Jason Porter-Broadcast and Motion Graphics Designer

1. Can you briefly define your job to me?
Jason Porter is a motion graphics/animator for Mad Monkey, a boutique media production firm in Columbia, S.C. that specializes in commerical and interactive media. Right now he finished working on a commercial starring Lebron James. Since he works for a small agency he considers himself as a generalist--In the advertising world these are people who are multi-talented almost like the "Renaissance Man." In smaller boutiques they may have a title as motion graphics designer but they do multiple things such as video editing or art direction for a film project.
2. How did you get started in the business?
Porter watched animations and cartoons growing up,specifically Disney movies. He considers the Golden of Disney Animation(Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King etc..) inspired him to pursue a career in Animation. Porter pursued a Bachelor in Science and Arts in Animation at the Art Institute at California-San Francisco. Afterwards, he entered into the entertainment industry as a video game animator. Then once his wife entered into the University of South Carolina Medical School, he took his present job at Mad Monkey as a motion graphic designer. He said that working in a large corporation, people assigned to do one thing and that only, now that he is living in Columbia, he works for a smaller company where his title encompasses multiple skills.
3. How do you tell someone over you (your boss) that you can't accomplish an assigned task?
Porter said that sometimes you need to be good with everyone because you never when you are going to need help with something. For accomplishing a task porter said that it's okay to ask for help and to understand that everything is a learning experience.
4. Do you have any advice for a media student starting out?
Go to a school with a strong program that you are specifically interested in because some programs might have job connections for when you graduate. Be good to everyone because some of them might end up being your co-workers or your interviewers. As an animator he said he always tried to keep his personality in all his projects even if it was the director's vision. He said to have certain personality in all of your worker even if its for another person's vision. Also Porter said to a have a thick skin--know that your work is going to be critiqued. He also said that if a person wants to really get there foot into the film and media arts industry that they might have to go to a place that where the industry exists and is still growing, specifically--Get out of South Carolina.