Results tagged “Pixar” from Rendered Speechless

I just went to see Up. Holy crap. Say what you will about Pixar's elitist attitude toward its competition (not to mention potential employees who have the audacity to try to submit their reels at SIGGRAPH), but they really are the best storytellers in the business. I don't know how they come up with this stuff. Their latest work is absolutely NEVER predictable. Not once in the entire movie. I was glued the entire time and remain in a stupor over it even at this moment.

What I mean by "elitist attitude" is this: I read an article on CNN.com the other day about the movie, and for some reason this article had to make a thinly veiled dig at Dreamworks. Get this: "And though there are occasional pop-cultural references, such as those favored by Pixar's competition, in general the humor is organic to the story."

Ok, so what's your point? It's true that too many pop cultural references can kill a story's ability to become timeless, and that was a complaint I had about Shrek (besides the fact that he seemed too light on his feet). But did they really need to say that? Is their success not enough as it is? And by the way, WHO CARES? Shrek was a great movie whether it was filled with pop-cultural references or not. In fact, audiences loved that about it. Maybe that's what bugs Pixar so much, the fact that Dreamworks regularly gives them a run for their money using a different formula. But Dreamworks' success can in no way be Pixar's failure, so I don't see why such a thing even needed to be said. Surely the article's author didn't come up with that on his own. There had to be some sort of influence there. How rude.

But would I take a job from Pixar if offered? HELLS YEAH... maybe. There might be a personality issue there that's worth a little more research. Dreamworks? HELLS YEAH DEFINITELY. I've heard nothing but good things about their work environment and how they treat their employees. Frankly, some of my friends at Pixar seem a bit beaten down these days.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the title of this entry. What this movie did was seal the deal for me. I'm outta here. I don't know when, I don't know how, but I'm outta here. It's time to finish what I started.

I just had the best movie credits experience ever. I've always had friends in the credits, but this was different. There are always those credits at the very beginning of the list, the elite few who basically run the show before you get to the big long list of everyone. And for the first time, I knew someone in that group. In fact, I know TWO PEOPLE in that group: John Halstead (Sets Supervisor) and Gary Bruins (Effects Supervisor). My friends have finally made it into management. In fact, Gary was in MY CLASS.

That's what seals it for me. It's time to make this happen. I'm outta here. Maybe Dreamworks is my in. It might even be where I stay. Maybe in August, maybe later, it doesn't matter. Timing is everything and when it happens, it will be perfect. I know it sounds like a cliche but it's always worked for me so shut up.

Now I have a web site to finish.

It's been a long time since I got in bed with my laptop before going to sleep. The laptop has been sitting on my desk for months keeping track of my email while I write code on the desktop. And it will continue to do that until this project is over, but tonight I needed a little blog-time. I'm getting rather frustrated and impatient and it's time to vent.

I've been working on the auction site for a couple of months now. Luckily the go-live date for the site is on the 4th of July weekend (sucks that it's on a holiday but it's good that I have that much time). What really sucks is that I need a full time day job again and I don't have one. I need something to force me back into a normal sleep schedule. I need something that doesn't require 60+ hours a week. I need something where I'm not likely to take a pay cut to extend a schedule or ensure that I continue to have a job at all. I need cheaper health insurance and a 401k. And I need to buy a house.

Most of all, I need time to have a life again. Not having one is really weighing on me.

Pixar is coming out with its 10th movie, Up, in a few weeks. I've seen a few ads for it lately. And every time I do, I get this twinge of jealousy, anger, self-pity... that sickening feeling of not being good enough. And it makes me not want to see the movie. But even though it would be really easy to be mad at Pixar, or the industry as a whole, I'm not. It's my current situation. I'm watching what I love pass me by. I have no time to work on my own stuff and I'm not getting any younger. I feel like as soon as I take time for myself, I'm going to get behind schedule, so I don't take time for myself. It's not worth the risk. If I were working on the animation I want to do and have wanted to do for years, I would jump at the chance to see Monsters vs. Aliens or Up or whatever came down the pike. I'd kill for the extra inspiration to put into my own work. But I'm not having the life I want and therefore, seeing that life in the distance just pisses me off.

At least it's temporary. I keep having to remind myself of that, and I have to make the right choices to make sure that it's really true. I'm glad I've had this experience, that I tried doing contract work and working from home. I always wondered if I could do it. I can do it, I just don't like it. Now I know. I'm ready for a normal life again. And I think I would be happier in it than I ever have been, knowing what the other side is really like. I'm not a fan of instability and I need some sort of imposed structure. Sure, I complain about it when I have it, but I need it. That much is obvious now.

I applied for a job in Nebraska. The title is "weather visualization developer." That is SO me. It appeals to both the computer graphics programmer and the weather freak in me. And I think I would feel very comfortable in that area of the country. I'm from Oklahoma; flat land feels good to me. I want to see the tornado coming and know I can run in the opposite direction without running into some annoying mountain. I'm also a big fan of corn. Yummy.

Luckily I have a way to log in to the application system and see my status. I applied on April 12 and they haven't even looked at the application yet. But that's a government contractor for you, moving at the speed of government. Oh well. It's better than being all the way through the process and rejected. So there's still hope. Hope is good.

It's time to go to the next phase. NOW. But it's after 5am so maybe I should go to sleep first.

I actually got an email from recruiting at Pixar today. It was a rejection email. That sucks. But in a way it's ok. I respect them for even contacting me at all, which is something that ILM doesn't seem to want to do. I have heard rumors that ILM is having union problems but I still think complete silence is inexcusable. Anyway, another door closed. This looks like the year of closed doors. Still looking for the windows though. I know they're there, somewhere. They have to be.

I always believe that when something doesn't work out, it's because there's something better waiting for me, somewhere. Something that would make me happier, that would be closer to what I really need to be doing. If that's really the case, then that means there's something better out there for me than Pixar. And that has to be pretty freakin' big. Boggles the mind, doesn't it.

It's after 1am and I'm in bed with Nick at Nite on mute. The cat is under the covers curled up at my feet. It must be a kitty sauna in there since I'm running a fever close to 100. Oh well, I'm glad someone in this house is warm, because I'm freezing.

This is the second time in as many months that I've been sick. I know where I got this one (thanks Ardra!) but it's really frustrating that it hits me NOW of all times. I just started working out again two weeks ago. My boyfriend and I broke up last Tuesday. I've had to cut back on my hours so that I've basically taken a 25% pay cut, and now I might be missing work if I don't get rid of this fever. I'm on the verge of starting a new life and I don't even feel like living it--that's not a suicidal post-breakup thought mind you, it's a sick thought. My mind has energy my body finds repulsive. I HATE BEING SICK.

I understand that there is a process to life, just like there is a process to art. I don't understand speedbumps like illness--maybe it's the universe forcing me to rest--but for the most part I understand the process. The process is what it's all about. A weird thing happened after I sent off my reel to Pixar... instead of getting excited about a possible phone call, I just sort of thought, "eh." Really. After all that work, turning my back bedroom into a photo studio, freezing to death taking pictures in a car graveyard, staying up all night drawing, all I had to say at the end was "eh." It wasn't about the goal. Looking back, I don't think it ever was about the goal. It was about the process. The process itself is what made me feel alive, what got me out of bed every day and almost stopped me from going back to bed every night. And now I'm just fine if I never hear from Pixar. Sure, if they call I'll be out there on the first flight for an interview, but if they don't, it's really ok. Obviously I won't ever hear from ILM again, and that's ok too. First I thought, if they're going to treat their applicants this way, I don't want to work for them anyway (true), but again it's about the process. I would get there, get my tiny little studio apartment, and I would be working my way up to doing just one thing. I would get to Pixar and be doing just one thing. Just one thing. I've never been happy doing just one thing over and over, day after day after day. Never.

It's obvious to me now, I have to do this on my own terms. I have to be an artist. Not a lighter or a shader or a compositor. An artist. My own work, in my own time, on my own terms. My own stories. The entire process. This is what 2008 had to tell me about myself, and that's fine. I went in with a goal but also an open mind, knowing that the outcome could be completely different from what I thought I was going for. This is what I came out with, and I'm actually very happy with it. Now I can do whatever I want, however I want, from beginning to end.

But that changes the job game quite a bit. I'm done at Collin County in February. I have a freelance gig starting right after that, and it should take me through another couple of months. Still web. Do you know how much I hate web, how much I wanted Collin County to be the last web job I ever had? Well, it will keep me eating and paying rent so I won't complain. But I had to say that just once. I hate web. Ok more than once. I'm done now.

"Trust the process," I remind myself. The process of life does involve eating on a regular basis. I do know how lucky I am, really I do. And I like my boss. Heck, it's a lot of programming and very little design so I'll probably end up enjoying it before it's all over. I do like a challenge after all. And BWC pretty much cured me of wanting to be a designer. Not their fault, I'm just not good at putting so much effort into something to only have someone else's design picked, which they spent like five minutes on because they pretty much stole it from a bunch of other people's designs. Or to have 42 different logos rejected by the same client because they think they know our job better than we do. I can't deal with that. But with programming, either it works or it doesn't. I get it to work and I've accomplished something. I get it to work fast and I've accomplished a little more. Nothing subjective about it. And nothing personal. You always know when you've done it right, and it's not whenever some idiot with no concept of what you really do tells you so.

So the job situation changes. I do still need one, a permanent one. One with health benefits. I've been on Cobra since I quit BWC, but they renew their insurance in June and considering how things are going over there, there's no telling what kind of hillbilly scheme they'll come up with this year. But I digress. My goals are not about getting into entertainment now, they're about living a truly artistic life. And I have found North Texas to be probably the worst place to be an artist, at least the kind who needs the support of other artists. Not that there's anything wrong with old ladies painting watercolor bluebonnets, they just wouldn't get my creepy doll theme. Few people do, actually.

Denver, however, is a great place for an artist. They have classes, they have groups, and there's my mom, who as a painter herself, knows where to find all of them. There's scenery. What good is a plein air paint set if all you have is a view of 75? And there's also a job, with a medical simulation company. It's a programming job. I love programming. I left MultiGen because I hated the military stuff. But medical? Could be very, very cool.

And imagine having enough money, and perhaps even enough time (no mandatory Saturdays getting a film out the door) to own my own house and produce my own work. With the support of other artists, this could be exactly what I'm looking for. But I'm keeping my mind open, "trusting the process" as they say.

It's true though. If you focus only on the goal, getting it or not getting it, being there now or not being there yet, things fall apart. When I get on the treadmill at the gym I have to look at it as a process or I won't get on it again. When I create a piece of art, the enjoyment is in the creation of it or else I wouldn't do it. And as far as life goes, that's the process you have to trust most of all. Part of that process, unfortunatey, is seeing doors close. The end of a job, the end of a relationship, it's all part of a process to teach you what you need to learn, to get you where you need to go. We have what we need when we need it and when we don't need it anymore, it disappears. If you don't trust that you don't need it anymore, and you keep trying to hang on, you get stuck and you never go anywhere. You limit how happy you can ever be. You wake up one day and realize you've settled for less than what you can really have because you were afraid to see what else was out there. You have to let the doors close and the windows open.

So that being said, I'm looking for the windows right now. I'll still need a goal, I can't create art without one. But there are festivals, competitions, and there's always SIGGRAPH. There are plenty of deadlines to go around. I just need a stable job to support it all. And an idea of course, but I'm already working on that one. Look for that in a future post.

I wasn't even this exhausted when I went to SIGGRAPH.

Over Thanksgiving I gave up on painting and went back to photography. No regrets. I made a ton of shots of creepy antique dolls and came out with five good ones, one or two in particular were probably the best shots I've ever done of anything. I also already had three good shots of abandoned building interiors that I made a few years ago with some great light patterns. So that gave me eight photos. But that wasn't enough.

I was limited to moody studio shots against black in my little extra bedroom, so I needed some variety. I had this great idea to go to the CTC Auto Ranch just north of Denton on I-35 and take pictures of their cars. I've seen this place a million times going to and from Oklahoma, and I always wanted to stop. So I called them and asked if they ever let people take pictures and they said sure--a little reluctantly I thought, but maybe I was imagining it. It's $5 a person to walk through the yard and you can bring your camera. The hitch? They're closed on weekends. I had this brilliant idea on a Thursday night with a beautiful weekend coming up and a rainy Monday and Tuesday right after. So finally Wednesday of the next week I went out there and spent the afternoon. I did almost 200 shots, and again picked five of the best. And the people who work there are great. But being the overachiever I am, I still didn't feel like it was enough.

I had studio shots, some old interior shots and now outdoor shots with some really interesting light patterns. What I didn't have was created light, or even light that was taken from a reference but improved through art. So I sailed up 75 one day looking for fireworks stands. The first one I found was a white one with blue stars sitting against a spectacular sunset. This was a great opportunity because I knew that photography would give me either a great exposure on the sunset or a great exposure on the building, but not both at the same time. So I took multiple exposures and did a digital painting using multiple references. That picture is currently on my home page.

So... one more outdoor shot, although a little more creative than the others. I decided I needed two more fireworks stands because I needed it to be a series with different lighting in each. So I found another on a cloudy, cold afternoon and then one on an even cloudier, colder evening with headlights as the sole light source. I did digital paintings from both, again from multiple exposures (except for the afternoon shot, where one exposure was enough). Now I had a series.

In fact, I had four series: cars, fireworks stands, abandoned buildings and dolls. But it still wasn't enough. I had nothing purely conceptual, and no interiors with artificial light, which is pretty common in the world. And time was running out. Pixar had already taken their job posting off CreativeHeads.net, but before I went into a full-blown panic and subsequent severe depression I decided to check the career postings on their own site and see if the job might still be listed there. Not only was it listed, but the date of the listing was just the day before I looked for it. I was good for probably another week. So I went for it, and that's when it really started to get difficult.

I did a drawing in college that I've always been proud of, and I've even done an animation based on part of this drawing (see Bumps in the Night). So I decided to redo this drawing digitally. After finishing my fireworks stands late last Sunday night (I hope I never have to draw grass again), I took the afternoon off this past Monday, thinking I could start and finish the drawing in about 8 hours. I was way off. Luckily I had already taken Tuesday off in the hopes that I could get the reel edited together and sent to Pixar that day, but it turned out that I needed it to sleep, among other things. I worked on that drawing non-stop until 10am Tuesday morning. The weather was icy and the office was closed, so I would have been home anyway; I went to bed hoping I could get up at 2:30 and the roads would be drivable and I still could go to Richardson, get my new printed resumes and samples, and maybe get the reel edited and out the door. But when I woke up that afternoon things had not improved. In fact, everything was white. For a moment I had to wonder just how long I was out. And then I realized I wasn't leaving the house that day whether I liked it or not, so I might as well do one more drawing.

By about 3:45 Wednesday morning I had a digital drawing of my bathroom with the lights on and light coming through the window and hitting the wall (taken from some earlier photographic references). Not completely realistic but still interesting and a good interior study. I took a shower and got to bed at 4:30, thinking I'd take off Wednesday afternoon to finish everything up (go to Richardson, finish the last edits on the reel, put a book together and go to FedEx). I left work at noon and made it to Richardson but didn't make it back home until 3. I had bought an 8"x8" blank board book at Michael's that I could spray mount a cover, my resume, shot list and some samples into. It took two hours to cut the prints and spray mount them into the book. But it looked great when I was done. I put one of those adhesive CD sleeves on the inside cover and put the DVD inside, and then wrapped the whole thing in Christmas lights wrapping paper with a tag that said, "To: Pixar, From: Your Next Lighting TD." I attached a small keychain flashlight to the package and by this time, it was too late to go to FedEx. In fact, after I had spent 3 hours at my neighbors' Christmas party and then came back to perfect the DVD and wrap the package, it was about 2:30 Thursday morning.

I got it to FedEx on Thursday during my lunch hour. It cost me $50 to ship it overnight; since I had one more day in the week before Christmas, I didn't take any chances. So with the exception of going to work and doing my Christmas shopping in a record 30 minutes on Friday afternoon, I've been sleeping ever since. And I've been generally angry at the world, which I think is a reaction to the abrupt end of extreme stress, sleep deprivation and starting to drink Cokes again after I had quit. I'll tackle that last one in the list tomorrow and see if anything improves.

So now I wait, again. ILM has gone dark on me, I've pretty much given up on getting a response from anyone over there. But that just tells me that there's something better waiting in the wings. I'm out of a job at the end of February, and I've taken an $800/month pay cut just to ensure it lasts that long. So whatever is out there for me better show up pretty soon. But if it's always darkest before the dawn, I guess it's only fitting that it happens on the shortest day of the year. Look for the reel on my site to be updated in the next few days. Merry Christmas!

Here's how to make your own photography studio out of an extra bedroom. This room has more light than anywhere in the house, considering it has three windows and a back door with a window. My mom suggested I go buy black felt to cover the windows so I could control the light better for a still life. It beats only working at night, although I tend to do that anyway.

So here's the thing. I blew off photography early on because I couldn't control the light like I could in a real studio, so I decided to paint a few still lifes instead, thinking what I couldn't do in real life with light, I could do with paint. Well, maybe I could control the light in my paintings but I couldn't control the paint in my paintings. I was working too small and too fast to really do my best. So I gave up on painting and decided to play with pretty much every light I have in my house. I had already bought some colored light bulbs for my still lifes, so all I had to do was improvise some bounce cards and a barn door for the key light. The hardest part though was rim lighting. The white card you see at the top is actually a 16x20 canvas board improvised into a bounce card. It failed, but it made a nice snake light holder for a back light. The blank canvas on the easel came in really handy too--whenever I set the timer on the camera I grabbed that canvas and held it over the top of the setup. It provided just enough bounce light to put some volume into the shadows.

I've learned more about lighting in the last 6 hours than I think I've ever learned in my life. I'm saving the photos for the reel because they are just way too cool for the blog. And no, the car's not going in. I finally figured out how to manually set the exposure on my camera so I might just give that one another try. So stay tuned. It's going to get really interesting in the next few days. And Pixar still has that lighting job listed!

It's my first weird still life. I've been wondering what to do with that phone for a long time.

Pixar has a Lighting TD position open. The listing asks for personal work in addition to cg. I know what they're looking for--the ability to light. 3 point studio lighting, creative lighting, lighting for mood--paintings, digital photos, you name it. Now I wouldn't send this photo in a million years, but I just might paint it. I can have a lot more control over lights in a painting than I can in the back bedroom with a few standard bulbs and some bounce off the semi-gloss. And a flashlight. I highlighted the doll's face with a flashlight. It comes out too hot in the photo.

Currently, all my paintings have pretty flat lighting or else are done from old photos, most of which are lit with a flash. So this is my chance to really do something creative with light. I'll have to improvise colors, because I don't have anything colorful I can place over my bulbs that won't catch on fire. What's really going to suck is painting in the dark. If I turn on the regular lights in this room, this gets washed out. So I'll be doing this pretty much in the dark. At least Daylight Savings Time is over, so it's dark when I get home at night. I don't have to fight the sun coming in three windows and the back door.

The possibility of doing this the way it needs to be done, getting it on my reel and getting it to Pixar in time is a long shot, but I'd feel a lot worse if I didn't try at all.

Tonight was the first time since I went to the Viz lab that I came out of a movie wondering what was the easiest way to sell 2/3 of my stuff and get my cat to California. And it wasn't just the beauty of the movie, which was astonishing; it was the story. I was so in awe of the originality of the art and the concept itself that I sat there dumbfounded well into the credits, almost forgetting to look for the names of my friends. I was ready to go work for Pixar--earthquakes, long hours and ridiculous cost of living be damned. I haven't felt that way in a long time.

But alas, here I am in Texas, about 12 days behind schedule. I got stuck on a faucet this week and I decided not to post any more pictures until the bathroom model is complete. I have a lot of time to make up and only six weeks to do it. And I get so carried away on the work itself that I stay up too late to read my mental ray book. I have a lot to catch up there too. I'll have to start rendering pretty soon, it would help if I knew how to do it!

I always approach each weekend with extreme optimism: "I'll finish the model this weekend," "I'll finish the model and start the next one," "I'll finish the model, do the character and start the texturing," etc. I never get nearly as far as I think I can, I always get hung up on something, my perfectionism pulling me two steps back for every one forward. If there's one thing that hit home during the movie tonight though, it was the idea of quality over quantity. Yes, I would like to show as many different lighting scenarios as I can. Yes, I would like an outdoor as well as an indoor environment to work with, plus a character. But there are six weeks left and it has to be good. Not big, just good. Really good. The bathroom will be the most complex environment to light so I'm glad I started there. I'm starting to think I might have to stop there as well. I will still do a character but the car wash just might be too much.

No big decisions as of yet, but at least my priorities are set. Bathroom: definitely. Character: definitely (not sure if I'll stick with the snowman but so far it's the simplest idea I've had). Car wash: maybe. If time permits.

If I don't do the car wash, everything else better be damn good.

I added two more movies to the inspiration page: Wall-e and Horton Hears a Who. It was interesting to see the uniform lighting throughout Horton compared to the different colors and temperatures in Cars and other Pixar work. I'm going to stop collecting references for now though. It's done me a lot of good to collect all that work and put it together for comparison and analysis, and it's given me a lot of ideas. But now it's time to get back to the task at hand.

Since I wasn't able to get started tonight until 9:00, I decided this would be a good time to redo my schedule and finally decide on a character. I did both. The schedule is aggressive but I have little choice at this point. I was able to simplify it to five lighting scenarios per environment and five for the character, which is going to be a snowman. I'm very happy with my choice. It's a relatively simple model and I was able to come up with five really cute ideas for lighting without too much trouble. And I like the fact that one uses the bathroom environment and one uses the car wash. I really hope I don't run out of time because I want to pull this off and do a really good job. I'm a little scared of the amount of time I have left, but I can't get discouraged. I just have to keep going and not stop for anything. Maybe not even for the fourth of July. Or my camping trip in a couple of weeks. But I'll play it by ear.

If I can get ahead on just one thing, I'll feel better. If I can finally finish modeling the bathroom I'll feel a lot better. I've given myself until the end of this coming weekend and that's it. I have to be done.

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.

This pages contains images showing different CG lighting scenarios. Most of these are from Pixar, mainly because they were the easiest to find but also because Pixar's work is the highest quality. There is much more to lighting than reality; to create truly beautiful work you have to go beyond realism and into fine art. All the photos and gazing balls in the world won't get you here. So, this collection will continue to grow as an artistic reference library.