What are the basic requirements for becoming an animator or basic requirements?

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#1

Animation is nothing but immersive storytelling using the power of technology. So you either have to be a highly creative visual storyteller or have fantastic grasp over the technology medium that make a story real on screen.
This leads to 2 different roles

  1. Creative Artist – People who are good at storyboarding, character sketching and overall conceptual fleshing out of story. This is very very difficult
  2. Technical Artist – People who take the visual story on paper and breathe life into it through technology – 2D/3D, Rigging, Modeling, VFX etc. This requires a solid visualization and computer science background.
    Depending on your interest and skills you can decide the area that you are interested in. In either of these areas you need to have a vast portfolio to demonstrate your work, especially creativity.
    To be an animator you just need to know how to animate, which is easier said than done. You can teach this yourself, but it’ll require you to stick to it for awhile or you can take a workshop, class or course.
    You really don’t need much to get hired, a single solid demo reel would be worth more than a thick resume and several titles behind you.
    The problem is that a good demo reel can be pretty hard to make.
    You need to showcase an understanding of the basic principles of animation, as well as your acting, posing and composition skills. This is something that you’ll only get through a serious study of animation and the specific area you want to focus on.
    This is the only reason why a school could help you, much like a gym gives you the tool to exercise, a school would help you in your learning process by providing structure to it.
    In any case, you can start by looking at what you want to do in animation (2D, 3D, stop motion etc) and doing research on it, so you know what you really are getting into.
    Animation, can be a pretty harsh job with long hours, but it is a pretty good career if you really like it and are willing to stick to it through a bumpy start.