Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Melissa Shim, Senior Animator at Santa Monica Studio. Read more about Melissa in this interview:

Hi Melissa! You are a Senior Animator at Santa Monica Studio, where you’ve worked on God of War. How does a typical workday look like for you when you are working on a project?

A typical workday for me often starts with speaking with the designers I’m working with. I like to find out what they’d like to work on for the day, week, or month, and prioritize my tasks accordingly. We will often have lengthy discussions about problems we want to solve, and what the best way to do that might be. Once some ideas are settled on, I will either block out the animations, or plan for a motion capture shoot, whichever is the quickest method in order to deliver the animations to the designers sooner. The faster we can prototype and have our work reviewed by leads or directors, the faster we can narrow down what will be fun for the player!

Before working at Santa Monica Studio you’ve already worked at several other Animator positions, like EA and IO Interactive. What is it that makes you want to keep working in the field of animation?

I find that animation is just such a great storytelling tool. It can do what live action can and can’t do. So for me, I just want to continue to improve my craft and contribute to projects that bring entertainment and joy to people.

What is something you would tell to your younger self when starting out as an Animator?

I’d probably tell my younger self to really be a champion for herself. You don’t get what you don’t ask for in most cases, so asking is better than not. I’d also tell her to have confidence that she has the skills to do the job and that those skills will only get stronger over time. And to also work on networking and good social skills in order to build authentic relationships with colleagues as the games industry is a lot smaller than you think!

Thanks for your time Melissa!

Melissa’s Links:

Melissa’s Website: http://www.melissashim.ca/
Melissa’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/slappadebass
Melissa’s Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/shimshady

WWW Feature by Anne Zarnecke