Personal and Professional Practice : Volunteering at Manchester Animation Festival (Go Yellowshirts)

In november i got the oppertunity to work as a volunteer at MAF. I was there as a digital volunteer, meaning as well as greeting people at the door and around the HOME building, i was also tasked with photographing people around the festival. There was a multitude of reasons for me choosing to do this, so i'm going to put them in a good old bullet point format for you all to easily understand my experience:
- Got to go to MAF for free
despite being quite busy and not seeing all i wanted to see, i still got the chance to experience and enjoy the festival and some of the shown animations. I shall make another seperate post about this.
- Made some good Contacts
Though i feel i wasn't as professional as i could have been i still made some good contacts through MAF. Most of these were other volunteers and are simple sat as facebook friends at the moment, but the fact that the inital contact has been made means that i have a good chance for collaberation in the future.
- Helped me with my professional confidence
Having only worked as a laborour I really had no idea how to handle a roll that needed me to talk to people, be a leader and really maintain my profesionality for a long period of time. MAF really helped me get an understanding of how to talk to people as if i were in a shop or bar or something.
- Gave me more experience at working with strangers
Animators are incredibly odd. Meaning that sometimes they can be difficult to be around and/or work with, however MAF helped give me practice and showed that i have to ability to work with festival goers regardless of if they are a bit difficult or not
- Gave me an oppertunity to use my creative abilities as part of a job
Apart from the informal "i have a friend who has a job for you for £50"i have never done any kind of professional artist work, so, despite it being photography, which is a skill i feel i dont really need to develop much as an animator, it was nice to finally have a professional job that revolves around my creative skills. I still need to work on my own confidence and positivity in my work, but otherwise i was proud to have some photographs up on a website, like a proper professional.
- Helped me understand the work that goes in to organising a festival
I've had a hand in organising shows for college and school in the past, but this gave me a real eye opener for the kinds of things that need to be organised for a festival, which has been an idea of mine in the past to get more people in to animation, not any time soon but potentially further down the road of my career.
- Made me realise how much foot blisters hurt
it goes without saying, walking from home to leeds station, then from the station to the festival, then back again after a full day of running around takes its toll.

I was incredibly nervous, which took its toll, i didn't eat the the first day, and i was too ill to come in the second day, and i have beat myself up a little for this, however i do feel like i would be more prepared for another job like this in the future. And looking back it was an extremely fun experience. I will definitly be applying to do it again next year!