It never fails: Once you finally give up on something, suddenly it taps you on the shoulder and demands your attention. While I was in Denver last weekend a recruiter from Dreamworks called. She called the old cell phone which the ex-boyfriend hadn't canceled yet. I guess that was lucky. We finally caught up with each other this week and I have to say, while it was nice to be considered, I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I heard.
It's a better deal than Sony because they hire people for about 2 to 2 1/2 years at a time. That's still a contract and it still has an end. I don't like that.
It's in Los Angeles. I don't like that either. Actually the fact that it's in California at all isn't its biggest selling point right now. It doesn't matter how bad their economy gets, I'll still have to sell more than half my stuff before I can afford to live there.
But ultimately it came down to timing. I have committed the next 12 weeks to my current employer and Dreamworks is bringing people in over the next three to four weeks.
Oh well.
But even if it were a permanent, well-paid position, there's something that's been bugging me about this industry ever since I went to SIGGRAPH and started to see how it really works. Dreamworks is recruiting for a lighting TA position, which is good because it's not a night shift render wrangler. It's a step above and it has a clear career path. The problem is the career path itself, actually ANY career path in the industry these days. It has become so incredibly specialized that it no longer has a soul. A person can spend 96 hours watching an animated curtain open and close until it looks just right. Because that's what that animator does--animate fabric. A lighter can light the same scene a hundred times until it looks right. And then the next thing she does is light another scene. And another, and another. It's become an assembly line, monotonous and exhausting. And I have a problem with that.
I discovered when I was in the Viz Lab that above all things, I'm an artist. An artist loves the process as much as the result, often the ENTIRE process, not just one little piece of it. An artist has a voice--her work has something specific and meaningful to say, and she lives to make her point, if only to herself. And an artist has to say it no matter what. It's a compulsion, maybe even a mandate from the universe that she should send her thoughts and beliefs into the world. Now take that artist and tell her that her job is to dip the number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand it to someone else. And when she's done with that, dip another number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand that to someone else. And so on and so on and so on. Before you know it, that artist's spirit has been crushed by a detailed job description, her voice silenced by boredom and exhaustion. She ceases to be an artist anymore.
That can't be me.
I don't want to go make something red or blue, I have entire ideas that need to be realized. I don't know when they will be realized, probably not in the next 12 weeks because I'm on a ridiculous project schedule until then. But after that, when I start to have a life after five, I'm going to set a few things in motion. I wish I didn't have to wait, but the good news is that the house is finally clean, half my leaves are bagged up and I have a job for the next 12 weeks. As long as I can eat and pay the rent, I can wait. What happens after that remains to be seen. I'm not worried though. Things are finally working in my life and I don't see that changing any time soon.
So screw California. I want to buy a house. And I won't be giving my keys to some untrustworthy boyfriend this time, only to have them withheld later out of spite. But that's another story.
It's a better deal than Sony because they hire people for about 2 to 2 1/2 years at a time. That's still a contract and it still has an end. I don't like that.
It's in Los Angeles. I don't like that either. Actually the fact that it's in California at all isn't its biggest selling point right now. It doesn't matter how bad their economy gets, I'll still have to sell more than half my stuff before I can afford to live there.
But ultimately it came down to timing. I have committed the next 12 weeks to my current employer and Dreamworks is bringing people in over the next three to four weeks.
Oh well.
But even if it were a permanent, well-paid position, there's something that's been bugging me about this industry ever since I went to SIGGRAPH and started to see how it really works. Dreamworks is recruiting for a lighting TA position, which is good because it's not a night shift render wrangler. It's a step above and it has a clear career path. The problem is the career path itself, actually ANY career path in the industry these days. It has become so incredibly specialized that it no longer has a soul. A person can spend 96 hours watching an animated curtain open and close until it looks just right. Because that's what that animator does--animate fabric. A lighter can light the same scene a hundred times until it looks right. And then the next thing she does is light another scene. And another, and another. It's become an assembly line, monotonous and exhausting. And I have a problem with that.
I discovered when I was in the Viz Lab that above all things, I'm an artist. An artist loves the process as much as the result, often the ENTIRE process, not just one little piece of it. An artist has a voice--her work has something specific and meaningful to say, and she lives to make her point, if only to herself. And an artist has to say it no matter what. It's a compulsion, maybe even a mandate from the universe that she should send her thoughts and beliefs into the world. Now take that artist and tell her that her job is to dip the number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand it to someone else. And when she's done with that, dip another number 2 sable brush into the cerulean blue paint and hand that to someone else. And so on and so on and so on. Before you know it, that artist's spirit has been crushed by a detailed job description, her voice silenced by boredom and exhaustion. She ceases to be an artist anymore.
That can't be me.
I don't want to go make something red or blue, I have entire ideas that need to be realized. I don't know when they will be realized, probably not in the next 12 weeks because I'm on a ridiculous project schedule until then. But after that, when I start to have a life after five, I'm going to set a few things in motion. I wish I didn't have to wait, but the good news is that the house is finally clean, half my leaves are bagged up and I have a job for the next 12 weeks. As long as I can eat and pay the rent, I can wait. What happens after that remains to be seen. I'm not worried though. Things are finally working in my life and I don't see that changing any time soon.
So screw California. I want to buy a house. And I won't be giving my keys to some untrustworthy boyfriend this time, only to have them withheld later out of spite. But that's another story.
