For me, I started in a small indie studio. they only hired people straight out of school, so everyone was junior. I was the only animator for a long time, so i wasn't learning as much as i wanted or needed to get into AAA. I started taking online classes at night to imrpove my skills and learn from industry vets. I took…
In my experience (and Google hangout friends), all it came down to was portfolio. Nothing else. I had an art test for Blizzard before I finished college and failed the art test. Ended up working on my portfolio almost every day after work and ended up at Treyarch about a year later without having any contacts there.…