What she does for a living, on the side and for fun…
I am a freelance animator and illustrator based in London. I love drawing and moving image, and am lucky enough to do this for a living. In my spare time, I try to check out other people’s work for inspiration and entertainment.

I love art and cinema, I’m especially into film and take great pride in my geekiness, most of my friends are the same. Cinema’s my passion. I’m not quite sure what I’d do in a world where cinema was banned. I try to watch as many films as I can whenever I have a couple of hours on my hands.

I love going to galleries as well. I try to go to as many exhibitions as I can whenever time and money permits. Galleries are unfortunately getting less and less affordable with all those governmental cuts. But at least, we’re still lucky enough to have free access to permanent exhibitions in most major exhibition spaces in England. That isn’t the case where I come from in France.

What she’s working on right now…
I just finished working on a music video for Ninja Tune’s Wagon Christ and am now working on an advert for Bacardi. I work both as an animation director/illustrator and animator for various production companies. I get to switch between commercial and personal work quite a lot. I do personal work in my spare time, and direct and illustrate, which I love doing. It’s fantastic to be able to make up stories bring them to life all from scratch. I love writing and drawing, which gives me the ability to create stories by myself, without external help. The wonderful thing about animation and illustration that you can create a whole world of your own. Not all design jobs give you the ability to do this – if you’re an architect for example, it involves a huge amount of people to make a project come to life. You obviously create something wonderful once you put your design on paper, but you need engineers, people to build the building, and, importantly, the funding to create something that massive.

I guess it’s sometimes quite similar with any job, even mine. Most commercial jobs will involve getting a massive crew on board. Or if you want to do your own film, you need funding to be able to take the time to produce it and pay for materials if needed. But if, an animator/illustrator, you have time on your hands, it’s always possible to make your own project come to life – all you need is the will and passion to do it.

Working freelance means I get to work on commercial projects and can still afford to take some time off to work on personal projects in between jobs. I luckily still get to do personal work when I direct and illustrate commercially, but I guess whatever you do on your spare time always feels closer to your heart. I’ve been working on a chidren’s book since December that I am writing and illustrating. It’s a very exciting project. I’ve been concentrating on animation for the past few years and love drawing and telling stories. I sometimes feel slightly frustrated about the lack of detail in images you produce for animation, as you need to take movement and other technical factors into consideration. I’ve been enjoying going back to painting and creating illustrations without having to compromise on style.

I’ve also found writing for children has been a completely different experience to anything I’ve done before. It’s so much fun, I’ve been enjoying myself every step of the way. I think having fun when you’re writing a story is key to writing a good story. Obviously it helps being a child at heart, maybe it helps that cats playing the piano on youtube make me laugh hysterically, but I don’t believe you should patronize kids or over-simplify things. Kids are smart, and if you’re having fun, kids will have fun too.

The pros and cons of the job…
Freelance life is great, as I said previously. I have the freedom to work on personal projects in-between jobs, which is incredibly important to me. I also enjoy working on commercial projects. I’ve been lucky enough to work in very good companies since I graduated a year and a half ago. I work at Nexus production on a regular basis, which is a great company to work for. It gathers a lot of lovely people and incredibly talented directors.

Working for talented people always makes a difference. I also think it’s important to work for people you get along with, in a nice environment. You’ll always want to work harder for someone who treats you well. I believe it also goes both ways, you need to be a nice person for people to give you work and call you back. It’s incredibly important to believe in your work and have confidence in yourself. But you can’t take it too far and be an arrogant prick because people won’t call you back if you treat them like crap. Having to choose between two people who are equally talented, people will always want to work with the one they get along with best.

I think I’ve been lucky to be a full-time designer, a lot of people out there need to take a second job to make the rent. Obviously working freelance isn’t always wonderful, it can get pretty stressful if you’re not working for a couple of weeks, and you don’t know when your next job will come up. Most people call you for jobs a few days in advance, so it’s hard to plan ahead. I guess the uncertainty is the worst part of working freelance, and having to hassle people all the time to remind them you’re still around (ensuring you won’t have to be out of work for too long).

I haven’t always been able to rely on my job fully though. When I graduated I started working in the real world by translating BBC wildlife documentaries from English to French. I luckily didn’t have to do this for too long and quickly managed to do what I love. Other than that, I love my job, and as long as I feel challenged it keeps me happy. It’s been a long journey to find out what I wanted to do but I got there eventually. I figured out I liked animation pretty much in the final year of my BA. I changed courses about three times. I tried fashion design in my foundation year, graphic design at the start of my BA and finally switched to a moving image course in my second year. I dabbled with all sorts of moving image methods on that course, but only tried out animation at the end of my second year. I then decided I absolutely loved it and wanted to apply for an MA in animation at the Royal College of Art. I basically didn’t sleep for a year to get into the course and luckily got in. Then I didn’t seep much for another two years, but it was all worth it. I learned a lot. I guess if you find something you really love, you need to do everything in your power to be able to do it every day.

How her early environment influenced her choices…
My parents’ moto was “stop running, sit down and read a book.” It’s quite understandable that I have now chosen a job where I have to sit on my arse all day long. Nevertheless, to my parent’s great merit, I’ve been introduced to films and books that filled my imagination with all sorts of wonderful things from childhood.

Culture was very important to my parents and they made sure they exposed me to classics from an early age. I read a lot as a kid but mainly got into cinema. I’ve become a self-proclaimed geek. I love film and everything to do with it.

My parents fascination with American cinema led them to believe America was some sort of promise land. Back in the 80’s it wasn’t like now, where it’s almost politically incorrect to say you love America. American cinema was still in its glory days and the depiction these films made of America at the time, made many people believe it had to be better out there than wherever they were. They therefore really wanted me to make my life over there and put me in a bilingual school from the age of three. Cinema stuck with me, I am now a total film geek and chose a career in moving image, but I ended up in a different English-speaking country instead. I moved to London right after my baccalauréat (equivalent of A-levels in France) at 18, to study.  I’ve always been fascinated by England and always wanted to go there. I wanted to be in the land of Monty Python and Shakespeare! I thought any place with such culture and strange humour must be amazing. I’ve been living here for over seven years now and I still love being here every day. I’m still desperately trying to grasp English (“no tone”) sarcasm, which is strange as English humor was one of the things that drew me here in the first place. It just goes right over my head, but it amuses my friends so I won’t deprive them of that privilege.

Best advice ever received…
A director I once worked with told me, “There are no bad jobs out there, you can learn something from every opportunity you get.” I guess he was right in many ways.

There are tons of rubbish jobs out there, that’s a fact, but there’s always a lesson to learn from everything you go through. A job can be crap but you’ll always either learn something small from it, that can be useful to you in the future, like a new drawing technique or a how to use a new piece of software. You can even learn from a really crappy situation where nothing good seems to happen, like a client who cancels half way through a project and doesn’t want to pay you. You learn how to react in those situations, you learn how to anticipate them next time, you learn not to make the same mistakes twice.

This applies to both work and life. Sometimes you make choices that aren’t ideal or you’re put into tough situations, but these things make you who you are and they make you stronger. You need to go through periods where things go wrong to appreciate it fully when things go right.

Her number one…
There’s a French saying I once heard which caught my attention:
“Being like a German tap” (meaning you’re never too cold nor too hot, you’re always luke warm). Living life in a “luke warm” state sounds like hell to me. I believe you should live life passionately, love and fight ‘til you drop dead (how very French) and take care of people you really love.

I don’t suggest fighting to hurt people, obviously…. but the sentiment is there. Live life to the fullest and never forget you need to go through the crap times to enjoy the good times. Surround yourself with people you care about. Love your family and the family you’ve created for yourself. Great friends, like great lovers don’t come around that often, once you’ve found those people, cherish them as much as you can. Treat people like you’d want them to treat you. Enjoy the little things in life, find that one person who makes you feel bonkers in every possible way, and try as hard as you can to make that person happy.

Bali’s website…
bengel.com