Graduate Career Spotlight: Sofia Salt – Armaturist at LAIKA Studios
The Spotlight series looks at what our recent graduates have been up to since finishing their studies, gathering advice and ideas of potential pathways for emerging animators. This month, we spoke to Sofia Salt, who graduated from the Animation MA in 2020, and is currently working in Portland as an armaturist for LAIKA.
Hi Sofia! What have you been working on since graduation?
Right after graduating, I helped make some puppets for the undergrad final film “Trombones and cake” (though I’m not sure it was ever completed due to the lockdown). I then had a pandemic-induced pause to pretty much all my stop motion work, but in 2021 I was accepted into Laika’s internship program as a junior armaturist, and there I remain! It has been a great learning experience, and really interesting to work in such a big team. Throughout this time my MA film, Walkthrough, was also accepted into a few festivals, and won awards at Cinanima (2020) and Caminhos do Cinema Português (2021).
Where are you currently working and living?
I currently live and work near Portland, Oregon in the USA, for Laika. It was a big move, but it’s been fun to explore a new location!
What did you enjoy most about working on your latest project?
I’m really enjoying working on Laika’s upcoming film Wildwood, it has been so interesting working at a production this big, and I’m constantly leaning new techniques and about the industry as a whole. Both the timescale and the materials and machinery are very different from what I was used to, so it’s been really fun to see and learn the style of work, and how elaborate the puppets can become.
How important is collaboration to you and your work?
Personally, I really value a workshop/studio environment, and the social aspects of it, so it was always important for me to work in an area that had a more collective workstyle. It was one of the reasons I aimed at working at studios, and in stop motion in general, as I knew I didn’t want to work in an environment where I was shut alone in a room. I find having people I can consult or bounce ideas off of throughout the work day, or just be able to go peek at what they’re doing, makes work a lot more enjoyable to me, and keeps me motivated and inspired.
How did UWE help you prepare for your career in animation?
UWE was very important to my career, as previously I had little to no experience in animation, and it really gave me the space and tools to be able to explore the medium and find my niche. I was able to try out a lot of new techniques and was exposed to different ways and styles of making animation. Most importantly, I learned from and talked to other people in the animation industry, be they teachers, past and fellow students, as well as mentors and lecturers, who all gave me information, advice, and an idea of what to expect from the industry, and how to conduct myself within it. My mentor also helped advise me on getting my internship, and even the process of moving to a new country was made easier by the connections I had made, as one of my classmates, a good friend, also lived on the west coast.
Have you got any advice for our current Animation students?
Make use of all the resources UWE provides you with, and have fun with it. Learning new techniques in the workshops was essential to me, and even some of the projects I made just to test them out ended up as pieces I really like, as well as helped me create a diverse portfolio, understand timeframes, and understand my own leaning and work processes. The lectures on freelancing and more business-y areas were also very useful in at least giving me some preparation for the professional world, or at least a framework and vocabulary I could build from. Also, always ask questions when you have them, or even if you’re just stuck on a project, talking it out with someone can really help, and maybe even answer questions you didn’t know you had!
To keep up to date with Sofia’s work, you can follow her on instagram @sofiasalt_
