One of the hardest questions for a lot of people in the animation world is the simplest: what do you do?

The endless skill-set involved in animation means you can apply yourself to almost any job. I’ve at various times been a Designer, Concept Artist, Animator, Director, Writer, Sound Designer and Editor. I’ve always been happy in every role, the only reason I spend so much time film-making is that there isn’t another Director who would do the same ideas. Nonetheless, I meet a lot of other Directors who have a different interpretation of the role, and it seems to have lost much of it’s original meaning as Film Maker.

It used to be perfectly acceptable to call oneself an Animator if you made films, but then these individuals started using Director to distinguish themselves from the production line Animator. It seems the problem now is that certain Directors need to distinguish themselves from the production line Director, and there simply is no definition available.

Today, Director is such an umbrella term it ceases to describe anything meaningful. Many Animators, Illustrators and Designers try on the Director gloves, this can sometimes be a great thing, but it nevertheless changes the definition slightly, terms like ‘animator/director’ or ‘director/designer’ have become quite common in the last 5 years. There is also a greater number of production companies than ever before, with rosters changing like the weather. Whatever status and cachet the term used to carry is undoubtedly fading. In London the presumption of a Director is that he or she pitches their heart out and barely gets by, in Berlin it’s that they work in a cafe.

As ‘Director’ is losing it’s status, it’s also losing it’s meaning of Film Maker entirely. Many working Directors are now presumed to be for hire. Someone to follow the ideas, demands and opinions of someone else, to essentially provide a service rather than follow a creative vision. Most Director’s websites are filled with things they have done for others, while their actual creativity is sidelined as “personal projects”. With respect to the many Directors who subscribe to this blog, I think few would disagree that most Agency Creatives and Promo Commissioners see Animation Directors as no more than elevated Animators, technicians who can translate a bunch of pictures from Google Image Search into some kind of motion. There are exceptions of course, but this seems to be the prevalent trend.

At the same time as all of this, the way animation is created is changing drastically. Is the term Director even appropriate?

In live-action there is a massive amount of coordination necessary, it makes sense to have someone in charge, a person to direct the actions of others. Of course, creativity can be just as involved, but the term Director essentially means supervisor. In smaller animation companies the creative process is usually more shared, a Director will often be involved in everything from design to animation to production. From my experience I don’t even think it’s fair to call yourself a Director when others are so involved creatively. Could another term take it’s place?

In the 1950’s the leap in film-making technology lead to Directors being able to work outside of the studio system, some created works of such distinct and pure vision that they became known as Auteurs, though the term never cought on. French Director Robert Bresson called himself a Cinematographer, he made a great effort to credit himself this way and to redefine the concept of a Director. Still, look at his IMDB, he’s a Director. In animation it’s now possible for individuals to create works of cinema start to finish entirely. The term ‘Director’ is obviously irrelevant in this case, unless you count directing your own conscious mind. Would Creator be more fitting? Film Artist? Aesthetic Orchestrator? As of yet nothing else has stuck, though it seems a new definition is needed.

I don’t have an answer to this problem, any effort at redefining the term will always fight against the classification system in place since the dawn of cinema. But anyway, back to my original question:

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