Professional Practice- Cover Letter Research

Sixteen South Studio-

Sixteen South is one of the many places that I looked into for my cover letter. Sixteen South target kids through television programmes and are broadcast-ed on channels such as Nick JR, Disney Junior streaming sites such as Netflix, Hulu and many more. I’ve never thought of a job through television as I’m more interested in film as a career but I’m always interested in keeping doors open especially in the local areas.

What drew me to Sixteen South was their exploration through animation through areas such as 2D, 3D, puppetry, stop motion and live action. I thought this was very important to me as I haven’t chosen my specialism as of yet so I want to keep my options open.

What I especially love is their dedication to the story and having a clear understanding that the messages they produce will be seen by children and will be implemented by children tells me that they care what product they are producing as a studio.

What also caught my eye was that 50% of their team are female and 50% of their management team are female. I really liked that this was mentioned on their website as people believe that animation is mainly a mans job and I’m glad to see that Sixteen South are gender equality through work and pay.

Sixteen Souths beliefs are lovely and I think I would thoroughly enjoy working with this company.

Showreel-

Enter Yes-

Enter Yes has worked on various movies such as Loopers, The Fall, Jack & Jill and A Patch of Fog to name a few.

Alec was so kind to organise a talk with Enter Yes founder Kris Kelly a past student of Ulster University about two weeks ago and I was extremely happy as I got a better look into his company. What Kris couldn’t stress about enough was the type of people he was looking to employ as they effect the overall mood of the work environment and explained various stories of both placement/employees with terrible attitudes towards the work. Kris was extremely kind and was nice to answer questions that were asked at the end and was extremely helpful to one of my fellow classmates with their animated short.

I’m not 100% sure where I would fit into this company as I’m not sure if any skills that would be what they are looking for but this is definitely a company I will be looking into.

Enter Yes unlike Sixteen South focuses on mature, sensitive and emotional content were as Sixteen South focus on wholesome family television.  But they too have won many awards and explore various areas of animation such as visual effects, video games industry and animation.

Showreel-

Double Jump Studios-

Double Jump has worked on projects such as Valentines Promo, Inspiring Impact NI, Morelli’s Ice-Cream, Invent 2017, Digital DNA, Invest NI and Abbey Insurance.

Double Jump Studios focus on making their work stand out from the rest which has always been a motto of mine why create something that’s already been done?.  They produce work through 2D/3D animations, VFX, green screen, motion graphics and videos for online and broadcast.

While looking through Double Jump studios projects I noticed a lot of there work is bright and colourful which I love. A statement on the website stated that they create work simply for fun, which reminded me of why I wanted to do this as a career to simply enjoy what I was doing.

Showreel-

FlixerPix-

Flickerpix has worked on projects such as Nextus NI, Lego Christmas, Marco Polis, Five Fables and Invest NI.

Flixerpix I looked at was for their distinctive style which is beautiful and their exploration through different mediums is amazing.

Showreel-

Overall

Overall I really enjoyed looking through all of the studios within the local area of course I haven’t added all of them to my list as I have chosen 4 that I thought suited my personality more and what I intend to do when I leave the university. Of course working in any studio would be dream but these are the four I felt most strongly about.

I think my top pick would be Sixteen South as I absolutely love what this studio stands for through gender equality and fair pay. Also there love for children and their values is exactly what I intend to do through my work in my career.

Reflection-

I actually really enjoyed this section of the assignment as it gave me the chance to research the different studios in and around Belfast I did far more research than above but I minimised the studios into the ones I thought I’d be best suited for. But overall Sixteen South was the one I really liked after extensive research I liked the principles of the company and the overall work environment.

Before this assignment I wasn’t sure if there was much animation being done within Northern Ireland I always believed I would have to move in order to get work, but after researching and seeing the opportunities it has opened my mind to work that I could possibly get here.