Most gamey graduates are still seeking work in Britain

CAREER FOCUS/Animation: These days animators are looking to smaller companies and Dublin's digitalfuture. Olivia Kelly reports

The loss of Don Bluth's studios in the mid 1990s dealt a heavy blow to the animation industry in Ireland and for a time the prospects for graduates from the animation schools at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, Dublin, and the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology seemed grim. However new industry needs have lead to a renewed demand for animators who are willing to channel their skills into non-traditional areas, particularly the computer games industry.

Computer games have become increasingly sophisticated. Technological advances mean the characters and the games are capable of a lot more and so the animation needs to be of a higher quality, says Mark Byrne, head of the computer animation department at Ballyfermot College of Further Education.

"Years ago when it was in its infancy computer programmers used to do all the graphics for the games but in the last 10 years it's been taken over by professional animators," he says. "The industry wants feature-quality animation."

Animators in the games industry are still "artists who use a computers, not techno-heads", says Byrne, and everything still has to be done on paper before you use a computer. Computer animators and classical animators are both required by the games companies as storyboard artists, (creating a type of comic strip to illustrate the storyline) and designers or conceptual artists, who design the backgrounds, the characters and their traits.

The majority of graduates seeking work in computer games head to Britain, in fact many are headhunted by British companies while still in college. Ireland isn't a base for the games industry but Maureen Conway, principal at Ballyfermot College, hopes this will change in the near future. "We're hoping that the digital hub being developed around the Guinness Hopstore will make a big difference to getting these companies to locate here and hopefully more graduates will be able to work at home."

In the 1980s the IDA pumped a lot of money into attracting a big animation studio like Sullivan Bluth to the State. Since their departure there hasn't been the same amount of funding for animation. However some graduates have taken the initiative and set up their own small studios - such as the recent Oscar nominees, Brown Bag in Dublin and Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenny.

These smaller companies are generally flexible about the type of work they do and will go from creating short feature films to advertising to CD ROM animation and flash animation for internet sites or simple images for mobile phones. "A lot of small studio might do some 3D animation for a TV show one day and 2D animation for an advert the next," says Thelma Chambers, co-ordinator of the diploma in animation at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology.

Classical two-dimensional animation has lost some popularity to three-dimensional computer enhanced images, but, says Chambers, this could just be an infatuation with new technology. "About a year ago the 2D Frosties tiger reappeared as a 3D image and there was no reason for that except fashion."

Well-developed technical and creative skills are essential for a career in animation, says Chambers, and no matter what area of animation you choose to specialise in the the core skills remain the same. Animators need to able to draw the images on paper first, she says.

"Computers won't do the job for you - there aren't any quick and easy answers and it takes a lot of work to get something to move on screen. But most animators think it's worth it - they fall in love with making images move."

Many feature-length animations combine classical animation with computer animation. Probably the first of these was Disney's Beauty and the Beast in 1993, a classical animation that used computer technology in to enhance the ballroom scene. Animators also find work in ordinary feature films, working on the special effects or even designing story boards for film-makers.