We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful June Vanotterdyk. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with June below.

June, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

Knowing yourself and your worth are key to navigating any problem you will face in this industry.

When you start trying to take that big first step into the Entertainment industry its all too natural to feel anxious. There is no one straightforward way of getting into the career you want. Despite any training you may have you still feel like it may not be up to industry standard. Not to mention you may not know anyone who can even help you get in. After all, its a very collaborative field and having someone there to vouch for you can mean the difference between getting a job or not. You worked so hard to get here and after having to work in retail, food service, and car insurance you’re really eager to start doing what you WANTED to do. Desperate even.

Its these sort of feelings that landed me into some precarious situations. Thankfully I was able to get through it with the help of good friends. However, I think my situation is not all that uncommon with many people coming out of college or self learning and trying to take that big leap into their professional career, be it storyboarding, animating, concept design, or anything.

First, remember that the industry is a collaborative field. Its honestly a miracle any film or shows get made with how much effort and hands have to be on board to get it done. Personally, I love it. I think having so many people share ideas and skill sets to make something is truly inspiring. Most of the people you meet are going to be absolutely wonderful and you’re going to make some great friends.

However, there are definitely some bad actors out there like with anything in life. After all, it is a business as well and some people will be looking to cut corners, get ahead, or may just want to be making the biggest buck they can off of this. I came across people who wanted to get further ahead and make their own projects get off the ground, people who were willing to take advantage of new talent to do so. They underpaid, didn’t give fair deadlines, delayed payments, avoided giving credit, and more. The worst part though was that I believed it was okay. I argued with myself that it was alright because this is just what people need to go through in order to ‘make it’. I let those people tell me what I was worth and convince me that standing up for myself was a bad move. Some even threatened to have me blacklisted and sued for the silliest reasons.

At the time I was so scared of blowing my shot that I told myself that I was the problem. Let them convince me that I just was not doing enough. Thankfully I had a good set of friends around me to point out what was happening. They got me out of those toxic environments and I eventually landed some really fun amazing freelance then a big studio gig at Disney.

Looking back now I realized these people did not have power over me. If people want you to work with them, they see something in you. They see a skill, talent that can make things great. Remember that. Make sure you value yourself, your wellbeing, and your craft. Take care of yourself by making sure you get paid what you are worth and do not let people try to put you down for the sake of their own purposes.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello!
My name is June VanOtterdyk and I am a professional Storyboard Artist!

While my journey began doing various jobs like Food Service and Car Insurance Claims Adjuster, I eventually managed to score some Freelance work and after several Freelance jobs came to work at Disney Television Animation.

My work involves planning out how a film or show is going to look before it goes into animation or filming. Whenever you watch a movie and see the main character standing close to the camera or standing in a wide field with the camera far away, thats a storyboard artists work in play! Storyboard artists plan out the shots for the movie and where the camera is going to be and how it will move. Its all to better help tell the story. For example, if we’re having an emotional moment with a character, I would likely have the camera close up on the face. That way, we can get a good look at their facial expressions and also feel more personal with them by being in closer proximity to them.

Storyboarding requires a lot of problem solving because we have to make sure we tell the story visually and clearly. Having the camera keep cutting to a new scene too fast can be jarring, or having a character keep changing where they are on the screen can make it hard to know whats going on. Thus Board Artists are the one who make the layout for the film so that the audience will have an enjoyable time watching it.

I personally came into the Storyboarding craft because I initially wanted to be an animator but found it was not to me because I didnt quite enjoy the timing that went into it. Then, I decided to try my hand at making concept art. While I love sketching, it became clear that painting was not as fun when under deadlines and having to make it a certain level of detail. After a professor introduced me to Storyboarding I found it to be the perfect blend of sketching and storytelling. Drawing characters act with some basic layouts was exciting for me. I could keep it loose, rough, and keep the energy in my drawings without having to keep refining and tightening things.

Its that energy and emotion that makes me stand out I believe. Storyboarding can be very technical. You need to know hot to place a character in an environment and have it make sense. That requires a knowledge of perspective, anatomy, proportions and more. Putting that all together and having to draw hundreds of scenes that all line up sequentially can be a monumentally overwhelming task. I like to begin from the perspective of the character and really capture their mindset through their posing, the expressions, and how they interact with other characters. Capturing that exact feeling a character is having with just the right pose helps add a big punch to a script and board.

To get to have a hand in telling the story so early is very satisfying. Helping figure out the characters, the world, the story and how they all interact then see other artists make it into a final polished project gives me a lot of pride. Its wonderful working as a part of a team and watch each person’s specialty add more and more to a show or film.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I want to try and tie this back into knowing one’s own worth.
When you’re trying to make your way into a competitive industry you’re going to hear a lot of different opinions on how to break in and what to do. Its important to listen to all sorts of perspectives but at the end of the day you also need to find what works best for YOU.

There were years I tried to incorporate things into my art I thought would help me get accepted into the industry. I kept looking at other artists who were ‘successful’ and kept trying change my work to be more like that. It wasnt my intention to lose my own sense of self but I think over time, trying again and again and again and again to find that ‘something’ that would get me hired. There was a point I was at the end of my rope thinking that no matter what I do or how skilled I am, it will never be enough.

In the process I’d lost sight of a lot of my original projects and characters. I had thought that those things were not what people wanted to see. I thought they were too strange and out of pocket.

At some point I ended up making a personal storyboard. One with my own characters and worlds that I had thought about for many years growing up. After I put that board up and placed it in my portfolio it was like a light had flipped. I got an opportunity to do an internship, freelance, and finally, I had an offer for a Storyboarding Revisionist. After I gained employment I tried to take the time to really connect back with what mattered to me, after all, it was those ideas that saved me from drowning. I wasn’t too weird, I wasn’t to silly, too odd. Those were the things that people loved and wanted to see more of.

It was a struggling to tear apart the thought patterns that continually lead me to try and make what I thought others wanted to see. Even now there are times I will stop and go ‘but is this something other people will like? Is this what they want of me?” and I have to stop that. Everyone should make sure to embrace what it is they want to do, what they love, what makes them want to create in the first place. Those are the things that will make you stand out and those are the things that will help you find your way.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

NFTs and Generative AI art are nothing more than a cash grab to me.

I think technology is something to definitely be embraced and worked with. My father is a computer engineer and I have a brother and friends who work in the same field. I’ve grown up on the cusp of so many technological advancements that have made animation and art so much easier to access and approach. I think technology has a home in the arts and both go hand in hand.

However, NFTs and the more recent iteration of Generative AI has given nothing to the art community and has done nothing to make progress in the art world. The people pushing for NFTs promised this would make millionaires out of artists. Indeed, there were a few who did manage to make quite a bit of money, most of them were not artists. The Bored Ape Yacht Club, for example, made the owner so much money. Hardly anyone knows about the artist who actually made the art, and was she given the same amount of money? No.

NFTs take so much resources to make for something you dont actually own and something you cant even do anything with. There are games and clubs and projects you can participate in without having to shell out a small fortune to get a link on a block chain. Its all hype and no substance. It reminds me of Tulip Mania in the Netherlands where people were making fortunes and losing fortunes over buying tulip bulbs. Did the tulips do anything special? No. They were just tulips but someone managed to make them seem important and rare and people bought into it. Thats all NFTs are, little bits of data that do nothing for you at the end of the day but waste so much.

Art is something I make because I enjoy it and want to make it and want to communicate something, whether its an emotion, a silly thought, or a big idea. How can you do that by taking the words and works of other people? Are YOU really creating if you’re having to have machines do the work for you? If you cant even respect the artists who may make something for you to sell how can you claim to be for their benefit? Or for the benefit of art? Ask why you’re doing this in the first place and can those efforts be put into something better?

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