Please take note of Motionographer’s Contest Policy

Posted by Bran Dougherty-Johnson


Please take note of Motionographer’s Contest Policy

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4 Comments

hootinany

… and don’t get me wrong, I love this site, and greatly appreciate everything Justin Cone and the motionographer crew has done and continues to do, but that doesn’t mean they’re always right. They are however most likely always influential, and this is the only reason I wanted to comment…

id8

I will come out and say that I have used and won over 12k in these contest environments. So I ask, does that make me a bad person?

As a newly minted graduate with no experience, and no leads. Do you want me to scour the endless mess of craigslist, or try to get jobs in the Motionographer job section with no decent demo reel? Go to NYC and intern, sleep in a box and pay my student loans?

The people writing these guidelines for no-spec work are usually established in their industry, and they are fearful that they are losing business. Well guess what? You ARE losing business. The same way Photoshop all but eliminated the typesetters business. Motion Graphics is affected the same way any industry is affected by technology to make things cheaper. Do you think lawyers are happy about LegalZoom – where you can file a Divorce for a fraction of the price? Accountants despise TurboTax – where you can file taxes for free.

I am in debt because I paid the price to go to school, and the banks don’t care how they get their money. I wasn’t fortunate enough to get an opportunity in the industry, and yet I stayed passionate about it and still worked hard to get better. That money I received for spec work opened the door for me to purchase a domain name, buy business cards, provided material for a demo-reel, and go on business trips to land traditional clients.

It’s not a permanent solution and mograph houses will always have the resources to create more targeted and thoughtful advertising. But in the end you’re supposed to be creative and figure out how to combat the competition right?

Ryan Rothermel

“As a newly minted graduate with no experience, and no leads. Do you want me to scour the endless mess of craigslist, or try to get jobs in the Motionographer job section with no decent demo reel? Go to NYC and intern, sleep in a box and pay my student loans?”

No, I would rather you demonstrated your skills through a personal short animated film. I don’t care about seeing logos or mainstream brands when I hire. In fact, I prefer seeing personal work as it encompasses higher charisma and pride then to animate some companies established (previously designed) brand (for free).

James Wignall

I think it’s more of a question of ethics.
It’s great that you’ve done so well from competitions, but for every one of you, there are thousands who lose.
The point is not weather you should enter competitions or not, but if you do go in with your eyes open. There are a lot of scrupulous people out there who run “competitions” as a cheap way to source ideas. In the short term it sounds great, but in the long term it under values the entire industry.
Why would somebody pay you / studio good money to commission a project when they can run a competition and pay somebody a fraction of the price?
It’s basic exploitation and that’s why we wont promote such practices. That’s not to say there aren’t genuinely well meaning competitions out there, but we can’t have one rule for somebody and another rule for somebody else.
Personally I think you’ve a much greater chance of landing a nice job on the back of a personal project than through any competition, but that’s my 2 cents.

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