Eddie Mead is one of my talented animators I got the chance to interview. He has animated one shot so far because his schedule is busy. Newly hired by SpindleHorse, Eddie still takes a shot here or there from this project to work on in his down time and I greatly appreciate him for it.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EDMeadArt
A Free Lancer who has been working on gigs here and there since 2018. After having graduated he could not land much of anything and while it was discouraging he kept applying on Linked In, Glass door, and Twitter to any project he could find. He had worked on tiny things, but his first Gig was actually landing it with Not Dead Yet Productions on this animation. A few months later he was then taken on SpindleHorse to work on The Helluva Boss series as a clean up artist. While it was amazing for him to get on SpindleHorse, he had been rejected two times before. Having applied as a storyboard artist, and an animator. Finally he had been accepted as their cleanup artist. Eddie mentioned that while in art school he had time to find himself. He had entered the school with the intention to ONLY be a storyboard artist. But over the course of the school he learned the art of animation, post-production(which he seems to have a real interest in now), and directing. He found that with this wide range of knowledge it was a better chance to give him better opportunities for jobs. I asked Eddie how he had found Not Dead Yet Productions, as he casually mentioned that one of my animators Gilly had retweeted one of the products we were working on. Eddie has seen this and researching our twitter page he submitted his demoreel. Where he told his friend Kimmie about us, as Kimmie joined the team as well. When asked about his preference on Indie Projects and Industies Eddie responded with the following.
"I would rather work for less on Indie projects than to work in the industry where too often I see projects that just do not seem to have fun. "
His school had told him that if you did not make it in the Industry you had not chance, and he never believed it once. Eddie believes that times have changed and with the internet now as well as the pandemic you can find so many animation projects coming into the light.
He had brought up an interesting point that after school him and his buddies made the 'Buddy Pact' that they work on an animated short when they have free time. Just so they can always hone their skills. Many of the buddies have moved onto getting into the industry, but from time to time they work on the buddy project.
I found it to be a smart way to constantly be working on something you can show off.
A couple pieces of advice Eddie had for those reading are these:
*If you are not getting a Gig, open up mini animation Commissions. A couple seconds for $100. SOMEONE will pay that much for their character to move.
*Keep Applying everywhere.
*And If you want to learn more about animating you need to find the time when you can apply it and then go for it.