Dream Big! is a new entrant programme developed by the Animation and Children's TV Skills Funds and run by training provider thinkBIGGER. It provides new entrants with their first job in children’s TV and animation through paid placements at a range of leading production companies.
As part of the programme, Liv received a placement as production assistant at Aardman Animation.
How did you first hear about DreamBIG!?
A friend kindly sent over the DreamBig! trainee listing, specifically highlighting the Shaun the Sheep post knowing that I loved Aardman, and that I was in the slightly horrible graduate sprint for a job. I had finished studying English Literature at Cambridge but had spent the majority of my three years freelancing producing theatre and touring new writing around the UK under the unofficial name of Yippeee Productions; I had a wealth of financial, organisational and technical experience that I wanted to keep advancing somehow. Aardman, a four-time Academy Award-winning animation studio, is a staple of British television and of my childhood - what a mammoth privilege it was to have Aardman as my first employer!
What was the experience of working a production like? Had you worked on any productions previously?
Whilst I started as a production assistant, my role quickly transformed as I offered help to the hectic studio floor towards the end of the shoot. I loved the range, from ferrying clay models from unit to unit, to submitting weekly timesheets, to setting up scaffolding and fixing up little sheep legs with allen keys. Animation production (not unlike the theatre I had worked on) so heavily relied on collaboration across vastly different departments and a willingness to do any task at any time. I have to say a massive thank-you to Bella (production assistant), Tom (art department assistant), Sophie (3rd AD), Ricky (floor assistant), Luke (production manager) and Danny (producer) for patiently showing me everything I needed to know and more, including approaching all work with a real cheerfulness despite the looming pressures of timelines and budgets. They brought the on-screen whimsy of Shaun to the studio, and I was ecstatic to be there.
What other aspects of the DreamBIG! programme did you find helpful – how did they help you?
The DreamBig! programme also tackled lifestyle, and long-term aspects of financial welfare as a freelancer – this is particularly crucial at a time of arts cuts, labour disputes and industry cost pressures. David Thomas’ financial session refreshingly addressed how to track and shift around money during dry spells, and how to stay ‘thriving’ when out of work. Freelancing may still be classified as the path less travelled, but DreamBig! laid out a framework for how to make it very possible indeed. Shelley taught us self-advocacy in the big bad world of LinkedIn, of removing the shame in shameless promotion and keeping your name present in recruitment pools and online circles. Thanks to Shelley, Edi, Grivas, and the rest of the DreamBig! team, we were rarely left in the dark regarding what is often thought of as an obscure and unstable field.
What was your role?
Production assistant at Aardman Animations
How do you think programmes like DreamBIG help the industry?
I might never have set foot in the Aardman studio without DreamBig!, purely from feeling as though my chances were beyond slim, they were non-existent; many young creatives feel this way. Since finishing at Aardman in December 2024, I have moved to London and continued freelance theatre production work whilst on the hunt for more screen work in any genre – I want to try it all. Often, the start or continuation of someone’s career depends on one ‘yes’, and I am chuffed that DreamBig! was that ‘yes’ for me, and will be the ‘yes’ that gets many others off the ground, and into the studio.
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