SIGGRAPH Day 2

First day of the conference and although the exhibition halls had not yet been set up there was still a lot of activity and lots of attendees about. My first shift was helping to set up ETech, an area where experimental projects in the area of digital art, design and animation are available for demonstration and hands on interaction.

ETech Setup

My second shift of the day saw me working in the area of registration. Many of these jobs were pretty straight forward, but the value of the volunteer system was in the people that you met whilst working. Many business cards were shared, and although most of the student volunteers are only just starting out in their careers; the contact is invaluable as it lets you also see the standard in other parts of the world.

After my shifts were done I had booked a folio review through the SIGGRAPH organization. It was quite informal, but invaluable in having your work looked at. That's been one of the unexpected benefits of the conference thus far is that you learn quickly that showing your work is something that you have to get used to and that you can verbalize what role you would like to play in the industry. It's not enough to simply state that any job would be good. 

I found that most people were aiming for some kind of character centric position, obviously because it was SIGGRAPH there was a dominance of CGI animators over 2D. Modellers seemed to be the most popular position amongst the student volunteers. I found myself looking more towards layout and background creation- especially given my current honours project and this desire to move into background development and even concept art seemed to rare in the SIGGRAPH context, probably because of the technological focus.

My folio review was with character animator and texture artist from Nickelodeon (Laura Hohman) and it was seen by me as an opportunity to really get a sense of what major studios are looking for in folios. This process was incredibly useful and i really think it would be advantageous to offer a similar process as part of either undergrad or hons assessment. It was also validating to have your work looked at by someone in the industry and removed from the university context. Being a straight forward person I asked Laura if she believed I was wasting my time, being a student in Australia, away from the studio industry that I want to become a part of it can be difficult to gauge whether or not you have any semblance of ability. Thankfully she believed that I had some talent and could definitely work in the industry. Her perspective was honest and objective and she really gave me some excellent pointers. 

Laura's Tips

-Include a wide variety of styles

-Look to include 6-8 pieces

-Include 2-3 pages of life drawings- both studio and real life

-Given my interest in backgrounds, consider also the role of prop design, set design

-Laura prefers an physical folio as well as digital as she believes that you have more control over how the image looks in reproduction. 

-When including a particular piece rather than including all aspects of WIP choose certain points such as composition, colour value, roughs as thumbnails that surround the piece in addition to blurb of explanation. 

- Find TV shows and movies that inspire you and use them to influence your pieces in terms of style, colour and lighting. 

-Avoid showing too much, the more you show the greater the possibility that you may display your weaker work.