There are many roles in the industry for animation, and there are also full time options or freelance.Depending on the industry,we may find ourselves working either full time or freelance.

FILM AND TELEVISION

The most obvious industry and what gets most people to study animation,is film and television.Everyone dreams of working for companies like Disney,Pixar, Dream works or Sony or any other big studio,but most of the time they will scale up based on projects and outsource to freelancers.Most of the projects in film and television will probably require 3D animation nowadays,but there are still 2D roles out there.

For 2D ,will be working on different shots and one task for long time ,up to 8 months in the worst scenario,and sometimes you may work on shots that get cut.

the skill they need:

3D :MAYA and Houdini are the staple program

2D:Toonboom and TV paint

GAMES

This is more interesting as there are many kinds of animation and motion graphic techniques will be using depending on the type of games.According to Brogan,in her company,a game animator maybe animating pieces of UI on one game,or 2D character animation on another,or perhaps using 3D character.The animation is quite short form,and can be more technical,as they will need a little understanding of Unity or Unreal or any other game engine that is being used.

There are also cinematic animators which focus more on cut scenes or trailers.Which bits of animation you will do is short,you will work on a game for 1-5 years depending on the title.

the skill they need:

programs you will be require are more specialized, and will be either MAYA or Blender for 3D, and most likely Spine for 2D.

Be able to use a variety of programs is important and problem solving skills will going a long way as well,as will need to make animations that can work in a technical environment.

MARKETING

For nowadays,marketing this area is extremely vast,there are so many paths can go down here.Most of the projects are short form projects,so under a year,usually just a few months.It could be as simple as animating HTML banners to put on websites all the way to high end CGI Trailers.As Brogan work in marketing in her company,not on the games themselves.Usually the programs and workflows are chosen for what is suited for the project to get the best outcome in shortest amount of time.

the skills they need:

the more skills and experience you have in all kind of animation and programs,then the more jobs you will be able to take on.

Cinema 4D is extremely widely used for 3D, Blender is up and coming.

Maya is used mostly for high end trailers,but you won’t find it used on the daily.

Often 2D animation is done in After Effects.