Let me first say I’m not asking for direct help*. I’m looking for advice or new resources to utilize in my search.
I’m trying to get into the 3D animation industry. Be it video games, small or big screen studio, or something else. It doesn’t have to be an animator position, either. It is my strong suit, I think, but I’ve had training in virtually all aspects of 3D production. I also learn very quickly, but this trait does little to impress recruiters.
Most ‘normal’ job-search advice doesn’t translate to this industry, and none of my relatives get that, so I turn to y’all.
What am I doing wrong?
What can I put on my reel that will get noticed? (I’m working on adding a few walk-cycles and a sneak.) CreativeHeads.net is great, but are there other specialized job boards I don’t know about?
*: I certainly wouldn’t refuse it, though. You know who you are.
I attended a seminar given by Ron Thornton of Foundation Imaging, and this is the gist: Animators are hired on their reels more than any other factor. Make your reel fast paced and demonstrate as many techniques as you can squeeze in. The reel should be no more than 60 seconds, and shorter can be better. You can also scan in any preproduction art and use them as brief stills. They like to see your idea develpment process. I believe that in some of Dan Alban’s Lightwave books there are indexes of FX houses you can submit reels to. Cinefex also has ads from many FX houses. Include a resume that includes the packages/plugins you are familiar with.
Make a webpage with your animations/stills, so you easily show people your stuff and get freelance work. Craigslist has a lot of people asking for bids on small FX jobs.
Oh, and a couple of walk cycles won’t cut it. They want to see character animation and FX animation. Spaceships and robots are said to bore, (they get a lot of that stuff) but if you have a remarkable space/robot scene, by all means include it. Also in demand is non-obvious fx. Take a period building and do a nice convincing set extension on it. A/B it showing the FX shot first and then the original plate. Don’t ignore non obvious markets: architectural rendering, medical illustration, lots of print advertising uses 3D imagery. CGI is more than animation. There is a lot of market for stills as well.
Ditto everything Happy Wanderer said. I tried to reply to this thread before, but it didn’t take.
Make your demo reel short and sweet, and focus your energy on EVERY POSSIBLE detail you can. That means textures, colors, lighting, camera placement, animation, modeling, even music. Make it a whole package. They will be totally uninterested if any of it looks half-assed.
Also, aiming for a job in Hollywood or video games will get extremely frustrating for a new guy. My first job in 3D animation was for a multimedia company… there were about 45 employees and I was the only 3D guy. I did animations for CD-ROMs, videos, and websites. I did stills for print work, backgrounds in other presentations, things like that. I got a ton of experience in a ton of different media. I did “fun” animations, like little men running and doing flips, but also a lot of boring stuff, like animating how the latest transmission worked. My least favorite project was a 3D animation of one of those automatic door closing systems, when I had to work with their engineers to make sure my cutaway was 100% accurate (like anyone even cares how those things work).
Anyway, there’s a ton of 3D jobs out there, and I’d focus on the less mainstream ones if I were you. Good luck.
See if you can find a 3DSMax or Animator’s User Group, one which has a weekly or monthly meeting. It’s an amazing place to network, and, at least when you start out, it really is more WHO you know than WHAT you know.
Also, see if you can find any online groups. Become involved with them.
Good animators are hard to find, so if it’s something you enjoy, and you’ve got the talent for it, you’ll have steady work.
Believe it or not, there is a large market in 3D animation here in Las Vegas…for the newer generation of video slot machines. Try putting your resume on Monster dot com and specify Las Vegas in the resume and you might be surprised what pops up…and these are pretty big, well-paying companies.
That’s right. Thornton said 95% of what came in was crap. That is good in a way, because if you are any good you will stand out immediately and at least get consideration. Thornton did a lot of the stuff on B5 himself, and hired some guy who sent him some of his own B5 stuff because he couldn’t tell it from his own work. It was like “this guy is already up to speed on our stuff”. So yeah, if you are good, you can actually make the leap from the garage to the big time. Incidentally, he was a very cool guy who had LW running on a big screen and showed us a lot of cool tips. Very hands-on guy who loves to get his hands dirty. It would be nice to work for him.
And I would caution that it is probably NOT a generally a good idea to model known stuff. Thornton hired the “B5” guy because he was scrambling to get stuff out the door and figured the guy would work out, and he did, but this is not the norm. Don’t send them an X-Wing. If you must do a bot or a spaceship, make it your own. If you can come up with something cool and UNIQUE that shows off some design talent, all the better. Automobiles are good, or any “designy” item. Architchture, a blender, a mountain bike, whatever. Something complex to model that looks realistic. Or model something real and make it convincing. There is always high demand for that. Something with a lot of complex curves to nail. The new Mustang comes to mind, or the “New Beetle”. I would be impressed by that.
And you do realize there are specialties in any reasonbly sized FX house? Modelers, digital painters, animators, folks who specialize in lighting the scene, etc. What are you trying to emphasize? The thing is, if your surfacing is crappy or your lighting looks fake, the greatest model in the world is going to look crappy, so you do have to cover all bases, but you may want to focus on one particular area to show off.
Wow, I totally gave up on this thread. Thanks for the replies.
I have a demo reel online (and a link on my profile).
I’ll just keep plugging away, but I think the networking suggestions will help.
Thanks again.