Wow Thanks For Responding! I Didnt Even Know What Testing Was Until I Read This And Im Defienetly Gonna

Wow thanks for responding! I didn’t even know what testing was until I read this and I’m defienetly gonna check out that Animator Guild thingy. Gracias for the knowledge

Hey! I’m an aspiring Storyboard artist and I was wondering how you got your job on The Owl House. Where can you apply for that kinda stuff? Did you have to cater your portfolio to be more ‘Disney’? I love your boards btw (especially the Grom ones)

Hiya! Thanks for reaching out! So, I had been working in the industry for about four/five years at WB, and a couple of my directors there had given my name to artist management at Disney TVA. TVA reached out to me to do a test for Owl House (a storyboard test is like they give you some model sheets, a few pages of script, and then you just sort of board what you want to based on the guidelines they’ve given you). I submitted it and I didn’t hear for over a month whether or not I had gotten the job. But I mainly have gotten most of my jobs through testing. There are sometimes open calls for testing; I know even Dana Terrace put it out there that they were testing for Owl House when it was first staffing up. A note though: Testing is hotly contested within the Animation community and amongst our Union members because sometimes it does require a lot of work that is usually unpaid and sometimes there isn’t a guarantee that they won’t take some of your work and use it without having ever paid you for it, and sometimes, when they’re testing a lot of people, you won’t even get the job. (Sidenote: Check out IATSE Local 839 The Animation Guild for animation resources too and getting connections! I know before the pandemic they had outreach for people looking to get into the industry, not sure if they’re still doing that but it’s worth looking into. Unions woo!) But honestly, and don’t read into my experience too much because there are lots of different ways to get into the industry, but my portfolio has never factored into any jobs I’ve gotten; it’s usually a matter of getting in and doing good work so that your directors/showrunners etc like you enough to recommend you to other productions. I started out as a revisionist because one of my teachers in college liked my boards, and when there was an opportunity, I got a job as a Storyboard Revisionist (the entry level position most Board artists go through) at WB TV Animation, and since then, I’ve gotten most storyboarding jobs through testing. Even to this day, after working in the industry for 7 years, I still get asked to test for things :T It’s a bit demoralizing, but sometimes it does come down to getting that first test and connections to recruiters and artist management. But I have heard of people with really amazing art online getting sought out through twitter and stuff, so things are definitely changing from when I was first trying to get my job (and that wasn’t even that long ago... gosh.. I’m old ToT.) So while it’s definitely good to have a portfolio in your back pocket that shows range and ability, for storyboarding, try reaching out to recruiters for opportunities to test if you want to give that a try. (But don’t over exert yourself for a test either! Taking care of yourself is important!) Ah, I don’t know if this helped at all! Sorry!

I only caught this on my second watch but

Look at hootys face

He looks genuinely sad. He’s expressing actual emotions. This caught me so off guard because we’ve only ever see him yelling or being obnoxious but here he looks like he wants to comfort Luz, that he feels sad for her

Spoilers for the Owl House!!

I’m gonna try and analyze this note to see who I think wrote it. First off, let’s go over what this tells us about the person who wrote it

1. They know of Luz but they don’t know her personally enough to know her name

2. They know where her mom lives

3. They know that Luz was going to a summer camp to learn about real world stuff. They likely know where that camp is because the letters had to be addressed

4. They know what mortgages are or at least know of the concept of mortgages, which I’m guessing is a human thing

5. The way that they write is stiff which leads me to asssume that they don’t know what a normal mother/daughter relationship is

6. They have a motivation to keep Luz in the Boiling Isles or at least not make her mom suspicious

So let’s go over the possible suspects

Eda

Eda has been to the human world and has opened her portal right next to Luz’s house before. However she’s a con artist and she’s good at it; she wouldn’t let something as obvious as misspelling Luz’s name slip. Plus she knows Luz so it seems unlikely that she’d not know how to spell her name. Another thing is that Eda was okay with Luz going back to the human world in the first episode. Whoever’s writing these notes has presumably been doing this since Luz came to the boiling isles.

King

He doesn’t want Luz to leave, it’s plausible that he wouldn’t spell her name right, and he wouldn’t know how to write from the perspective of a human mother/daughter relationship. But we’ve seen him write before and his handwriting’s different. Also in Really Small Problems it’s seems he’s begrudgingly acknowledged that Luz will leave.

Amity

Her handwriting is similar to that in the note and she wouldn’t want Luz to leave. But she doesn’t seem to know much about the human world and probably hasn’t been there before (this goes for everyone at Hexside). Plus she’s a top student and an avid reader, her writing wouldn’t be this stiff

Lilith

She doesn’t know Luz well and she’s not warm/emotional which would explain why the writing’s so emotionless. But she was surprised to see Luz and especially surprised to see a human, which leads me to think that she doesn’t have access to the human world.

The emperor

A mysterious figure we’ve only heard of in passing. If that beetle looking guy from the trailer actually is him, he doesn’t look like the type who would know how to write some emotional letter. He would probably have to power/means to go to the human world. The writing is in cursive which could be explained by his formality/status.

Now if Emperor Belos wrote the note what does that say about him

- he has been to the human world

- he’s familiar with Luz’s family and what they’re doing but not familiar enough to know Luz’s name first try.

- he has a reason to keep Luz in the Boiling Isles. This one is kinda weird because so far all Luz has done is disrupt the status quo by joining multiple tracks, breaking into the Conformitorium, using unconventional magic, etc... This could support the theory that he’s part/full human and Luz’s dad but idk

I also considered that Amity’s parent wrote it. It’d explain the similar handwriting (it feels deliberate tha we saw her handwriting in the same episode we saw the notes). Plus they have connections to the emperor so that could have some relation.

But if you have any theories leave them below

In light of recent events: damn I was way off but the actual episode was still really good

Grom prediction

Willow and Gus will go to Grom together as friends. Luz will have no one else to go with so she’ll go with Amity as a friend. Amity is like oh okay yeah we’re friends but she secretly likes Luz and debates confessing to her the whole night, writing out her feelings on a letter. They’ll have a whole scene at the Owl House where they pick out outfits, Amity will have her own thing she wears, Eda will be their chauffeur. At Grom Luz will hang out with Willow and Gus and Amity will be torn between maintaining her facade of popularity and hanging out with them. She keeps flip-flopping when Luz gets chosen for the Grom tiara. The whole Grom tiara thing is a gladiator type thing that the whole school watches (based on how they had a set up arena with weapons). Luz gets freaked out, Amity helps her, we see Amity’s biggest fear. They beat it and then the scene in the hallway happens. They’re talking about how weird what just happened was. Amity is about to tell Luz something when Luz gets texted by her mom. She walks away for a second and Amity puts away/tears up her note out of embarrassment. Episode ends with her hanging out with Luz and the gang.

A quote from the veto competition

Nicole: Cody likes his grapes

Nicole: He does, he does like his grapes

Luz definitely has ADHD or some kind of neurodivergency. I have a whole post typed up about this but I keep putting off posting it