Results tagged “A Bunch of Short Guys” from Rendered Speechless

I'm a few days late in writing this but it's probably for the best. It's been a stressful, even emotional week and as I sit here in bed with my laptop I finally feel like I have enough of a grip on everything to finally put down the whole story. So here goes the Rendered Speechless Prequel, the post that explains it all.

I quit my job last Wednesday. I have accepted a 6-month contract position with Collin County to work on their HUGE web site. Sound crazy? Well, it might be, and then again it might be the best decision I've made in a long time. I started looking a few months ago for a full time job because I felt like I was in over my head at my current job. I was perfect for that position two years ago when our projects were brochure sites, but now we're getting requests for content management systems and other technical requirements that I personally don't understand very well and don't have the time to figure out, at least not there. So having taken my web team as far as I could, I decided it was probably time I moved on, and hopefully into a position that would teach me more about web development than I had been able to learn so far. The Collin County job appeared on my radar months ago thanks to a friend of mine, but I immediately dismissed it because it was a contract position. I need stability and I need that health insurance. So thanks, but back to the drawing board.

Weeks turned into months and I couldn't find anything that fit. Design, development, you name it, it didn't feel right, I was underqualified, I was overqualified. I applied, I sent out resumes, I got no response. I saw jobs I had applied for disappear off the boards without so much as an email of rejection. I was frustrated and trapped. And the frustration of knowing my team needed a more skilled leader started to show through in my attitude at work and my stress level. Something had to give, but I was running out of options.

One day in February I got an email invitation to a Wednesday night showing of some animated shorts at UTD. Sounded like it was up my alley but I know how lazy I can be and it was a last minute decision to actually show up there. But I did, and I was inspired. Something that had been asleep inside me for a long time started to open its eyes and look around. I walked out thinking, "I need to be doing this again."

And that was the last I thought about it. At least until March, when I applied for yet another job and saw the posting disappear seemingly right before my eyes. It was a position a mile from my house in McKinney, and getting rid of my commute to Richardson was looking really, really good. The job itself wasn't the most exciting but I knew I could do it and probably quite well, and getting home at 5 would be a welcome change. I built a killer application, I got my hopes up. And then, poof. Gone.

So that night at about 11:30, having nothing left to lose except sleep, I looked at the ReelFX web site, which was as far as I was concerned the Portal of the Unattainable Dream. I explored, I looked at their job postings. I saw one I liked: Lighter/Compositor. It was my passion at the Viz Lab; I knew I could do it but it's been a long, long time. I filled out the form and applied anyway. What could it hurt? I knew I wouldn't hear back, but at least I would have finally applied for something I really wanted. I would have responded to disappointment by taking action.

And then something strange happened. As I sat there contemplating what I had just done, thinking of how much laughter my work would get if someone at ReelFX actually looked at my site, I started to wonder, why not build a new reel? I've already applied so I won't be rushed to come up with something brilliant before the posting is gone, instead I can take my time while I wait for the next one to go up. And by then perhaps they will recognize my name. You never know. But it was a big job. Could I do it? Could I tackle something that huge in my free time and see it through?

And then reality hit. What free time? I feel like when I'm not working, I'm in my car either going to work or coming from work. My life was about work and whatever it took to get there, leave there, or just plain keep the job itself. If I were to take this on, something had to change.

But that's where it got complicated. I already needed a new job, but I couldn't just get another full time job and quit in 3 to 6 months when I got my reel done and got the job I really wanted (optimism). "Sorry, didn't really want this job, had something better in mind..." Uh, no. That wouldn't be fair. What I needed was a CONTRACT job, something that would pay the rent and be closer to home. Something that had a beginning and an end, so there would be no surprises when I left.

Gee, didn't I hear something about a contract web developer job at Collin County?

Sure enough, the posting was still up. So I applied and here I am, ready to start on June 23. And as if I haven't given enough reasons why this is a good idea already, here's the biggest one of all. I'm going to learn a TON here. I'm going to learn what I couldn't learn at BWC because I didn't have time and didn't know where to start. So no matter what happens, in 6 months I'll be more marketable as a web developer than I ever was before. There's even a chance I could replace my boss when he leaves to go into politics. If I need to stay in this industry, I can. But I'm hoping I won't.

So that's it. It was just a few days after I made the decision to get back into animation that I got the invitation to the Short Guys portfolio review, and the rest is history (see the "How to be a lighter/compositor" post from last March). I took that as I sign that I was on the right track, probably for the first time since I decided to go back to school. It's been just over 3 months since I decided to go back into CG and look how far I've come. Not only that, but they've already hired my replacement at BWC, someone I recommended. That's right, in only 2 days they've hired one of my former students to take over my position, and she's someone who was not only in between jobs at just the right time, but who can really take that web team where it needs to go. Things seem to be working out all the way around.

So I have one more week at BWC, a short trip to Austin and then Lake Bridgeport, and then I'll be getting off at 5 every day, just a mile from home. It's getting very close to SIGGRAPH already, and I plan to have a reel to show at the job fair. My evenings are about to get very busy. But at least it won't be because of traffic anymore. Stay tuned!

One last happy thought: I saw Kung Fu Panda last night. Awesome! It inspired me (so to speak) to make an inspiration page. It contains screen shots of all the CG scenes I could get my hands on that showed interesting or just plain beautiful lighting. I may also add paintings and photos and any other examples I can find of creative lighting. Right now it's mostly comprised of Pixar's work but hey, might as well start at the top.

It's nice to have a passion again.

What an incredible day I had. I made this decision to get back into 3D only a couple of weeks ago, and on Wednesday I got an email from A Bunch of Short Guys. I've been on their mailing list for a few months now but haven't made any of the meetings yet. This one sounded intriguing: a portfolio workshop with a panel consisting of two guys from the animation industry and two from games. What timing, right when I'm trying to think of a good project that will help me ramp back up. I thought, my work is six years old but maybe it still has some value, maybe I can learn something. I would really like to know what's changed in the industry in the last six years. Who cares if I'll likely be the oldest one there with old-looking work compared to what the students are doing now. So I decided to go. And I decided to put everything into it. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after work designing and printing resumes, shot lists, business cards and making DVDs. I branded everything just like the web site, created a complete package. I even did title screens on the DVD in the same style. I put just the three projects that showed my lighting and compositing skills (Cold Front, the bug ship, the hippo) on the DVD and hoped for the best, fully expecting to tell them my little story, how since my work is old I'm wondering what kind of work gets their attention these days, what software should I look at, etc. It was great, I got to talk to Tim Lannon from ReelFX and Ludo Michaud from Janimation. And here's what I learned.

First, if I were trying to get a job, I would need to be very clear about what I wanted to do. I had a nicely branded package but nowhere on there did it say "lighter/compositor." They need to know that up front so they're not wasting time guessing at what you want to do for them. Along those same lines, I decided I should probably reorganize my motion page on the web site into "lighting and compositing" and "experimental and videography." I plan on doing that tomorrow, including taking off the broadcast reel. Seriously, who needs that? I'm probably infringing on too many copyrights with that one anyway.

Second, cut the reel time in half. It's 4 minutes now, bring it down to 2. (The hippo takes up two minutes all by itself.)

Third, to really work up my lighting skills, I need to be lighting characters and environments. Different times of day, different moods. Effects-based lighting is also useful.

Fourth, Shake is on the way out. I guess that explains the relatively low price. Ludo says it will probably be integrated into Final Cut Pro before it's all over and then it will disappear. They use Nuke and Fusion these days... I looked them both up, and Nuke was developed by Digital Domain, and the price is crazy. Fusion doesn't give a price on their web site, they want you to contact them. You know what that means. Besides, it's Windows-only, and Nuke works on the Mac. So I'm looking at Nuke and my plan so far is to get the 30-day free trial when I'm ready to do some compositing, then use the hell out of it for 30 days. Who knows, I might just love it and be able to work something out later. After Effects isn't bad, but it's not node-based and I absolutely hate having to physically click a stopwatch on the left side of the screen to set a keyframe.

Fifth, to show compositing skills, you can show different render passes. One of the game guys actually told me this when the whole room was watching my reel (intimidating)... he said the bug was "really impressive" and it was a great example of where I could render out a specular pass, diffuse pass, ambient occlusion, shadow pass, etc and then the final composite. Very cool.

Now here's the coolest thing of all. I had brought two DVDs with me and one was waiting in line to be shown to the room while the other was with my resumes. When I sat down to talk to Tim and Ludo, one of them got the DVD I had with me at the time but I didn't notice which one (I kept turning around to hear J talk). When I had finished showing the other one to the group, I walked back to my seat with the disc in my hand, and Ludo said, "Can I steal that from you?" HELL YEAH!!! He also said I should put the hippo first. J said the hippo was too long and I agree with him... I remember my projects that first year or so, I produced animations the same way I write: long and eventually to the point, if you're lucky...

Last night when I was testing the DVDs on my player, I noticed two things that I hadn't noticed before. One, the shadow under the hippo was a little too dark. The second one was that the shadow under the bug ship was a little too blue. Ludo said the exact same things to me today and that just freaked me out. Actually it was great because it told me that I still have a good eye and that I can trust it.

So I'm totally pumped now. I needed a good shot in the arm and I got such good feedback today that I feel like I can do anything now. I didn't get ridiculed, I didn't get "your stuff looks really old," what I got was validation and some really good advice. So I'm going to start with environments, and I have the perfect idea. But I'll save that for the next entry.