We were lucky to catch up with Cassie Shao recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cassie, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I practised and developed a work ethic that works for myself and the people I work with over the last three to four years of freelancing, and I try to adjust and refine gathering experiences from all the projects I have worked on. I would like to think that I am a reliable and responsible colleague and that the important thing is to meet the expectations one gives the people one works with. As a freelance animator, it is often needed that I communicate with the client, in the beginning, the end result of an animation that would work with the timeline we have for the project, and to meet each deadline to ensure that the expected animation can be delivered within the timeline. It requires me to know such as how much time I would need to animate in a certain style, how much work to achieve a certain look etc., which I learnt continuously more with each project I worked on.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am a freelance Animator and I animate for independent films, music videos, explainer videos and advertisements. My animations often try to visualise and reflect on a certain feeling, through which I hope to communicate with the viewers, even if they don’t necessarily share the same experience as what the characters are journeying through on screen. My animations often depict a surreal environment by placing 2D digitally drawn characters in a mixed-media world consisting of 3D graphics, painted elements on animation cels and abstract textures created on paper or using methods such as paint on glass, pastel on printouts etc. I also do try to do something new with each project I work on.
I recently animated for a music video called Healing Act directed by Kane Wang, in which I animated on top of his live-action footage 2D linework with watercolour paintings panning in the background. I just finished animating for a documentary short named Basic Training directed by Lucy Cameron, which is coming soon in 2023. I also worked with the TED series again this time on animating for two episodes of The Way We Work Season 5. There was also some good news recently as the short film I animated for, What I Had to Leave Behind directed by Sean David Christensen, won Winner Combination Animation & LIve-Action at Los Angeles Animation Festival; and the short film I was one of the animators for (a team of 7 animators), My Year of Dicks directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir and written by Pamela Ribon was nominated for Best Animated Short Film in this year’s Oscars
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think the three important things would be to be truthful, to expand and to be open to all sorts of fields. I think being truthful and upfront is important as a freelancer since it is often up to me to communicate with the client that it is a responsible thing to do for the client to be informed of my availability, ability, interest and passion in order to achieve the best end result. The other is to always expand. I think that animation as a new media form has a lot of potential, there is no limit to what is achievable and to the ways of animating. I would like to build a visual style that is distinctive and recognisable, but I believe that one can continue to expand and refine a style by mixing in new elements and incorporating different ways of animating. The third is to be open, which is just to be interested in and be inspired by a lot of the other art forms other than animation.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
One thing I find is that it is important to know yourself well enough that you know to leave a bit of leverage for yourself in the schedule and the work process, precisely for when you might feel overwhelmed when not anticipated. For example, schedule a few days more than you would need so you don’t have to be full on all the time and have time to rest. I also find that developing a work habit and routine that works the best just for me, even if it is a bit different from what other people usually do, is worth pursuing. If I am overwhelmed by a lot of tasks or a few projects going on at the same time, I would spread the small tasks over the course of a few hours or a few days, and just focus on a task right now, and it would get easier from then.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://karasucassie.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karasucassie/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karasucassie/
