Role Call Roundup: A Productions, Disney Television Animation, Playground Games

Rise and shine, recruits! And welcome to CartoonRecruit.com’s weekly Role Call Roundup. On the main page, I monitor and curate links to job posts (updated daily) from an ever-expanding list of animation studios. This blog is where I reflect on job posts from the past week and take a closer look at hiring trends across the animation industry.

This week, I am giving away a copy of The Art of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem to one lucky follower on LinkedIn and am also sharing a letter to a recruiter that every artist applying for a job should read. Meanwhile, new job opportunities are waiting for you at A Productions, Disney Television Animation and Playground Games. Let’s press on! 

In search of a production manager in Bristol, England

A Productions is a British animation studio which specializes in children’s animation. The studio’s recent projects include The Nutcracker starring Elmo & Tango, JoJo & Gran, and Love Monster. The studio is currently hiring for three on-site roles in Bristol:

The production manager will be working on a new CG/2D/Live-action hybrid preschool art series while the animation roles are for a preschool show based on the Maisy picture books, created by Lucy Cousins.

The house of mouse plans a new preschool series in Glendale, California

Disney Television Animation is the division of The Walt Disney Company responsible for producing animated television series and direct-to-video films. This studio, based out of Glendale, is best known for their acclaimed series, Big City Greens, The Owl House, The Ghost and Molly McGee as well as Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The studio is currently hiring for three roles on an unannounced preschool series.

Game development kicks into high gear in Leamington Spa, England

Playground Games Limited is a video game developer which was acquired by Xbox Game Studios in 2018. The studio is best known for their work on the Forza Horizon series and has been tapped to develop the Fable RPG series’ reboot expected for next year. The studio is currently seeking a number of roles both for Forza and Fable.

Even if you are an early-career artist, it’s always worth keeping an eye on studios that are hiring for lead and senior positions. Typically these jobs are hired first, followed by more junior roles as teams expand.

More job highlights from the past week

United States:

Canada:

United Kingdom:

Australia:

Emailing recruiters by example

Jasmine Coppin, senior recruiter at Blizzard Entertainment, posted on LinkedIn about an email greeting her in her inbox on Wednesday. As a recruiter at a leading videogame developer, she receives many emails from enthusiastic applicants who don’t always do their due diligence. This email was not the typical case.

“I wanted to share with you a DELIGHTFUL example of an email I received yesterday that literally made my heart sing when I read it. I asked this person if I could share their email as a LinkedIn post and example of what to do when emailing a recruiter. They said yes!”

Curious about what was in the email? Give it a read along with Jasmine’s thoughts and analysis. We believe that it’s always useful for applicants to know what recruiters anticipate, consider and look for, so these posts are worth considering. While you’re on LinkedIn, be sure to follow Jasmine.

Heroes in a 176-page hardcover art book

We recently published our very first book review. The book was The Art of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which I felt had a fantastic variety of visual development material. Although I would have liked to see more about how the teams at Cinesite and Mikros produced the movie’s unique take on stylized 3D animation, I was fascinated by the peek into the design process behind Superfly, April O’Neil and the rag-tag family of mutants featured in the film.

I enjoy collecting art books but I don’t enjoy moving with them. So I will be giving away the book to one of CartoonRecruit.com’s followers (with a shipping address in Canada or the continental USA) on LinkedIn on Friday, November 15th. You can find the full details on LinkedIn. There will be a random draw, but I would be most excited if the book winds up in a Role Call Roundup reader’s mailbox.

Help us keep this production going

CartoonRecruit.com is a website built from the ground up for industry artists searching for their next animation production. Our directory will always be provided to the community as a free service. With that said, if you find our project useful and want to help connect more artists to meaningful work, you can contribute by becoming a Patreon Supporter.

When artists contribute to our $1 / Pay What You Want tier, they gain full access to CartoonRecruit’s Discord community. You also help cover costs associated with running the last website on the internet that isn’t attempting to become TikTok while TikTok in turn attempts to become Amazon.

Are you responsible for hiring decisions at your studio? Get in touch with us on LinkedIn! We plan on hosting Q&A discussions on this blog, and participating could put a link to your studio's career page directly in the inboxes of talented artists searching for their next production.

Signing off for now

That’s all for this week, recruits! Have thoughts or feedback about our project? Feel free to message me by email at mike@cartoonrecruit.com, or send a DM to our LinkedIn page or @cartoonrecruit.com on Bluesky. I will do my best to reply to every non-spam message I receive.

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