Adam Slater
There are multiple jobs within the area of digital media and animation, some in which are more obvious. Before going to college I was unaware of many of these jobs. I knew there was special effects, two and three d animation, and things like modeling, but I was unaware of the less obvious jobs. One of the jobs that is was unaware two years ago was video and sound editing. I knew that someone had to compose the videos and edit them, but I would of never guessed it as a job so I decided to interview someone.
The person I interview to get details on this job is from New York City who works mostly in freelancing doing video and sound editing. While interviewing this person I had many questions. One question that I had was what does the position require. In order to be a successful video editor, you need to be diverse in many programs in which we use some here at Alfred State College. These programs are, but not limited to Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, Xpress Pro and many more. The reason why you are required to use all these programs is because you may need to import the video and add or take something out.
The second question I had was what are the daily duties. It is a persons job inthe video editing field, to view and analyze the footage and organize it in a way that brings it closer to the audience. It is important for them to think about where to cut the videos and where to place them together because this can change the meaning. These people sometimes even work in groups where they look over each others work, in some case one person even starts the work and then hands it over to someone else to finish editing the footage.
It is significantly easier to get a job in this field than other digital media and animation fields. Although the person I interview had a bachelors degree, he said that most place just require some type of formal classes in which you’re taught the basics but you would still have to have some type of portfolio upon an interview. Most people can accrue a job easily but seeing how it is able to be self taught the pay is significantly lower.
Although this position doesn’t require any major schooling, it’s still complicated to get a job because there is no schooling required. The person I interviewed said he had to work at multiple interns, several companies, and even do contract work to build up his skills and portfolio to get a job and that was with a bachelors degree. He said although it takes awhile to get a job, its good because you get to experience multiple task and job atmospheres.
This position often doesn’t pay to high, or rage to much from small companies to large studios, this may be due to the lack of schooling required. The person I interview is a freelancer right now, but said most jobs are paid salary wage which was only 33,000. When I asked how much someone makes, that works in the larger studios, he said some people who he has met or talked to in his field max out at 50,000 a year. Although he only knew of people making around 50,000 after being with the same company for awhile, there is always room to move up in pay he says.
There are multiple job’s in digital media and animation, one being video editing. Video editing is only one of the many jobs that I didn’t know existed before going to college or even two years ago. Im sure through out the years the digital media industry will grow and I will continue to find out about jobs I never knew about.
Adam Slater 