Animation personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

In a Physics practical last year we filmed a tennis ball dropping beside a metre rule and stepped through the footage frame by frame to measure its acceleration. I was meant to be calculating g, but I kept noticing how the gaps between positions widened as it fell and shrank as it rose, and how briefly the ball touched the floor. That spacing is exactly what makes a drawn bounce look heavy or light. It was the first time I saw that the physics of motion and the craft of animation describe the same thing. I want to study Animation because it works at that meeting point. An animator decides what a character does and how the timing of each frame makes an audience believe it has weight, intention and mood. Since then I have worked through Richard Williams's The Animator's Survival Kit, copying his exercises on arcs, overlapping action and walk cycles into a sketchbook. I have also started watching films with the sound off to study how acting is carried by pose and pause. I enjoy both hand-drawn and stop-motion work. I want a course where I can develop drawing, storytelling and technical skills together and learn to collaborate on films longer than I could make alone.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

I take A levels in Art, Physics and English Language. My Art coursework theme is birds in motion. I spent weekends at the local reservoir sketching herons and gulls, then used those drawings as reference for a 40-second stop-motion film of a heron catching a fish. I built the heron from a wire armature and plasticine and made the set from cardboard. At twelve frames per second, the film took around 480 photographs over five weeks. My first version looked jerky because I moved the neck by equal amounts each frame. I replanned it with a timing chart, easing into and out of the strike, and the second version felt far more alive. Physics has made me comfortable thinking about forces and pivots, which helped me work out why my heron kept toppling, so I added a hidden tie-down. English Language has been surprisingly useful. Analysing how pacing works in spoken transcripts made me more aware of rhythm, and I now write short scripts and thumbnail storyboards before I animate. I have also taught myself the basics of Blender from free tutorials, rigging a simple ball-and-tail character, and I use Krita for drawn tests. My digital work is still basic, and I am keen to build it properly with expert teaching.

What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

For two years I have worked Saturdays at a shoe repair and key-cutting kiosk in our shopping centre. The work is practical and precise: lining up a key blank, stitching a strap, or explaining to a customer when a repair is not worth paying for. My manager trusts me to open up alone in the mornings and handle the till. The job has given me patience with fiddly physical tasks, which is close to how stop-motion feels. It also gives me people to sketch on my break, and many of my gesture drawings of people waiting come from there. I play snare drum in a community wind band. Keeping strict tempo while reading ahead has made me think about animation timing in beats rather than seconds. On weekdays I walk my younger brother to primary school, and last summer I ran a short flipbook session for him and his friends. It showed me how quickly children understand movement when they can hold it in their hands. I also keep a daily sketchbook and share short loops with an online drawing group, where giving and receiving honest critique has made me more open to feedback. I am ready to commit to the long, careful process of making films and to learn how to tell stories through movement.