I had considered bringing the laptop even before I knew I would be working on my reel on the plane. Since I arrived I've made corrections to my reel, burned DVDs, updated my site, updated my resume, added a shot list, and emailed my resume to a recruiter. This thing is killing my neck and shoulders as I carry it mile after mile in my backpack, but I don't know what I would have done without it. I learn something every day about how I can improve my site and/or my reel and if I hadn't been able to act on those things immediately it would have driven me nuts.
So the job fair wraps up tomorrow and it's been kind of a weird experience. Yesterday I went from booth to booth leaving reels for those who would take them and gathering information from the rest. Of course Pixar's not taking reels, they say "apply online." Yeah, right. I left a reel at Digital Domain (The Mummy), dropped one off at Blue Sky (Horton Hears a Who), left one at O-mation (they do some stuff for Nickelodeon), and then actually sat down with someone at Nickelodeon who looked at my reel right then and there. They're looking for lighters. He liked my lighting and wants his lighting guy to look at my reel, but he's in India for 2 weeks so I have to apply online and then he'll flag my application for this other guy to look at. That's the most encouraging thing that happened on the first day, and it happened early so that pretty much gave me the confidence to go on.
I had two discussions yesterday that were kind of interesting. I went by Rhythm & Hues (Incredible Hulk) and told them what I was looking for and what my experience was. I'm in a weird position because since I'm out of school I can't get an internship, but at the same time I don't have experience doing actual shot work and most of them will only hire an intern or someone with industry experience. So this guy at R&H tells me I would be a good fit for their apprenticeship program. They pay for your travel out there, they pay you while you're there and they pay room and board while you're there. A lighting apprenticeship lasts about four weeks and they hire 50%-75% of their apprentices. Sounded like something worth looking at.
I had another interesting conversation with a girl at Sony Imageworks (Monster House) who said I would start there in the render pipeline, especially with my programming experience, and then work my way out into lighting. She said that's a common path for lighters and it really didn't surprise me at all since I don't even have so much as an internship under my belt. Apparently Sony hires directly from its own render department all the time, you just have to get in there, get to know people and make a name for yourself. I can do that.
So I figured that was it for yesterday until I was walking to the animation festival and saw a booth in the lobby all by itself. It had a giant panda next to it. It was Dreamworks (Kung Fu Panda) and I asked them why they were out there all alone. They told me they were just directing people to their recruiting suite upstairs and if you had a reel they encouraged you to go up there. So I did. Man, they had a setup. Life-size graphics from the movies they've done, couches, even a receptionist. I gave them my stuff and they told me they'd be looking at it during the week and then contacting people for interviews in the next couple of days. Wow, ok, I'll give that a shot for sure.
So last night ReelFx and the Viz Lab had a joint happy hour in the parking lot across from the convention center. This is what I was really looking forward to, and Margaret had told me she would introduce me to David Parrish, who is a former Vizzer and was looking for people. I'm not sure what Margaret's title is exactly but she's basically the glue that holds the lab together. She organizes everything, she knows the recruiters, she knows it all. So she introduced me and I gave him my reel and he said, "Have I seen this before?" So I said, "Maybe, I gave one to Tim a few months ago at a Short Guys meeting." He then told me that they don't have any openings for lighters so they might not be able to squeeze me in this week. Huh. Ok. That was a bust.
So Margaret's telling me how great I look and I tell her that I was dressed up to do the job fair thing. She says, oh don't do that anymore. We have contacts, I'll introduce you. So I caught her at the A&M exhibit this morning and she took me around. We went to Pixar first, where she introduced me to a guy who came through the lab after me and is now a shader writer. Then Keith comes by. Keith and I were there at the same time. This is all looking encouraging for about a minute until they tell me that they hire interns or people with industry experience and that's it, period. But oh yeah, I'm doing the right thing working on my own and I should keep doing it. Really? Because it doesn't sound like it's going to make a difference because I can't be an intern and I still don't have experience. But at least I got some confirmation that I was on the right track, and I still believe one of these days it's going to pay off. I have to believe that. Besides the fact that I'm happier now than I've been in years, too many things have magically fallen into place since I made the decision to go back into cg. That's not a coincidence. And the visit wasn't exactly a bust, I found out something from Keith that I didn't know before, and Margaret said she had never heard it either. They like to see work other than cg on a lighting reel, such as photography. I couldn't get to my laptop fast enough after he said that. I just happened to have the digital photos I took in Cisco a few years ago and they're the best examples of creative lighting I have anywhere. I had those posted on my site within a couple of hours.
So then Margaret takes me back by the Rhythm & Hues booth and introduces me to Ruth. I like Ruth. Ruth is very cool. She knows the company I used to work for doing flight sim and she knows what kind of work I was doing. She says, you would be great in the render pipeline. So here's that pipeline thing again. It's still not a surprising response to me, I know plenty of people who had to pay their dues there. And once again, it's a common starting point for lighters. But she loves that I have all that programming experience and seems really excited about looking at my resume and my work. So I tell her I dropped it off the day before and they marked it for an apprenticeship. She gets this look on her face. "Ok, it's going to get sorted wrong. I'm going to take you out of there. Can you email me tonight?" Yes. So she writes down her info and tells me to send her my resume. I had it to her after lunch. You know why? BECAUSE I BROUGHT THE LAPTOP.
I started to wander around after that and found the ILM booth. They were taking reels. Interesting... Pixar and Imageworks weren't taking them (can you imagine how many DVDs they'd be hauling back to their hotel rooms?), but just as many people want to work on Star Wars and Lucasfilm is actually taking reels and looking at them. How nice of them. So I left them one. And that was the end of my job search for today.
Originally I had followed the SIGGRAPH job fair path, which took you through creating a CreativeHeads.net profile and looking at job postings through that system. And that system said who was going to be at the job fair and who wouldn't. Well forget that, it's only a small slice of what's really happening here. The big studios had booths in the exhibition already and they handed out recruiting info and those who were interested collected reels. They don't have to go through CreativeHeads.net, they have their own systems, they don't need the help of a job search site. This is something I thought might be a possibility in the beginning but wasn't sure, so that's why I burned so many DVDs. Glad I did. Because the big ones are definitely here and I'm glad I didn't rely completely on what SIGGRAPH was telling me.
I have to say that overall I've been pleasantly surprised with the response I've been getting. No one has said, "You can't do this." Even Pixar said basically I may have to do something else first, maybe work somewhere else first, but they didn't just say no, you missed your window. What's really encouraging is that they all seem to be actively hiring. And the biggest surprise of all to me is the fact that all that boring military work I did for four years just might be my ticket in the door. I knew it would help, but I didn't know it would help that much. So we'll see over the next couple of weeks if I hear from anyone.
You know what scares me? Los Angeles.
So the job fair wraps up tomorrow and it's been kind of a weird experience. Yesterday I went from booth to booth leaving reels for those who would take them and gathering information from the rest. Of course Pixar's not taking reels, they say "apply online." Yeah, right. I left a reel at Digital Domain (The Mummy), dropped one off at Blue Sky (Horton Hears a Who), left one at O-mation (they do some stuff for Nickelodeon), and then actually sat down with someone at Nickelodeon who looked at my reel right then and there. They're looking for lighters. He liked my lighting and wants his lighting guy to look at my reel, but he's in India for 2 weeks so I have to apply online and then he'll flag my application for this other guy to look at. That's the most encouraging thing that happened on the first day, and it happened early so that pretty much gave me the confidence to go on.
I had two discussions yesterday that were kind of interesting. I went by Rhythm & Hues (Incredible Hulk) and told them what I was looking for and what my experience was. I'm in a weird position because since I'm out of school I can't get an internship, but at the same time I don't have experience doing actual shot work and most of them will only hire an intern or someone with industry experience. So this guy at R&H tells me I would be a good fit for their apprenticeship program. They pay for your travel out there, they pay you while you're there and they pay room and board while you're there. A lighting apprenticeship lasts about four weeks and they hire 50%-75% of their apprentices. Sounded like something worth looking at.
I had another interesting conversation with a girl at Sony Imageworks (Monster House) who said I would start there in the render pipeline, especially with my programming experience, and then work my way out into lighting. She said that's a common path for lighters and it really didn't surprise me at all since I don't even have so much as an internship under my belt. Apparently Sony hires directly from its own render department all the time, you just have to get in there, get to know people and make a name for yourself. I can do that.
So I figured that was it for yesterday until I was walking to the animation festival and saw a booth in the lobby all by itself. It had a giant panda next to it. It was Dreamworks (Kung Fu Panda) and I asked them why they were out there all alone. They told me they were just directing people to their recruiting suite upstairs and if you had a reel they encouraged you to go up there. So I did. Man, they had a setup. Life-size graphics from the movies they've done, couches, even a receptionist. I gave them my stuff and they told me they'd be looking at it during the week and then contacting people for interviews in the next couple of days. Wow, ok, I'll give that a shot for sure.
So last night ReelFx and the Viz Lab had a joint happy hour in the parking lot across from the convention center. This is what I was really looking forward to, and Margaret had told me she would introduce me to David Parrish, who is a former Vizzer and was looking for people. I'm not sure what Margaret's title is exactly but she's basically the glue that holds the lab together. She organizes everything, she knows the recruiters, she knows it all. So she introduced me and I gave him my reel and he said, "Have I seen this before?" So I said, "Maybe, I gave one to Tim a few months ago at a Short Guys meeting." He then told me that they don't have any openings for lighters so they might not be able to squeeze me in this week. Huh. Ok. That was a bust.
So Margaret's telling me how great I look and I tell her that I was dressed up to do the job fair thing. She says, oh don't do that anymore. We have contacts, I'll introduce you. So I caught her at the A&M exhibit this morning and she took me around. We went to Pixar first, where she introduced me to a guy who came through the lab after me and is now a shader writer. Then Keith comes by. Keith and I were there at the same time. This is all looking encouraging for about a minute until they tell me that they hire interns or people with industry experience and that's it, period. But oh yeah, I'm doing the right thing working on my own and I should keep doing it. Really? Because it doesn't sound like it's going to make a difference because I can't be an intern and I still don't have experience. But at least I got some confirmation that I was on the right track, and I still believe one of these days it's going to pay off. I have to believe that. Besides the fact that I'm happier now than I've been in years, too many things have magically fallen into place since I made the decision to go back into cg. That's not a coincidence. And the visit wasn't exactly a bust, I found out something from Keith that I didn't know before, and Margaret said she had never heard it either. They like to see work other than cg on a lighting reel, such as photography. I couldn't get to my laptop fast enough after he said that. I just happened to have the digital photos I took in Cisco a few years ago and they're the best examples of creative lighting I have anywhere. I had those posted on my site within a couple of hours.
So then Margaret takes me back by the Rhythm & Hues booth and introduces me to Ruth. I like Ruth. Ruth is very cool. She knows the company I used to work for doing flight sim and she knows what kind of work I was doing. She says, you would be great in the render pipeline. So here's that pipeline thing again. It's still not a surprising response to me, I know plenty of people who had to pay their dues there. And once again, it's a common starting point for lighters. But she loves that I have all that programming experience and seems really excited about looking at my resume and my work. So I tell her I dropped it off the day before and they marked it for an apprenticeship. She gets this look on her face. "Ok, it's going to get sorted wrong. I'm going to take you out of there. Can you email me tonight?" Yes. So she writes down her info and tells me to send her my resume. I had it to her after lunch. You know why? BECAUSE I BROUGHT THE LAPTOP.
I started to wander around after that and found the ILM booth. They were taking reels. Interesting... Pixar and Imageworks weren't taking them (can you imagine how many DVDs they'd be hauling back to their hotel rooms?), but just as many people want to work on Star Wars and Lucasfilm is actually taking reels and looking at them. How nice of them. So I left them one. And that was the end of my job search for today.
Originally I had followed the SIGGRAPH job fair path, which took you through creating a CreativeHeads.net profile and looking at job postings through that system. And that system said who was going to be at the job fair and who wouldn't. Well forget that, it's only a small slice of what's really happening here. The big studios had booths in the exhibition already and they handed out recruiting info and those who were interested collected reels. They don't have to go through CreativeHeads.net, they have their own systems, they don't need the help of a job search site. This is something I thought might be a possibility in the beginning but wasn't sure, so that's why I burned so many DVDs. Glad I did. Because the big ones are definitely here and I'm glad I didn't rely completely on what SIGGRAPH was telling me.
I have to say that overall I've been pleasantly surprised with the response I've been getting. No one has said, "You can't do this." Even Pixar said basically I may have to do something else first, maybe work somewhere else first, but they didn't just say no, you missed your window. What's really encouraging is that they all seem to be actively hiring. And the biggest surprise of all to me is the fact that all that boring military work I did for four years just might be my ticket in the door. I knew it would help, but I didn't know it would help that much. So we'll see over the next couple of weeks if I hear from anyone.
You know what scares me? Los Angeles.
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