FSU Art Jonathan Davito BA '14 Interning with Skewer Media

Smile Mouths

My duties at Skewer Media include digital illustration, background creation, animation asset development, and basic animating. On a normal day, I’m designing backgrounds for the TV show we are pitching to Adult Swim called Meat Men. When the day is over I’m usually have one to two character designs to submit to my Creative Director, Sam. The character designs that I submit have to be separated and layered correctly so that the animation process will go smoothly. Every other week I have an animation demo to do during work hours with my director.

I have to say that I’m extremely happy with the internship. Not only do I get to work in the field I’m looking to start a career in, but I’m getting an education in a medium that I want to learn. I hope to do the best work possible to make the show a success as that would not only be really great to have worked for a media house that would have a show that’s aired on Adult Swim, but to earn my way into a full-time position. Even if this is not exactly my dream job, it’s very close.

Other than learning to animated and use Adobe After Effects and Premiere, I’m learning to be better organized and manage my time more efficiently; however, I feel that working on a team is the most valuable part of the experience thus far. I’m learning how to play on my strengths and accept and work on my weaknesses. Also you are surrounded by people who are working on different parts of the same project who can offer new perspectives and ways of approaching challenges.

Meat Men

Problems that I face in the internship are actually very mild. Illustrating digitally is something that I’m used to doing, but illustrating with the intention of using the illustrations for animating is a totally different process. Although I’m personally drawn to frame by frame animation, working on a project that uses 2D puppet animation is actually really educational. I get to not only see firsthand what are the differences and pro’s and con’s, but I get to work with and understand the medium’s limitations and make an educated decision when I decide to animate my own work.