Full Sail Stories

“Animation is fun, and it’s something that I didn’t think I’d end up doing as a career,” says James Lane. “I always thought that art was a hobby, and now [my job] almost feels like I’m playing games. I'm very fortunate in that respect.”

The Computer Animation grad is having a blast working as a freelance Animation Supervisor and Lead Animator at Digital Domain, a visual effects, animation, and production company. He’s helped animate sequences and led animation teams for films like Captain America: Brave New World, A Minecraft Movie, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, among others. Whether he’s acting as a team lead or animating scenes himself, James enjoys the process from start to finish.

After Digital Domain receives a sequence from a film, James’ team gets to work on the animation needs for the individual shots. They mostly work on character animation: adding fully animated characters into a scene, making sure that the characters’ facial and body movements match the live-action sequences James’ team has received, animating elements of live-action characters, and more.

“We'll take shots from the movie and replace actors [with animated characters] or introduce computer-generated imagery to make it look as if the other actors are interacting with the characters that we're animating. Or if we’re working on live-action characters, we help them do things that they can't do on a film set, like fly or do magic,” James says.

James and his team have worked their own magic on several sequences from recent releases. For Captain America: Brave New World, they animated a scene where airplanes were flying around Captain America and Falcon as they tried to stop a world war that was happening above the celestial island from Marvel’s Eternals. James had an active leadership role on the animation teams for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He also did a bit of animation on A Minecraft Movie, bringing fighting golems and pigs to life during some of the film’s final shots.

When James works as an Animation Supervisor (like he did for Captain America: Brave New World), he checks out animation dailies in the morning, gives notes to the animators, and touches base with the visual effects supervisor. His team presents the animations they’ve been working on for feedback before they submit it to the client for final approval, then James spends the rest of his day in meetings and helping the animators. His job is a little different when he’s working as a Lead Animator – he’s currently in that role for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and he has 13 animators working under him.

“My favorite part of my job is running the team,” James shares. “I like helping people. I remember what it was like when I was starting out. It's very confusing. It's daunting. It's overwhelming at times. You have that imposter syndrome: ‘Do I even belong here? I just want to do well, so I can come back.’ I like smoothing that out for people. I like having them be comfortable, so they only have to focus on animation and not worry about anything else during the day.”

James has also had a few opportunities to celebrate his accomplishments outside of the office: He was invited to the premiere of Captain America: Brave New World and got to walk the red carpet. But the day-to-day work that he does is still what excites him the most.

“It's one of those ‘happy to be here and do what I can [situations]’ because at the end of the day, [this type of work] is what we all dreamed about doing in the first place.”