Student Spotlight - Markham Carroll

“Taking classes from iAnimate helped fill in gaps, reinforced things I had learned, and provided more focused guidance into the area of animation I want to specialize in.”

Student Spotlight features Markham Carroll, an experienced Freelance Animator with a demonstrated history of working in the animation industry. Skilled in Computer Animation, Conceptual Art, Traditional Animation, Animation, and After Effects.

Markham is a Californian animator who graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation, with a thirst for knowledge in anything he finds interesting. Markham knows being a "jack of all trades" is usually impractical and often discouraged in this industry, but there is just so much that he finds too fascinating to ignore. Markham does still have "one thing" he wanted to be a master in, or at least get to the point of being really good at, and that is character animation.

Student Animation Journey

Markham Carroll took the following Feature Animation Workshops here at iAnimate:

• Feature Workshop 4 with Tal Shwarzman (Pixar Animation)
• Feature Workshop 5 with Alexis Wanneroy (Fortiche Production)

Markham starts with preparation and references in doing his iAnimate assignments and shots. He focuses on storytelling and movements before animating. Here are Markham’s creative process of doing his iAnimate shots:

1. I always start off listening to the audio clip, to figure out who the character is, and the possible scenarios they could be reacting to, to get a general idea of what the story could be.
2. In no particular order, I start roughly blocking out the shot to get down key poses that I want to hit, sketching out poses, taking video references, or even just acting out parts with a stopwatch to better understand how the character's body would move through the scene.
3. I do this as I iterate through the shot a few times, blocking out more detail each pass, with minimal attention put towards posing the fingers or facial features beyond directing the eyes at this point.
4. I start splining the animation and adjusting curves, starting with just the feet and torso and then moving on to the chest, shoulders, head, etc. with each pass. When the general motion works and reads from a distance, I can then move on to facial animation and other more smaller/detailed parts.

At iAnimate, Markham learned how he can make better acting choices by acting out his own reference, through studying other media, exploring and learning to understand the characters in the current project, and reflecting on his own life experiences.

Markham's Student Reel

You can reach Markham via:

Student Spotlight Q&A with Animator Markham Carroll

iAnimate: What do you think of your Online Animation Instructor(s), and how do they help you?

Markham: The instructors were very helpful and informative. From the lectures where they demonstrated their ideals and thought processes on how they tackle a scene, to the insightful reviews where they helped you identify what was working and what areas you might be having difficulty in, to even just the discussions of how different studios handle workloads and meetings and how things have changed from the pandemic and the advent of streaming, the whole experience was very enlightening.

iAnimate: How did iAnimate help you to evolve your animation skills as a character animator?

Markham: While I graduated from a university with a degree in animation, taking classes from iAnimate helped fill in gaps, reinforced things I had learned, and provided more focused guidance into the area of animation I want to specialize in.

iAnimate: What kind of animator do you consider after taking your student workshop/s?

Markham: I would say a "more experienced" one. The student film project in university taught me how to work with others in a studio environment to make a single collaborative final production, but none of us, the students, were experienced professionals.

“The iAnimate student workshops provided a more individual learning experience under the guidance of working industry professionals whose insight provided answers to questions I would not have thought to ask.”

Marta: I would like to work in feature/streaming animation or game cinematics.