The second Animate OPEN exhibition call for entries and commission opportunity was recently announced by Animate Projects and QUAD. These are detailed separately below.

Animate OPEN is an international call for experimental single channel work that relates to the theme Parts & Labour: emphasising the craft – analogue and digital – of contemporary creative animation practice. Selected works will be presented in a gallery, in cinemas and online.

The Animate OPEN is for complete works by UK and international artists, animators and filmmakers, produced since January 2014.

Up to 20 works will be chosen for gallery exhibition at QUAD from 28 November 2015 – 24 January 2016, for online exhibition and for a cinema programme as part of Move It, a season of British and international animation, touring the UK in 2016.

Prizes up for grabs include a jury award of £1,500 and an audience prize of £750 will be selected by visitors to the exhibition at QUAD. Artist fees will be given for works included in the gallery exhibition and UK tour.

A small submission fee applies. For application details and more information, please visit here.

Deadline: 3 September

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The Parts & Labour commission call for proposals is for a UK based artist to make on-site and moving image work that employs animation, drawing and digital technologies, for exhibition in QUAD’s Extra Gallery Spaces in Derby and online. The commissioned work will be presented alongside, and reflect the themes of, the Animate OPEN: Parts & Labour, opening at QUAD on 28 November 2015.

The selected artist will be based in QUAD’s dedicated studio space, with access to QUAD facilities. The fee is £3000 inclusive of VAT plus £1000 towards material and production costs and £250 for delivery of a workshop and talk. There will be some additional support towards travel and accommodation. The artist will receive curatorial support from the commissioning partners and assistance with installation at QUAD from the gallery team.

For guidelines and to find out how to apply, please visit here.

Deadline: 22 July

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

My first job, as a teenager, was working as a waiter at the local hotel in my hometown, Carmarthen, in south Wales. Actually, all my ‘first five’ jobs would have been in ‘hospitality’ – waiting, pubs, chef-ing. I broke the record for breakfasts cooked in one session at the Little Chef, Nant-y-Caws. The ‘hospitality’ business is a lot of drudge of course, but a lot of fun too, and a key life lesson was honing the tact and diplomacy skills needed when dealing with awkward customers.

I left Wales to do Media Studies at the Polytechnic of Central London, after which I got my first ‘media’ job – a couple of days driving round central London picking up U-matic tapes from music companies for the world’s first ‘Video Jukebox’. That’s how old I am.

I went to see quite a few Soho production companies with a view to working as a runner, but, as now, all that was available was unpaid work, and I had to eat. So I survived doing bar and chef work for a couple of years.

I learned to type on a Government Job Training Scheme, and I was temping at the Royal Society of General Practitioners (everyone stopped for tea at 11am and 3pm), when I applied for a job as a PA to the Director of Riverside Studios, in West London. At the interview I was asked whether I thought a student film festival would be a good idea, and responded very enthusiastically. They’d secured sponsorship from BP for one, and offered me the job of co-ordinator of what became the BP Expo of Student Film and Video. So I really got my foot in the door through quite a bit of luck and being able to type (really fast). Plus charm and personality of course.

I did three festivals, and it was fantastic. I learned a huge amount – especially about film programming, from the late Ed Lewis, Riverside’s Cinema Director, and something of a legend, but also about staging events, marketing, sponsorship, etc. I got to go to California just to view and select films, and people I’ve continued to work with over the years.

I left BP Expo to work for my brother-in-law’s music management and publishing company. I lasted six months. He says I knew more about the music business when I started working for him than when I finished! But I did see a lot of bands in that time.

I then headed for the Film Department of the (then) Arts Council of Great Britain, working with David Curtis on the artists’ film and video side of the office. I’ve been very lucky with bosses – trusting, respectful people, who let me get on with things, including stuff we didn’t always agree on. Then again, I’ve worked with some very nasty people too.

I was at the Arts Council for 15 years (time flies..). The actual job changed over time, and I ended up as Head of Moving Image. They made the whole national office redundant in 2006. That’s one life experience I could have done without.

And now, instead of My First Five Jobs, I could be writing something called My Current Five Jobs. Half the time I work for Animate Projects, which I set up in 2007, and the other half, as part of the Film team at the British Council. I do consultancy stuff now and then, occasional visiting lectures, validation panels, programming; and I even get to make a film now and then.

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.