In the first part of this series, our Art Director, Jen, shared some of the key attributes she looks for when hiring freelance artists. But what about when it comes to hiring for our core team?

Certainly, as with freelance, artistic talent is important. But it’s just one of many factors I consider when deciding whether to add someone to our little family of full-time employees. Because frankly, I’m proud of the culture we’ve created here, and I want to protect it fiercely by finding people who aren’t just the right fit artistically, but culturally.

When evaluating a candidate, I try to figure out if they are extrinsically or intrinsitically motivated. If someone is extrisically motivated, they find reward in things like money, status, rewards, or the notion of winning in a competitive environment. Intrinsically motivated people tend to find enjoyment, purpose, growth, curiosity and self-expression to be the bigger reward. And when I think about the kind of person I want to be around eight hours a day, that’s almost always an instrinsically motivated person because they tend to be more fun, more engaged and more creative. Plus (added bonus to me as a studio owner!) they tend to produce better work because they find deeper meaning in the work itself.

And that brings me to the second attribute I’m looking for: The desire to use one’s talents for good. If you look at the kind of work we tend to do here at Planet Nutshell, we primarily work with clients in education, nonprofits, and healthcare–fields dedicated to helping others. And I want my core team to buy into the idea that we are doing more than simply producing animations. We’re helping our clients further their mission to make a difference.

Someone with intrinsic motivation and an empathetic, interpersonally-minded worldview tends to come by my third desired attribute pretty naturally: emotional intelligence. When you are a student of human emotion and interdependence, I feel confident you will fit in with our existing full-time team of creative, sensitive and thoughtful people.

Okay, so by now, you’re probably wondering, “But what about the practical things?”

Yes, hard skills are important. Without proper training in animation, illustration, storyboarding, and storytelling, you probably won’t make it to the interview stage. But having those hard skills and knowing how to use them to solve problems is an entirely different matter.

Problem solving requires a special mix of hard and soft skills, someone who doesn’t view themselves or their abilities through too narrow of a lens. This is why we generally don’t hire specialists to come onto our core staff (though we do hire them as freelancers when needed). Instead, we aim for generalists–those talented and curious problem solvers who don’t care about their defined role. They just want to use their skills to contribute to a team that’s creating something much bigger than themselves.

We’re thrilled to announce the newest member of the team. Songyi Park is an incredibly talented illustrator, 3D artist, and motion graphics designer who joins us after completing her Master of Arts in Motion Media Design from Savannah College of Art and Design. A native of South Korea, Songyi received her BFA in Motion Arts Design from Namseoul University in Cheonan.

Her team project, “Bestival Show Opening” received the Adobe Design Achievement Award in 2019 for Top Talent in Motion Graphics and Animation.

Songyi loves exploring the coffee shops of Savannah to discover the perfect brew. At home, when she’s not drawing and animating, she loves to prepare Korean cuisine.

Learn more about Songyi at motionsong.com.

In honor of Black History Month, the Planet Nutshell team is paying homage to some of the Black artists who have inspired our own work.

Kicking it off is Songyi Park, with a portrait of the incredible Jean-Michel Basquiat. Before turning his attention to painting, Basquiat got his start as a graffiti artist in the 1970s. His work caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who became a friend, and at 22, Basquiat was the youngest artist to ever exhibit at New York’s Whitney Bienniel. See his paintings for yourself at basquiat.com.

This is a portrait of director Peter Ramsey, created by PN’s resident film buff Jen Sanchez. While Ramsey is best known for directing Rise of the Guardians and Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse, he actually got his start as a storyboard artist on films like Fight Club, Minority Report and Independence Day. To learn more about him, visit Sony Pictures Animation.

For her portrait, Mollie Davis chose artist and innovator Kara Walker. Walker is most known for her investigations of race, gender, sexuality and violence through the use of room room-sized, black-paper silhouettes. She is one of the youngest-ever winners of the MacArthur Genius grant, and her name even appears in a Le Tigre song. For more info on Kara, check out karawalkerstudio.com.

We have a small staff here at Planet Nutshell, with a core, full-time team of just four: Josh is our Creative Director, Jen is our Art Director, Mollie is our Senior Animator and Sam is our Producer. But though we are small, we are mighty, and manage to get a lot of work done. However, there are times when project deadlines overlap, and we need to call in some trusted back-up.

Luckily, over the years, we’ve developed great working relationships with talented freelance artists all over the world. Writers, designers, 2D & 3D animators, voiceover artists, sound designers, musicians, translators… you name it. Whatever the project, we have someone we trust that we can call on. 

And we are always on the lookout for new freelancers, too, with unique skills and talents that can compliment or serve as an extension of our own. We all spend a lot of time on Dribble, watching animation reels and reaching out to inspiring artists. 

We know how helpful a freelance roster is… and how intimidating it can be to develop. You always want your clients to experience studio quality-work, even if that work is being completed by non-studio staff. So we asked Jen (our art director who directly oversees our freelancers) to describe their top attributes when it comes to some of the more common types of freelance artists we employ as an animation studio.

1. Design Freelancers

When it comes to design, there are two key attributes we look for: versatility and experience with animation-friendly designs. When we find a designer who is versatile, we can use them on a wider range of projects, and when they know how to make their designs animation-ready (aka full designs, layers and all clearly labeled), we know we’ll be able to run with whatever they send along and meet whatever deadline we are up against.

2. Character Animators

At PN, we are passionate about using characters to tell stories and making those characters as true-to-life as possible. So when looking for character animators, we put a lot of weight on their ability to execute believable movements. We also look at animation style. The majority of our projects are 2D, but an ideal freelancer has more than one style in their repertoire (puppeted, hand-drawn, 3D, etc), so we can offer a wider range of services and styles to our clients.

3. Mograph

With motion graphics, it’s all about timing/easing skills, and artists’ ability to convey different kinds of momentum and energy through their animations. Though, of course, we never discount technical ability and complexity. We love seeing interesting transitions or animations that combine a variety of skills into a single project, such as shape layers, tweens, textures, lighting, effects and 3D skills.

4. General Freelancers

For all of our other freelancers, there are four main considerations. The first is organization: Do they keep their files clearly labeled so that we can go in and make quick edits internally as needed? The second is software: Do they have fluency in the software that we use here internally (Adobe Creative Suite & CD4)? Third, communication: Do they share updates with our team as they go so we can feel confident in the progress that’s being made? And last (but not least) is time management: Do they hit deadlines and keep the work pipeline moving? Certainly there have been incidents where life happens and delays occur, but if we notice a pattern, we have to do what’s right by our clients and will generally choose to work with someone else in the future.

There are so many things we love about animation here at Planet Nutshell (obviously!), but one of them is definitely the collaborative nature of animation as an artform: Many talents and visions coming together to make something better than one could alone. We’re so lucky we get to collaborate with such talented freelance artists year after year, and we’re constantly amazed at what can be done remotely, from ANYWHERE, when you all work together as a team.