ANIM Alumni Interviews: Louisa Lawler

Louisa Lawler graduated from SCAD in 2018 with a B.F.A. in Animation. Her senior film, The Good, the Bad & the Puppy has been featured in several film festivals, including the Fort Myers Film Festival (2019), Atlanta Film Festival (2019) & the Twin Cities Film Festival (2018). She currently resides in California, teaching after school art classes to children. To see more of her work, you can go to louisalawler.com.

Where are you from? Where are you currently working?

I’m originally from Northfield, Minnesota, but I’ve been living in Los Angeles since last August. Currently I’m working as a bartender and teaching after school art classes to kids!

How did you find out about SCAD, and why did you decide to go?

When I looked up schools that offered 2D Animation programs, SCAD definitely stuck out. I was impressed by the student work I saw online, and when I went for a visit I thought Savannah was a gorgeous place to live. It ended up being the only place I applied, and I was accepted in something like October of my senior year, so I didn’t have to worry about my college search after that!

When did you graduate, and what was your experience like in your first few months after graduation?

I graduated in June of 2018. The first months after that, things were pretty nebulous! I didn’t have any job offers or internships right out of school so I went home, found a part-time job and started making plans to move to California at the end of the summer.

Halfway through the summer I was interviewed and spent a month doing paid tests for a company I thought might hire me, but eventually that fell through. Still it was good experience, I was paid for my time, and it was professional experience I could put on my resume!

After that I doubled down on my plans to move to California. I was very lucky to find an apartment and a part-time job I enjoy very quickly, which is rare! It was definitely an adjustment to move all the way across the country, and to be in charge of my own artistic progression, but I think I’ve done some of my best work since the move.

How did SCAD contribute to your success & what resources do you recommend others take advantage of?

You’ll hear this a million times, but the connections I made at SCAD have been (and continue to be) one of the most valuable things I gained from my four years there. And it’s not just because networking is important in animation (it is!) but it’s the people you trust and respect that are going to make your work better. Whether that’s helping you brainstorm a solution to a problem, or taking your mind off something stressful with their good company, making connections with your classmates is so important!

Has the industry surprised you at all? How and why?

There are lots of animation professionals in LA who have met with me for coffee, just because they heard I was new in town! There are so many wonderful friendly people to meet if you just reach out to them and say hello.

Is there anything you wish you took advantage of/did at SCAD that you think others should?

If an industry professional comes in, and they have your dream job, find an opportunity to speak to them! SCAD brings in so many fascinating people you wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to speak to, don’t be afraid to pick their brain after a presentation, or connect with them on LinkedIn to ask some questions.

Also, read those emails SCAD sends you about upcoming events and write down the ones that interest you. I can’t count the number of times I felt artistically reinvigorated after going to a panel discussion or picking up some student work at the Illustration Expo. There’s so much to see and do in Savannah, and so much of it is free for students, so get out there!

Any advice for students when it comes to their educational career or their career in the industry?

Your dream job will probably change a few times throughout your SCAD career, and that’s okay! Right now I’m really interested in background design for animation, but I previously thought I wanted to do storyboards, puppeted animation, even motion media for a while! So take classes that interest you, branch out and take a class you know nothing about with a teacher you love, maybe go to a club for a different major. The sooner you try out new things the sooner you’ll find what you love to do! And even if you don’t realize what you really want to do until your last day of school, it’s never too late to go in a different direction. SCAD gave me a great foundation that I could carry with me as my interests changed.

What aspects of your student film do you believe allowed it to succeed?

There were several things that I think helped my film succeed, most importantly organization and team work. As director, I tried to make a big deal of holding weekly crew meetings and getting to know everyone personally. I wanted to make my crew feel like they could speak to me freely about any issues they were having, big or small! I also had a few friends working on the film who were my “core team” ; they knew the film about as well as I did and it was great to be able to bounce ideas off of them.

I also spent a lot of extra time making spreadsheets, setting up shots for my crew, and posting in our film facebook group. Taking the time to organize things up front saved me a lot of time putting out fires later on.

I think one other big thing that helped me succeed was watching what other directors had done before me. I was lucky to work on a senior film when I was a sophomore, and it taught me so much about the level of organization and quality I could strive for.

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