Letters of Interest
Now, following from last week's lesson of cover letters, we looked at the alternative to them being letters of interest. Now, while letters of interest are similar to cover letters as in they're letters that are sent to employers along with CVs; but while a cover letter is for a open job position, a letter of interest is for when a person writes to a company that might not have any advertisements for open job positions in hope of being hired by said companies. This is usually for experience work in small roles such as a runner, in order get your feet into the industry for other companies to notice and hire you for new jobs in the future; but there can be a chance for the company to enjoy having a person that they keep them with the company for a while longer.
The task for this week was to once again write two examples of a letter of interest; focusing on the idea of you writing to a studio that has inspired you and your work as if they would read it and be interested in hiring you for a small runner role. Basically, instead of focusing on your skills, focus more on how much the studio means to you and how much working with them would mean to you.
Letter 1;
Illumination
(Formerly Illumination Entertainment)
Now, for my first studio to write my letter of interest to, I picked out my favourite current studio and my number one choice for my dream studio and that would be Illumination. Founded in 2007 by Chris Meledandri, the animation studio well known for the Despicable Me series, I love this studio and their work for their use of colours, their shapely character designs and how the studio has made a major impact in theatre length animations with their small budgets but great box office success.
So, for my letter, I wrote paragraphs about how I would like to work at their studio since a lot of their best qualities are in departments that I want to specialise in when in the animation industry; i.e: character designing and storyboarding. As well as how I have a personal connection to their studio and how much working at their studio would mean to me.
So, I really think this letter was a great first attempt for a letter of interest.
Letter 2;
PIXAR STUDIOS
And so, in reference to my original first pick in animation studios, the second studio I wrote to was Pixar Animation studios. Originally founded in 1986, this award winning studio is naturally one of the major studios (alongside it's parent company, Walt Disney) many aspiring animators wish to work at; so I also wrote a letter to this famous studio.
While this letter came out slightly shorter than my previous one, I mainly kept my focus on my desire to work part time there as a preproduction artist and listing down some of my main qualities as a worker for a studio; as well as mentioning my previous my work in volunteering with direct experience of a typical PIXAR film which can help the studio.
Overall, I feel like this letter is just as good as my previous letter so I hope these two examples can help me find work in the future; once I'm out there in the industry after finishing my year at university.
