get around regarding your attitude or the way you handle yourself professionally, in turn having a negative impact on your work and opportunities. Finally, she spoke about networking in terms I haven't really heard before in that it is more about forming friendships than handing out business cards.