Beyond Expertise: Cinematic Animator Arran Baker

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in animation, and can you describe a typical day in your life as an animator?

A: My passion for animation can be traced back to my childhood, where I was immersed in the world of classic cartoons like Tom and Jerry, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the magic of Disney and Pixar films. I also played a lot of video games, and I was drawing alongside that. All of these experiences truly fueled my inspiration.
 
My daily routine typically starts with communicating daily tasks with the animation department. In my current role, we're working in a relatively small team, so effective communication is really important. Following that, I progress through animating the tasks assigned to me for the day and attend meetings whilst checking for the implementation of animations on the game engine.

Q: You also teach animation course online as well as uploading educational animation content on YouTube. What inspires you to teach?

A: It initially started with a desire to share with others what I wish I had known earlier during my own education. I felt that knowledge was limited when I attended university, and I had to search a lot for myself and through my peers. This made my introduction to the industry extremely challenging, to the degree where I almost quit, and I didn't want anyone else to go through that same experience. So hopefully, by sharing my own findings, it might help prevent that from happening.

Q: What is the most interesting and challenging part of being an animator? How do you manage to overcome those challenges?

A: For me, the most exciting part is that every scenario is different when we’re animating. You’ll never animate the same thing twice, but this also comes with the challenge of deciding what choice is right for that character in any given situation. Making those decisions is one of the most significant challenges, and it's still something I find the most challenging to this day. It’s something I believe I may never overcome, but definitely the options are limitless, which is why I enjoy it.

Q: What do you think are the 3 key factors of success?

A: I would say determination, perseverance, and honestly being yourself and bringing your own ideas to the table. Determination and perseverance come from setting your aspiration and your ambitions high, and it’s definitely a challenging career. It’s going to be the case where it’s a marathon, not a sprint, so there’s going to be times where it’s very difficult. There’s going to be things that you’ll make mistakes on, and these happen quite often. It usually comes down to how specific your director or peers are and it can be disheartening when you don’t get it right the first time. But it's the determination to make sure you bring the best you can and not letting those mistakes get the best of you.
 
When it comes to being yourself, I believe that anyone can do this craft, but the thing that separates us is those ideas that you can bring to the table and bringing a little bit of yourself to your characters. This, hopefully, will make your characters more believable and sincere to resonate with your audience.

Q: What are the details that you care about the most and never compromise in your work?

A: The most important part is communicating to my audience. If the audience doesn’t understand what we’re communicating, obviously then it’s all for nothing. Usually, we try to communicate as clearly as we can is through our poses. The main pose that we like to focus on as animators is the one that really encapsulates the performance of our characters.

Q: Do you ever encounter moments of creator’s block or have difficulty generating ideas? If so, how do you manage and overcome these challenges?

A: Absolutely, sometimes there are certain characters which I’ve found difficult to try and capture. One in particular is Hiccup from “How to Train Your Dragon,” because his character was a mixture of lots of different characters because he felt like he didn't fit within his society, so he would observe those around him and mimic what they would do, which means there was never one thing that he would specifically do. That was quite difficult to try and understand what the right choice would be in that moment because he didn’t really have his own personality.
 
In these situations, we would speak to the directors, writers, or supervisors, so they can hopefully share some more insight with us into something more specific that might help inspire us.

Q: Among your impressive portfolio, including projects like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spirit Untamed, How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming, and TV series like Happy, could you share your most memorable project and why you would recommend it?

A: I think 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' would definitely have to be the most impressive. The team really brought something unique and special to the project. There were so many different worlds that were developed, and this took years and years of development to try and find the right spot and to make it all work together as well. But personally, the one I’ve enjoyed working on the most would be ‘Happy’ because we had so much creative freedom. There was so much room to explore ideas and bring a little bit of yourself to the character, and the team was really great. It was quite a small team, so we were very close with each other, and it made it a really collaborative experience.
 
‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ was an incredible experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had the honor of joining the project very early, which meant that I got to help my leads develop tests for the new characters such as Spider-Man 2099 and The Spot. It was really a world journey, there was a lot of highs and a couple lows here and there. The production went through a lot of rewriting as well, naturally to try and make the story the best it could be, which meant there were lots of times where we were exploring things, and then things would change often. But regardless, the team was brilliant, really inspiring, and I made some good friends.
 
I recommend this project to anyone, especially from a creative perspective. It's hard to find the right words to describe it because there’s so much animation variety that happens, it’s never one style. It's like walking through an art gallery and seeing all these different artists put their own stamp on things.

Q: How long have you been using ScreenBar Halo and what do you think of it?

A: I’ve been using ScreenBar Halo for a few weeks now, and I love it. It’s a really useful device. I love how you can adjust various settings to find what works for you; the settings have different arrangements of lighting so you can go from front, to back, or both. I also really like its minimal design; it fits really well with the rest of my setup. I typically would have lights turned on in my room, I didn’t tend to use many lamps because it would cause glare on the screens, making it difficult to make adjustments. There is no glare with the ScreenBar Halo. It definitely helps prevent eye strain and fatigue. When it gets dark it’s a lot easier to light up my desk so I can make sure that I can work comfortably and efficiently.

Q: What does animation mean to you?

A: Animation is my passion; I feel like it’s an escape. I can dive into another world as well and express myself in a way that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I feel like it’s such a powerful tool for communicating, sharing ideas and stories.
 
When we’re bringing characters to life, we’re making decisions but subconsciously we’re going to be portraying a little bit of ourselves through those as well to the degree where you could even watch an animation and be able to recognize who that was animated by based on the choices they make.

Q: Can you share any advice for those who want to be an animator?

A: Don’t let anyone tell you that you can't follow your dreams. In my experience, I was told when I first went to university that I didn't have the qualifications required and that motivated me to prove them wrong. That’s where that determination and perseverance come. We all have different paths, and we are all more than capable of achieving our goals, so it just comes down to hard work and determination. I'd say draw lot and observe life. But most all, have fun while you’re doing it.

Q: As an expert in animation, what are your future goals?

A: I’d say an expert might be a stretch, maybe an aspiring expert, potentially. I’d love to direct short films; I love that medium and that format. I have a couple of ideas that I'm eager to bring to life and share with the world. So, becoming a director is definitely a long-term goal I'm working towards.