What can you do after college?
• Students can go on from college to do games, storyboards, visual development and more at major animation studios such as DreamWorks, Pixar, and Disney.
• After graduating, David Chai did independent work, got reels together, and shipped them to ad agencies, while teaching at a private college.
• Your work situation as an animator really depends on where you are in the country.
• Little things can pay off, people will see you and remember you (network around, its important).
• The animation community is small!
Process of Animation:
• Thumbnails/Script (put thumbnail drawings in with the lines)
• Storyboard/Animatic-layout resolved at this stage, so as not to waste money and time
• Style Consideration-getting people’s opinion is how to decide which animation to use.
• Character Design-poses, working with hands.
• Rough Animation
• Color and Line Processing-clean-up the drawing, using Adobe stuff (Photoshop, After-effects, Premier)
• Layout/Backgrounds-painted digitally in Photoshop, layer in After-Effects
• After Effects Compositing
• Camera Move Approaches-expand actual artwork
• Editing-bring in all frames in Premier and assemble them, or have uncompressed files in after-effects and edit them in premier.
• A short film (like “Fumi”) had 12 people on animation, scanners, story consultation, production/editing, etc
• Group production- to maintain consistency, he does key drawings, team does in-between, but for big projects, they have model sheets and teams are broken up into characters.
Festival circuit-sometimes you have to pay entry fees, but the payoff is that you can get request to screen around the country for years to come, depending on how the film is received
• David used to send his work to just about anywhere (but it costs a lot of money). Now he sends to ASEFA and Academy-qualifying festivals.
• Be careful of scam festivals and agencies, where you pay for your work to be displayed but it never happens.
How to get into animation/production?
• Look into free places to post your work online (youtube, blogger, myspace), use a blog and word of mouth for publicity and promotion!
Writing scripts for animation
• Writing fellowship at Nickelodeon (go to nick website to find out more)
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Tips from DreamWorks Animation Internship Coordinator
Speaker: Peter Campbell
Position: Internship Coordinator of DreamWorks Animation
Date: December 5, 2007
DreamWorks Internships
Who: Juniors and Seniors (Eligibility begins after Sophomore year and ends before graduation)
Where: Offices in both Redwood City (near Stanford) and Glendale (Los Angeles area)
When: Fall and Spring (Part-time, credit only) and Summer (Full-time, paid)
Position: Internship Coordinator of DreamWorks Animation
Date: December 5, 2007
DreamWorks Internships
Who: Juniors and Seniors (Eligibility begins after Sophomore year and ends before graduation)
Where: Offices in both Redwood City (near Stanford) and Glendale (Los Angeles area)
When: Fall and Spring (Part-time, credit only) and Summer (Full-time, paid)
Positions Available:
o Production Assistant
•Supports whichever production team they are assigned to (usually 12-15 teams per project)
• Allowed to sit in on any training session (for recently hired employees) they want
• Actually do real work in production, not just errands
o Accounting
o Consumer Products
o Digital Training
o Creative Development
• Most competitive
• Mostly for master screen writing students
• Must have writing coverage
o Facilities Operations
o Finance/ purchasing
o Human Resources
o HR Recruiting
• Management majors usually
o Internal Audit
o Outreach
• For recent college graduates only.
• Entry-level hiring program for future artists
• Very competitive and recruits students from all over the country
• Gives employees a big picture experience and shows them how the whole studio environment works
Resumes
• What should it say:
o Must say most important stuff first. Imagine a reader will only look at your resume for 7 seconds
1. You are enrolled in school. The University you are getting your degree at. Your graduation date. (No GPA unless it’s a 4.0)
2. List major (concentration) and minor
3. Experience- Both relevant and professional (jobs where you gained skills that can be carried into your internship, even if it is unrelated to film)
Company name (no acronyms), job title and dates you worked there. Follow with one bullet point that describes company and two or three more bullet points that tell what you skills you learned from the job. (Don’t be general about responsibilities-like filing and photocopying)
4. Technical Skills- What computer programs do you know (Be specific and list all of them no matter how relevant you think they are)
5. Your accomplishments- What student groups you are a part of and what positions you hold.
6. Cover letter: Don’t be too specific, but customize for each company you are applying to. Keep it short. Introduce yourself and explain either, why you want this job, what skills you have that will make up for skills you are potentially lacking, basically, information that is not in your resume.
7. Letter of recommendation
8. References: Make sure that you ask everyone that you put down as a reference that it is alright that you do so.
o Production Assistant
•Supports whichever production team they are assigned to (usually 12-15 teams per project)
• Allowed to sit in on any training session (for recently hired employees) they want
• Actually do real work in production, not just errands
o Accounting
o Consumer Products
o Digital Training
o Creative Development
• Most competitive
• Mostly for master screen writing students
• Must have writing coverage
o Facilities Operations
o Finance/ purchasing
o Human Resources
o HR Recruiting
• Management majors usually
o Internal Audit
o Outreach
• For recent college graduates only.
• Entry-level hiring program for future artists
• Very competitive and recruits students from all over the country
• Gives employees a big picture experience and shows them how the whole studio environment works
Resumes
• What should it say:
o Must say most important stuff first. Imagine a reader will only look at your resume for 7 seconds
1. You are enrolled in school. The University you are getting your degree at. Your graduation date. (No GPA unless it’s a 4.0)
2. List major (concentration) and minor
3. Experience- Both relevant and professional (jobs where you gained skills that can be carried into your internship, even if it is unrelated to film)
Company name (no acronyms), job title and dates you worked there. Follow with one bullet point that describes company and two or three more bullet points that tell what you skills you learned from the job. (Don’t be general about responsibilities-like filing and photocopying)
4. Technical Skills- What computer programs do you know (Be specific and list all of them no matter how relevant you think they are)
5. Your accomplishments- What student groups you are a part of and what positions you hold.
6. Cover letter: Don’t be too specific, but customize for each company you are applying to. Keep it short. Introduce yourself and explain either, why you want this job, what skills you have that will make up for skills you are potentially lacking, basically, information that is not in your resume.
7. Letter of recommendation
8. References: Make sure that you ask everyone that you put down as a reference that it is alright that you do so.
• What else to know:
o Allow someone not affiliated with Stanford to read your resume before you submit it. If they can fully understand all of your information then you have succeeded.
o Spell and grammar-check multiple times
o Change your voicemail and e-mail accounts to be more professional
o Get an e-mail account now that you will be able to use after you graduate
o Cover letter: Don’t be too specific, but customize for each company you are applying to. Keep it short. Introduce yourself and explain either, why you want this job, what skills you have that will make up for skills you are potentially lacking, basically, information that is not in your resume.
o Resumes should not be longer than a page if you are in college.
o Submit by February (for summer internship) for Dreamworks internships. They will be read in March and April, but the ones sent in first will be read first.
• What they are looking for in a resume:
o Major doesn’t matter as much as whether you have experience in the area you are applying for the job in
• Ex. Volunteer on student films, work for small production companies
o If you don’t have any experience than relevant classes do matter
o Allow someone not affiliated with Stanford to read your resume before you submit it. If they can fully understand all of your information then you have succeeded.
o Spell and grammar-check multiple times
o Change your voicemail and e-mail accounts to be more professional
o Get an e-mail account now that you will be able to use after you graduate
o Cover letter: Don’t be too specific, but customize for each company you are applying to. Keep it short. Introduce yourself and explain either, why you want this job, what skills you have that will make up for skills you are potentially lacking, basically, information that is not in your resume.
o Resumes should not be longer than a page if you are in college.
o Submit by February (for summer internship) for Dreamworks internships. They will be read in March and April, but the ones sent in first will be read first.
• What they are looking for in a resume:
o Major doesn’t matter as much as whether you have experience in the area you are applying for the job in
• Ex. Volunteer on student films, work for small production companies
o If you don’t have any experience than relevant classes do matter
Interviews
1. How to act:
o Be yourself and relax but do not lose professionalism. Personality is #1 thing that interviewers are looking for.
o Dress one step above the normal dress code in that particular office—it is always ok to ask the person that is setting up your interview what that dress code is.
o Don’t drop your guard after you do or don’t get the job. There is always a chance of getting hired later on or being fired.
o Be enthusiastic. Show your skills, but don’t oversell yourself
o Phone demeanor is very important, never be rude or unprofessional with ANYONE.
1. How to act:
o Be yourself and relax but do not lose professionalism. Personality is #1 thing that interviewers are looking for.
o Dress one step above the normal dress code in that particular office—it is always ok to ask the person that is setting up your interview what that dress code is.
o Don’t drop your guard after you do or don’t get the job. There is always a chance of getting hired later on or being fired.
o Be enthusiastic. Show your skills, but don’t oversell yourself
o Phone demeanor is very important, never be rude or unprofessional with ANYONE.
2. What to Bring/ How to prepare:
o Always bring extra copies of you resume
o Know the company. Be familiar with what kind of specific work they do. If applying for Dreamworks, know what films they have done.
o Prepare answer to general questions like “Tell me a little about yourself.” For that specific question only give a 1 to 2 minutes answer that explains something interesting (Why you have chosen your major, why Dreamworks, why this job, something not in resume).
• Don’t sound too rehearsed
o Try and find a connection with the interviewer, but don’t let the interview get away.
o Be sure to answer the question that they ask you. No tangents.
o It is ok to ask for feedback after you do not get a job.
o Hand-written THANK YOU letters are a very nice touch and could put a person above another candidate.
o Always bring extra copies of you resume
o Know the company. Be familiar with what kind of specific work they do. If applying for Dreamworks, know what films they have done.
o Prepare answer to general questions like “Tell me a little about yourself.” For that specific question only give a 1 to 2 minutes answer that explains something interesting (Why you have chosen your major, why Dreamworks, why this job, something not in resume).
• Don’t sound too rehearsed
o Try and find a connection with the interviewer, but don’t let the interview get away.
o Be sure to answer the question that they ask you. No tangents.
o It is ok to ask for feedback after you do not get a job.
o Hand-written THANK YOU letters are a very nice touch and could put a person above another candidate.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
DreamWorks Internship Workshop
Come listen to Peter Campbell, Internship Coordinator for DreamWorks Animation, discuss DreamWorks Internships, Resume Building and Interviewing in the Entertainment Industry.
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