Industry Giants '09

Well wow.
If you live in the Dallas Metroplex (or not), and heard about Industry Giants, I hope you went out. I had a great time last weekend.

Massive Black, Digital Domain, and Reel FX among others; a number of representatives from each company came to talk to us, both students and professionals, about the industry, how it works, and somehow staying afloat there. One of the keys to making it was community.

One of the seminar speakers was a guy named Jason Manley, founder of Massive Black and creator of ConceptArt.Org. Fitting the community theme as that is what ConceptArt promotes. It's kinda how you also get a job in the industry.
An Animation director says, "I know someone who does lighting real well. It's that guy who befriended us on Facebook, right? I saw his stuff there. Let's get him!" And that person happens to be you and you're in.

That's kinda how it works really. It's not anything cheap. You've just built a network of people, and those people happen to work for someone who works at Epic Games. It's the company's prerogative to bring people in who have a good sense of their job and who works well with a team, particularly their team.

So, what I received from those two days was to get out on the internet, post my stuff, and get a response. I'm competing not only against my classmates, but against the person in Boston who doesn't sleep because he wants to finish his Dominance War entry. I'm competing against the person in Japan who downing Red Bull (or the Japanese equivalent) and finishing up his graphic novel. I'm competing against the dude in London who's sleeping after a good day's work at completing his daily concepts and finished cover page.

So yeah. I've got a lot to learn, but I'll learn everything I can.
But in the meanwhile, I'll post what I have.

Also, I have friends on Blogspot! Didn't know that. Lol.
Going out and making friends never hurt either.

And some Shout Outs
A big shout out to Chris Hatala of Massive Black for giving me a personal 1hr tutorial of animation. Even if it was so simple, there was a ton of wisdom. He's got animation tutorials coming out on conceptart.org....sometime soon....Eventually. He's got everything (he showed me most of it), it's just being compiled into DVD format at the press I think.

And Michel Gagné
Guy who inspired me to continue to pursue my own creative endeavors. He's doing what he wants to creatively do, while doing freelance stuff on the side. The guy's got a lot of stuff going on. Working on the next best game, InsanelyTwistedShadowPlanet. It's a mixture between hand-drawn adventure goodness and "OMG THIS THING IS HUGE SHOOT IT!!!" action.
That and ton of graphic novels. One of which is Zed. Go check it out. Go go go.

Anyways, these conferences are worth it. If there's one in your area (that doesn't cost $500 to go on preorder mind you...unless you have the money) go to it. Well worth meeting some awesome people.