If you don't know who Casey McDermott is, he's an animator for Blizzard Entertainment (n division of Activision). You may be familiar with animated cinematics for World of Warcraft and Overwatch. These were done by Casey McDermott. Here is some of his work
Casey was giving a talk at Gnomon School of VFX and Animation for Film and Games
He had a lot of good things to say about technical things about the field including what work is actually like, the difference between illustration, animation, and a 3d pipeline. He also had a lot of really good things to say for motivation and inspiration in the field.
I really enjoyed all of it because it was very informative. The things I didn't know. He really informed on things no one had been telling us. I mean, I'm sure many of us has talked to people in the field or read from their reddit posts or even watched them give talks on the subject. However, I had the chance to talk one-on-one with Casey and ask my own questions which gave me really personal insight into the field. The things I didn't know!
Again, he was also very positive, supportive, and encouraging. He gave some very inspirational suggestions using quotes. To generalize what he was saying, "Hard work wins every time ." and "Fear and doubt will hold you back." Casey has a history in digital media of coming from basically nothing. He had zero experience getting into Gnomon. Now Gnomon isn't like any school that you can get into with good grades. Gnomon requires a skills and Casey had none. He still doesn't know how he made it into a school that selects 24 of 600 candidates a year. Once he got in, he was grateful and what he did with that gratitude is he worked and worked. We all know what work is like, but this guy worked until his brain was jello. The point is he got where he is by working so hard that he eventually became the best animator there is out there.
The field is very saturated, but what separates one person from the crowd is hard work. The hardest working will get noticed because they eventually become the best. People that already have experience are laxidasical and become complacent in their work. They fall through and do not move up.
I met him too!!