As an animation supervisor and director at Rhythm & Hues it is part of my job to help recruit freelance animators to work on projects that we are awarded. I had been a mentor at Animation Mentor for their first couple of semesters, and looking at the potential of some of the students I suggested to the animation department manager at Rhythm & Hues that we might try to recruit some junior animators from Animation Mentor for the project “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.”
 
Having collaborated with Bobby Beck and Animation Mentor, I interviewed over the phone some potential recruits, and from those interviews we decided to hire two animators, Ryan Bradley and Ray Arnett.
 
Both Ryan and Ray started on the same day, and I briefly met them as they were going through education in our proprietary animation software. They both seemed like pretty laid back characters, just the type we like at Rhythm & Hues.
 
The structure on the movie “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties" was such that initially I had little contact with either Ray or Ryan, as most of that was through another animation supervisor Matt Logue. Nevertheless, I could see that from early on their work I reviewed was of good quality, and I was getting daily feedback from my animation supervisor that they were both shaping up to be strong animators.
 
As I became more involved with the animators I could see why the feedback had been so positive. Both Ryan and Ray were seated in an area with other freelance animators. I could see that they had built really good rapport with the other industry professionals. All of the animators in that area had a great attitude and work ethic, they were all learning from each other, showing their work to each other, even before I or the other supervisors had seen it.
 
As the movie progressed both Matt and I decided to give them more challenging shots, and by the end we were relying on them more increasingly to produce some of the most intensive shots in the movie.
 
The refreshing thing about both Ryan and Ray is they were like sponges soaking up all knowledge. They took direction really well, and were very willing and flexible to change what they had, constantly striving to fulfill the maximum entertainment value of their scenes. 
 
Having seen the growth and success of both Ryan and Ray we offered both of them an extension to the next round of shows, Ray accepted, and we hope to get Ryan back to Rhythm & Hues in the fall after he gets married.
 
All in all it was a great experience for both me and Rhythm & Hues. Ryan and Ray excelled at the scenes they were given. They learned very quickly and had fantastic attitudes. The thing that made it all the more successful was the level of accomplishment they had achieved in only a small amount of time with Animation Mentor, they had to hit the ground running, and the tools and tricks they had learned at Animation Mentor allowed them not only to survive that, but to exceed all expectations.
 
Cheers to Ryan and Ray, and cheers to Animation Mentor, we are looking forward to recruiting again sometime in the future.
 
Keith Roberts
Animation Supervisor
Rhythm & Hues Studios