Why I became an Animator
The story of me choosing a career.
Growing up in the 90s in India there were very few things to distract us. there was no cable TV with 100s of channels to flip through. there was no Internet to give us infinite reasons to procrastinate. All I had for entertainment was my games(both indoor and outdoor) and one hour of TV on Sunday. that's it just one hour of Sunday morning cartoons and it made the rest of my week absolutely happy.
BUT if I miss it….. oh I never miss the Sunday morning cartoons, but for some odd reason I miss it, it would be a miserable week, I even cried a few times when I missed the Sunday morning cartoons..
I started with jungle book and duck tales at the beginning and then the looney toons followed. then in the late 90s cable television arrived in India saving me with Cartoon Network. by the time I was a teenager(2005) I was still hooked on cartoons. many really awesome cartoons and I also discovered manga for the first time watching Dragon ball Z boy it was super cool. that reminds me i have to read the latest Naruto, be back soon… So where were we oh yeah.. lets fast forward to my 20s. It was time for me to choose a career, it was time for me to leave the comfort of my bed, leave all my collage buddies behind and go work for a living. to build a career. You this was difficult for me because I never imagined myself ever Growing up!
The cartoons characters never grow up.. they always stay just the way they are.. but unfortunately grow up, we all do. it was not like I never had a dream or ambition. I had dreams and hopes of becoming something or somebody but the the problem was there were too many.
I wanted to be a scientist when the Dexter’s laboratory was running, A fighter pilot when Swat Kats were the thing. A ninja, an archeologist, a forest ranger, tomb raider, working for the grim reaper, of course I would also secretly be a super hero.
Unfortunately I found non of those jobs in the classifieds, So like many average Indians, or in this case average Bangaloreans(Yeah I grew up in Bangalore, capital of call centers) I took up a call center job, I was a Technical support representative, Providing support to the millions of apple computer user in the USA, helping to setup Email, iChat, sync music, and the biggest one of all, fixing their internet connection.
I hated it there, first of all I had to work during night, you know because US is on the other side of the earth. secondly it was the same routine calls every night, EMAIL, iChat, iTunes, internet….. crowd there was so depressing. the team leaders and managers were all sitting on my head for CSAT (customer satisfaction). One day I just threw my head phones down and walked out of there. just like that. my first job and walked out of it in the first 6 months.
I don’t understand how the call center employees in the Ads are always smiling. its false advertising you know. anyway I was back at home, my father totally understood why quit the job and my parents were very supportive. But I had no idea what to do, and I couldn’t think of anything real. then one day my buddy called me and said he was going to learn animation and he wanted me to join him. He was my best friend. he did not even ask if I was interested. he just said you should do it with me.
My eyes went wide open, ANIMATION.. you mean I can Actually learn how to create cartoons. by myself… my cartoons.. Oh my God.. why didn’t I think of this in the first place. all my life I was influenced by cartoons and it never occurred to me until that moment the animation is also a career option.
So I started pursuing it. now after 5 years from that call, I am running a small studio in Chennai called missingDNA studios. We are small, we just started and its tough. But I love every moment working as an animator. just love it.
Conclusion.
we live in a period were you can be anybody you want, just look for what you want to do, find out what makes you happy and you do that.