Meet Patrick Butler | Freelance Motion Designer & Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Patrick Butler and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Patrick, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
Art is valuable. Beauty is valuable. “Starving artist” doesn’t have to be a thing. There are more opportunities than ever to build a career around creativity. People want beauty in their lives and they are willing to pay for it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In 2010 I moved to San Diego to attend a film school graduate program at John Paul the Great Catholic University. From there I got a job doing a lot of video production work and would occasionally use After Effects for graphics and animation. In 2016 I left my job to go full time as a freelancer and within the first few months I narrowed my focus to exclusively do motion design work. I really liked camera operation but overall, I just found production to be a more stressful and less fulfilling process for me. I prefer to sit down on the box and jam on design and animation. There is a nice immediate feedback loop when creating something in this way. I eventually took an animation course with the online school, School of Motion and that totally upped my game. Later I became a TA for that online school and my network has just been growing ever since. I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over these years is that doing work is tough but just making something, anything, is important. You never know who is going to see it or what it could end up turning into. You have to make a lot of bad work before you can start to see the fruits of it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I usually take people to Cabrillo national monument on Point Loma. It’s just a nice place to get beautiful views without having to do a ton of hiking or anything. There’s also the tide pools right there so depending on the tides that’s also a neat place to see. I feel like I’m on the edge of the world when I go there and to me it’s just a unique place. If they are up for it, surfing is really where it’s at. For me, that’s one of the primary reasons I don’t ever plan on moving away. Food, they have to have a California burrito. If you’ve never had french fries in a burrito you’re missing out. I don’t know why it isn’t standard in every American city. Specifically, I usually bring people to TJ’s Tacos in Escondido, where I live. The adobada at that place is amazing. If they are into beers I’d prob pick a handful of breweries to do some tasters.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I guess my biggest shoutout has to go to Joey Korenmen of School of Motion. The SoM community has been a huge part of why I am where I am today.

Website: www.prbmotion.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prbmotion/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-butler-84786632/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prbmotion