Remote working from the comfort of your own home can be appealing to many freelance animators and artists, and it is becoming more popular with animation studios.  Even more so after the pandemic, but is it right for you?

It’s good to experience both, but it depends deeply on your experience, location, and various situations.

Let’s go through some of the remote vs onsite working pros and cons of both and what you could gain.

Also, check out “How to win your first freelance animator gig” for a guide on getting that first freelance animator job.

Much better for animators starting out in their career. When first starting, you need to gain studio experience and see how all the different roles work together, eg: 3d modellers, animators, compositors, and motion designers.

It’s also beneficial to see how clients are dealt with, production pipelines with REAL deadlines.

Learn from more experienced artists

This is an opportunity which should be grabbed with both hands!  Onsite you will have other artists and animators with different skills and levels of experience to learn from. 

They always say you learn more on the job… and it’s true!  Being surrounded by higher level artists will aid in learning awesome motion design tips, Adobe After Effects skills you’d never get from art college, or a completely new skill, like 3D modelling, Color grading, Compositing etc.

Up-to-date equipment and software

You may get to use and learn the software you don’t have or get to see a film studio, use camera equipment, and soak up any experience you can.

UUggghhh,, when I lived and freelanced in London, I hated the commute and packed trains. 

After I gained a few years of experience and started getting a few remote work-from-home projects, I really enjoyed the extra hour in bed and just being in my office within seconds.

“Really enjoyed the extra hour in bed”

Hours

I found that I had to get up quite early to travel to the studio and was often late when I got home.  It’s pretty standard when approaching a deadline to stay much later in a studio.

Yes, working from home, you can also do long hours, but it’s under your control, in the comfort of your own home, with less stress.

“It’s pretty standard to stay late in a studio”

More cost

Ever-increasing travel costs can eat into your salary, be it train, buses and if you drive, it’s the fuel and parking.  Whilst on-site, you will end up buying snacks and lunch. 

Yes, you can take a packed lunch, but you can’t every day; not only does it get boring, but it also might not be as healthy.

Plus, when I freelanced on-site, it was sociable to sometimes lunch out with your fellow artists and animators which you pay for your own food.

Working Remotely – The good

Can work from anywhere

I lived in Brazil for two years whilst successfully working for my clients in the UK and other countries.  As long as you have a good internet connection you can live in any location you wish. 

But you will need to take all your equipment with you, animators and artists generally need more than a laptop.

NO Commuting

As above, now you get up, enjoy your coffee or whatever morning routine you have, as you now have more time, and the added bonus that without the commute to work, you also reduce your carbon footprint and help to save the environment!

Healthier lifestyle

Having more time and less stress immediately benefits your physical and mental health and makes you better at your job. 

Working from home, you can also cook nutritiously balanced meals and even fit in lunchtime walks outside or workouts at home or in the gym.

I train as a hobby in Muay Thai boxing, and working remotely from home allows me to go whenever I want.  It keeps me mobile and my joints working for sat a desk animating all-day

Remote working – The bad

It can be lonely

I have my family at home, but if you live alone, you may go days without seeing another human.  Some may enjoy this, others not.  I now work totally remotely and find I’m often on video calls to other animators and clients anyway.

If you are working remotely as part of a team, you will have regular meetings and dailies not to feel lonely.

Not for junior artists

Studios will not usually employ freelance junior animators remotely.  You will need 2 to 3 years of experience in a physical animation studio before working remote vs onsite.

This is because a junior artist will need supervision, even if you are very talented, you still need the experience and knowledge of how a studio runs.

Clarification

Sometimes you may want to reiterate what the director or producer has said. On-site, you can just ask, but remote from home, you may have to call or wait for an email response.

Here is a great tip: 

Internet access

Nice being in the middle of nowhere, but you’ll need an excellent connection without regular power cuts.

You could actually anger your new client if you keep disappearing and are not contactable.

Software licenses

Owning or renting all our software licenses can get expensive, but we need them anyway for your own computer, even if working on-site.

Autodesk has offered a freelancer indie license for Maya for some time, which is ten times cheaper. Google it!

Responsible for all equipment

For animation, we need powerful machines, often with multiple screens.

I use High-end HP workstations with an onsite repair warranty.  This became so useful when I moved to Brazil for a few years, and my machine broke.

Unbelievably HP sent an engineer to my apartment in Brazil!.. admittedly it took them longer to arrange a replacement part than in the UK, but it was fixed in under a week.

Other solutions

With technology changing so fast, we now have the possibility to work cloud-based using a thin client and a system like Teradici, so you don’t need to own actual PCs.  Just log in from anywhere.

They even include the software licenses like Maya, Cinema 4D, Adobe After Effects etc.