Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2012, presumably about Spain. The claim of full employment in video games and animation, and the forecasts for the coming years, refer to that moment.
At least there’s some good news: two sectors have full employment. They are video games and animated film. Surprising news at a time when every day we have to talk about how to improve your job search. This time we report on sectors where some candidates can find a job.
Both need certain professional roles, all of them related to digital content, in a field expected to be a growth sector and a job creator in the coming years. The most common are in the design, development and production of video games, without forgetting the makers of animated films, which we describe below:
Animation
To begin with, three roles stand out in animated filmmaking:
Previsualization artist: a basic, essential role in animated film. The job is to work out the film’s previsualization, showing where and how the characters will move and what the camera movements will be, following the guidelines set by the film’s director.
Set-up and skinning artist: part of the rigging department or team, they create the characters’ skeletons, their look and physical features, before passing them on to the animation team.
Animator: the employee or technician who brings a character to life, defining its acting and developing its facial expressions and the way it walks, runs or fights.
Video games
In the video game sector, whose content factory never stops moving, two large groups of professionals are expected to find work:
Lead technical artist: responsible for coordinating all the audiovisual design of a video game, in a role that combines artistic creativity with in-depth knowledge of the latest trends in next-generation platforms.
3D graphics programmer: the role requires mastery of the tools that handle the different geometric shapes used in three-dimensional animation, as well as command of lighting, depth and texture in graphics.
Why these sectors have full employment
Mobile phone apps reached 5,500 million euros last year. Within three years these figures are expected to quadruple, and this pace of growth means strong demand for developers, a profession with the advantage that you only need intermediate programming skills to specialize in it.
