Following the studio Golden Wolf on social media I came across their call for interns for summer 2024. I was impressed to see a variety of roles, but the one I felt best suited me was the animation intern.
I have been following the studio’s work for a few years, and discovered them through the reboot of Disney’s “Duck Tales’. They designed the intro to the episodes and when it came out I was impressive by the creative approach the studio took in designing such a dynamic opening. At the time I was also unaware of bigger studios like Disney commissioning smaller or generally more independent studios in Europe and the UK to create idents, adverts and sometimes animation for their series.
I later got to attend an event called “The Evolution of Golden Wolf” during my time at Cardiff Animation festival. The talk explained how the studio started as a 3D animation studio in London, and little by little started to accept work which involved more motion graphic and 2D animation. Currently the studio embraces quite a variety of techniques but retaining a fondness for motion graphic.
Even though I wasn’t aware of their beginnings, I tried to come as close to what they were asking for in a 2D intern. I was quite confident looking at the software requirements, as I had at least used all of them more than once, with one being my one to go software to animate.
However, I would have benefitted from having a brand new showreel. As at the time of the application deadline I was still working on roughs for my graduation film, so I wasn’t able to provide any clean up shots to show my progress, as was required by the advert. There were some shot I had cleaned up from previous project I have worked on (some course related ones), but I felt really critical about them after having completed a workshop in Clean Up Animation.
The one thing I think was still relevant about my old showreel was the variety of styles and characters I have animated in the last few years, which will hopefully demonstrate my ability to adapt to different projects. Also, as “focus on hand drawn characters” was listed as a plus on the advert, I hope not having any example of motion graphic on my showreel would still give me a chance to be considered for the position.
Here is the cover letter I sent them, along with a CV and link to my website:
I understand this internship is extremely competitive as there’s very few studios in London who can offer them periodically, so I definitely need to keep an eye out for other opportunities. I think after the course I would probably concentrate more on looking for jobs such as “assistant animator” or if there’s any advert mentioning a junior position, as I see them being advertised much more frequently on animation job platforms.