JOCIE JURITZ

Q : Throughout my animation career I’ve found that there are some things I like animating more than others, for instance, I love animating morphs making something really fluid and fun, whereas I find realistic walk cycles less exciting as they’re so technical. I was interested to know what it is you like to animate and how that relates to your work?
 
A : I sometimes think that I prefer all the other bits of making an animation over actually animating. I like to be able to jump in and out of the different parts, designing, storyboarding, animating and even organising (I love a good spreadsheet). As in my day to day life, I need to keep trying different things or I get fidgety. That being said, I have a secret, and possibly very boring, passion for animating character turnarounds. I feel calm knowing that if I stick to measurements and think about perspective, I can get it right. There’s no option for measuring when it comes to animating emotion!

Q: Clients can vary from project to project, don’t feel like you need to name names, it would be great to get a sense of the difficulties that directors can face when interacting with clients. What’s one of the more frustrating things you’ve been asked by a client?
 
A : I once spent a month and a half animating a 30 second scene of a character crawling across a table. Every week, the client would change their mind about how the character should behave during the shot. I was hugely frustrated having to change it constantly, but I did learn a pretty useful lesson - plan the animation properly. If I don’t put enough effort and drama in at first, the scene will end up feeling limp and the client will recognise that and try to fix it.

Q : What’s something unexpected you’ve learned from making your own films? This may be something that you experienced in the making of your film or perhaps during the festival circuit.
 
A : That as a director you still need directing - I get friends to critique my animatics when I’m a little stuck, or when I feel too pleased with what I’ve done. Outsider perspective is so important. I can always look back on a film and see which bits were weaker and where you could have pushed it further, but in the middle of a project, it’s really hard to be as objective.
 
Also that clean-up takes as long, or longer than the actual animation.

Q : Everyone has low points on jobs, and I feel it’s important to turn those low points into something you can learn from and grow with. Have you learnt something from a low point on a job that changed the way you worked?
 
A : Until recently, every film I directed involved me spiralling into a stressed, burnt-out mess. I temporarily shared a very unfriendly co-working space above a library. After several days of near all-nighters, I tried to have a 5am nap in the office, but the only suitable sofa was in the restricted book section on the top floor. It was so creepy and creaky that I couldn’t sleep for fear of something emerging from behind the bookshelves. At that point I realised I had a very unhealthy work-life balance (and that libraries at night are terrifying). These days I hire freelancers wherever possible. Sometimes it’s hard to find the budget, but having other animators helping me completely changed the way that I work. I’ve even finished a few jobs early!

Q : Freelancers can get stuck in making the same mistakes from job to job, what advice would you give a freelancer working today?
 
A : It’s really useful to have moments of reflection before you start a project. I try to consider what I actually want to achieve with each piece of work, if it’s an opportunity to explore a new style, or improve my character animation. It might be a chance to up my composition, streamline my project organisation, or consider my colour palettes more carefully. This way I often find there’s even more I can gain from a job and I can keep consciously improving the things I struggle with.

TIP OF THE WEEK
Do you have a software tip that changed your world?
 
A : My wonderful friend Thea Glad pointed out to me last year, that in Photoshop you can open smart objects and edit the content inside them. I had never even thought of trying it and it was a bit of a miracle. My other suggestion would be to learn how to set up Actions and create shortcuts for things you find yourself repeating.