After emailing Robert Crawford a few weeks ago, I almost instantly received a reply back saying he's interested in talking to me about any questions I might have, so we arranged a meeting over Skype to start the conversation off! This took place yesterday, and I believe it went well.
He asked me about my favourite part of the animation process and my course, which lead on to his comparison of his experience at university and how it felt to find a job in the industry - I didn't get chance to ask him more about this, since he lead on to his current job at DreamWorks; however his LinkedIn page lists every job he has had - which films he's been involved in and the role he took in them. He describes himself as a cinematographer rather than an animator, since he's worked on live action films too and focuses more on the set up of the shot rather than the movements of the characters on screen.
As the head of layout at DreamWorks, he's in contact with everyone involved in the filmmaking process - the storyboard artists fabricate the plot line and character interactions for the film, then the head of layout considers all of the smaller details and how the shots will work together, which he then proposes to the animators to explain his reasoning behind the decisions he made; the whole time keeping constant contact with the animators to ensure their questions are answered and they're performing the sequences right.
Since he's in contact with animators all the time, I could ask him about what kind of schedules they keep and what it's like from their point of view to work somewhere like DreamWorks - basically they work to quotas rather than deadlines, so they are assigned certain scenes to work on within a time frame, such as blocking out the keyframes in a sequence or animating a certain movement, and if they finish it earlier than expected then they are free to do as they please for the rest of the day, and nobody really minds.
Crawford described the working environment at DreamWorks similar to Google's - very relaxed with a lot of activities such as table tennis available for the employees - a home away from home basically, with 3 meals a day provided, plenty of coffee, and the option to either get these meals for free (out of your pay check) or earn more money (either option seems to allow you to be quite well off). As long as you get the work expected of you done to a high standard, then they are happy for you to relax and enjoy yourself in their facilities.
He mentioned that all workplaces are different, for example Pixar tend to work in groups during their projects and only talk to the people in their group, whereas DreamWorks's directors walk around the whole studio casually talking to each animator about their work and how they're getting on, as well as being able to see the progress and be able to provide regular feedback to everyone. Based on this it sounds like the latter is a more open, and overall better company to work for, however I don't know much about how other companies actually work, so I won't make too many assumptions.
One last bit of advice he left me with (for now) is to not worry about peoples reactions to my work; it was more of a warning really, your piers may like the work you've done, but you may not have understood the brief properly, so they will pick it apart and leave you with a lot of notes until there's nothing left of the initial work you've done (particularly in the early stages of production). This may be down to their explanations and the way you understand them, but Crawford explained to me it's OK to not understand something. Despite all of this he said I shouldn't take it personally and loose confidence in myself or my work, and that most critical feedback tends to be sugarcoated anyway. I have been told this before in different ways, but I need to brace myself for receiving feedback on the spot that might not be the best.
The conversation lasted about 45 minutes and was cut short due to personal reasons, but Crawford is happy to keep in contact with me and provide any advice I might need as I try to find my way into the industry. This has definitely given me the confidence to keep in contact, and has shown me just how important networking is!
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