Meet Andrew Chesworth

We were lucky to catch up with Andrew Chesworth recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Andrew, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I would have to say my parents. They provided a very loving and consistent household growing up. They were always very in control of their reactions to stressful situations and modeled great behavior. They raised three children who now have a lot of autonomy and happiness in their adult lives. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, so adapting to new environments and situations was the norm for me every few years.

Whatever creative aspirations I had in my career, I knew I had a strong family support network to fall back on if I failed. Animation can be very peculiar kind of career path, but my parents recognized my interest in it at an early age and made me feel supported in my passion and drive for it.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Right now I’m a character designer for animated films at Netflix. My background is working as an animator and director. I began my career overseeing both 2D and 3D animated commercials at a studio called MAKE before being hired as a CG animator for feature films at Disney.

In 2017, I accepted an opportunity to direct a short film called “One Small Step” for a startup studio called Taiko Studios, and miraculously the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short. It launched my career in a new direction where I’ve been continuing to make my own independent short films, while working as a design and animation lead who works closely with showrunners and directors on big studio projects.

I have a YouTube channel under my name where people can see some of the short films I’ve directed, and the work from some of the movies I’ve worked on.

What I love about making my own short films is they not only give me an outlet to express myself and experiment, but they give me a broader perspective about every stage of making an animated film. This feeds very positively into my experiences collaborating with larger teams on big studio projects.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I have a natural curiosity about literature and philosophy, a deep love of the technical details of filmmaking, and a relentless enjoyment of the process of animation.

I think the third quality is the most important – if you enjoy the process, simply the “doing”, of whatever discipline you are pursuing, you are most of the way there. The learning and the work ethic often follow in the footsteps of the joy. It doesn’t mean there won’t be many moments of pain, doubt, and struggle, but a love of process itself ought to be the foundation upon which you take your journey. It makes you present. There is fun to be found in every stage of growth.

Being naturally curious about the world is an asset in any career, and makes for a richer life.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

The biggest challenge I’m currently facing is managing my time as a parent of a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. The time my wife and I have for each other, our hobbies, and our jobs has been subdivided significantly. Staying up late doesn’t always do the trick either, because without enough sleep, every aspect of life suffers the following day.

We love our careers, we love our family, and we love the things we do in our spare time. The best way to maximize the available time we have for every aspect of life is to be on a disciplined routine and take care of ourselves physically.

Before the kids wake up, we exercise. When we’re all together in the morning, we try to be completely present. When we are at work, we have to rely on our years of experience to work efficiently and not get mired in trivial matters that don’t serve professional goals. When we’re with the kids in the evening, we do our best to be completely present again. Once the kids are asleep, we have a couple of hours to ourselves to prioritize life matters, and experiment with personal work and hobbies before we squeeze in our 7-8 hours of sleep and reset.

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