On May 23, TAG’s annual Portfolio Review Day paired members with fledgling artists from across the country—and beyond. Hello, Australia and Japan! It’s a notable success for a project that its co-founder Crystal Kan jokingly dubbed the “Jake and Crystal Chaos Committee.” Jake being her fellow storyboard artist at Nickelodeon at that time, Jake Hollander, Kan’s partner in organizing crime.
Back in 2018, Kan started thinking about the cost of starting out in animation, which led her to ask: “How can we make animation more equitable? How can we make it more diverse? If you think about it, who has the privilege to get into animation? It’s someone who can afford art school. It’s someone who has the time and the money… and the privilege to even think that art is something they can do.”
One element especially on her mind was the portfolio review. These reviews cost money, in the form of a fee or admission to a conference or expo where the reviews are held. Kan and Hollander started talking about the need for free reviews. “And we were like, why don’t we just do it? Why don’t we try to figure out a way to use the resources of our Union to provide a resource for [artists] who will eventually be future Guild members? How can we help the most people, and how can we help them help us, and therefore all boats rise?”
“Why don’t we try to figure out a way to use the resources of our Union to provide a resource for [artists] who will eventually be future Guild members? How can we help the most people, and how can we help them help us, and therefore all boats rise?” —Crystal Kan
Brimming with enthusiasm, the Chaos Committee drafted a plan and took it to TAG’s Executive Board. But the board didn’t feel the Guild was ready at the time to take on this major project. That year, Kan confides, a small park by CTN served as the locale for more than a few rogue reviews.
Then 2019 rolled around, and Kan and Hollander tried again. “We really wanted to make it more formalized with the actual backing of the Union,” says Kan. The pieces fell into place, and the first official Portfolio Review Day occurred in May with approximately 180 submissions.
One of those submissions came from Caroline Chiou, who submitted again in 2020 and returned in 2021 as a reviewer. The reviews, she says, taught her how to make her portfolio better: “This industry is all about specialization. When you’re trying to get your first job, it’s better to have a really high-quality portfolio in one discipline than a mediocre generalist portfolio because you’ve spread yourself too thin. Don’t be afraid to cut work from your portfolio either. Consistent quality is key, and you will be judged by your weakest piece.”
But it wasn’t just the critiques that were helpful. “It was really cool getting to meet working artists and learning more about the specifics of the job and what people are looking for,” she says. Chiou is currently working as a background designer on Pantheon at Titmouse, and she adds, “I wouldn’t have broken into the industry without the help of many generous artists taking the time to review my work.”
With 2019 a clear success, 2020 was planned. “I sent out a notification in March,” Kan says. “I wasn’t really thinking about Coronavirus, although it was in the back of my brain. Of course in the middle of the submission period, we go into lockdown, and [we wondered], will we even be able to do this?”
The organizers quickly pivoted, investigating the possibilities of the Guild’s new Zoom subscription. “After a little bit of quick research and learning about breakout rooms,” Kan says, “we realized that Zoom was possibly the most perfect tool that we could use at the time.”
The main Zoom room was treated like a waiting room, where artists “hung out” until they were called into a breakout room. These individual breakout rooms were private. “No one else watching,” Kan explains. “You don’t have to be afraid of judgmental people. You don’t have to be vulnerable in that sense.”
This was useful because, while the reviews serve a practical purpose, they’re also intended to be a form of support. A visual development artist and concept designer, industry veteran Gary Montalbano has reviewed in numerous categories for all three years, and he feels one of the main goals is “encouragement and to build confidence, not out of falsehoods but pointing out strengths. That and pinpointing what the reviewee’s true passion is within the art field. No piece of art will ever be perfect, so focus on helping and guiding the individual so they can live up to their goals and dreams.”
Montalbano also notes: “The role of mentor and apprentice has unfortunately diminished quite a bit in the animation/movie industry over the last 20-30 years.”
“So why don’t we try to bridge that connection between our older membership … and our future membership?” Kan adds.
Because of the uncertainties surrounding the start of the pandemic, only 100 reviewees participated in 2020, but with everyone getting the hang of communicating by video, 2021 submissions skyrocketed. It also helped that Kan and Hollander were now working with the event’s new POC Committee, which reached out to groups like Black N’ Animated and Rise Up Animation.
While Zoom has allowed artists from outside the L.A. area to participate, Kan hopes to see a return to in-person reviews next year. “I really do think there’s a value to a face-to-face connection,” she says. Of course,
in her ideal world, it would be held twice a year—once in person and once virtually.
As for Kan’s thoughts now that she has her third year under her belt, she realizes, “I was just breaking down the barriers that I myself experienced… If I think about it, I went to a no-name school, I’m a minority, I had to move from New Jersey to get here. If I didn’t have the privilege of having parents who were able to work their way up to a middle-class level of prosperity, I might not have had the job that I have. [Doing these reviews is] paying respect to the opportunity that was given to me because of their hard work.”
Just as serving as reviewers allows TAG members to pass on the tradition of guiding the next generation into the animation industry.
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