But what happens when they...run into the building?
Did anybody think of that?
No, you're just waaaaaaaaay smarter than the large group of people in this liability-happy society working on this project. What's it like being a highly sought after engineer?
I'm surprised at the hate people get for mentioning the N900. It's almost as if people are incensed at the mention of a non-Android, non-iPhone device.
Uh, no, that's not it. It's the same reason nobody wants to hear anybody blindly mention how the iPhone solves everybody's problems.
What would it take to get slashdot to stop the over sensationalizing?
They would have to get rid of the comments section. But since they generate a lot of ad revenue from them, it'll never happen. Slashdot's a business, sorry.
Oh did I mention it has been out for little over a year and is stable and has a really cool community constantly building open source apps ?
You didn't need to mention it because your one of your dedicated marketing drones mentions the phone on every single smartphone related story Slashdot posts.
By all means, produce as much as possible. Working quickly on smaller projects (1 person, 1 week) are great ways to get better at your craft. But for your portfolio, take a critical look and only put in 5 of your very best pieces.
Well said. I do have a tip about this, though. It is really hard to pick a piece and then stay with it. Your interests wander, especially when you hit a 'not-fun' bit. I spent a year doing that with nothing to show for it. I hate this. This sort of 'laziness' really roughed up my morale.
To combat this I took on 'free-work', i.e. work that doesn't pay in order to fill in my portfolio. There are people that scoff at the idea of working for free, claiming it devalues the work of other artists. I personally don't believe that. Whether or not you get paid you get work experience. You need that experience to get work. It's that stupid catch-22 that bites every aspiring artist. The 'free' work I did was under these conditions: "I can show whatever I want when I want." and "I choose when I'm done, not you. You want a deadline? You pay for it." What did this buy me? First, I could make it as lovely as I wanted. (It has been my experience that people asking for free-work don't have high standards, sometimes just out of respect for the fact that the work is 'free', so it was up to me to raise them.) Second, the in-progress updates of my work were being posted on popular web forums. Believe it or not, the actual work-in-progress updates got me more attention than the final pieces themselves. It also bought me a new entry in my resume, giving me more experience to boast about.
I highly recommend this approach, especially to people like me who aren't super-strong in the self-starter department. The whole point of this line of work is that you're challenges to create pieces to other people's standards. Your portfolio should represent that, that's one of the reasons why the reels based on actual work look better than the ones you pursue for your own ends.
Blender is a great free tool to get them started on this and the alternatives such as Autodesk 3d max are generally only reachable by pirates, the rich and the corporates.
Uh, no, guide them into using the software they'll be expected to use at the studio they wish to work at. Virtually all of them offer student pricing. Some places will let you in if you model in a different app (I've had it happen myself), but it's a much steeper uphill battle. You pretty much have to have made a name for yourself before anybody'll extend you the credit you'd need make up for the lack of experience with the package. The money you'll lose by having to accept lower pay or by going through un-paid training will easily exceed the ~$400 you'd spend.
I don't disagree with your whole post, just this one comment.:)
Remind them that for a port folio to put their very most impressive work on the first frame or page because that's often all that is looked at.
This is so spot on I wanted to make sure it was mentioned a second time. I also wanted to add one little bit: Don't show crap work to make your reel seem longer. Nobody's looking at the length of your reel to get a feel for how long you've been working. They are, however, looking for potential... areas of improvement... you might have, and that will affect your value. You're being graded not just on what you show, but what you choose to show. The reason for that is you have the same interaction with your clients. I've worked with guys who have set directors into orbit because they showed something far too early to be seen. (Actually I'm guilty of it myself, it's sooooo tempting to prove you've started on something but they often don't understand the concept of 'filling in the canvas'...)
Which would be of more benefit: pursing a Computer Science degree or taking an accelerated program like those at FullSail?
I have worked with several artists (and one programmer) from Full Sail on several movies. They are all gifted, talented, and easily employable peeps. I think these people speak very highly for that school. However, I do feel that these are the crem-de-la-crem. I never, for example, met the wash-outs. Whatever students you send that way will need to step up and kick ass. They get hired because we call the school and say "send us your best!"
The reason I mention this is that I think it's more important that the right expectations are set than it is to pick which direction to go. You might get some info that suggests a fairly noticeable change in pay going in one direction vs. another, but it's all for naught if they don't treat it like an extended job interview. I have heard some terrible stories about students paying >$25,000 only to storm off on one of their projects because another student was acting like a tool. None of those stories ended with "he's in Hollywood now!"
I imagine the path down a CS degree is similar, but I haven't heard of cases where impressing the instructor was more important than getting that piece of paper. This is, of course, something I wouldn't want to speak authoritatively about.
I realize that you're looking at the long-term return on the education, but I think that depends too much on the student. If they're insatiably curious, I'd nudge them down the Full Sail route. If they're not, well I'm not saying they should go the CS route, but I would say that they'll have to get the requisite knowledge spoon-fed to them and they'd need to go down a path that'd make that happen.
Quit being such a fucking asshat about it. Even after I corrected your misinterpretation of my words, you continued to act like your initial reading was what I was saying. That's not a way to act.
Heh. Gee, imagine someone being an asshat after a buttload of arguing, denial, and back-tracking.
Even if my initial phrasing was wrong (it wasn't), when someone corrects their position, you don't continue acting like they didn't. What the hell is wrong with you?
Mmm hm. You do realize this conversation would have been a lot shorter if you had just said "oh, I don't think you quite got my meaning, let me explain...", right?
I said "never" in regards to the specific movie being made. Not "never" that these people never work for money.
Yes, I've understood that you meant that the whole time. It's a crock, if you don't mind me being blunt.
I said what I meant, and you weren't just "calling me out" on a misstatement, you were continually misrepresenting what I wrote even after I repeatedly corrected you.
Uh, no, you said those artists didn't consider money at all, then you said artists can work without thinking about money. Those are two different statements. I don't have a problem with the latter statement, I do take issue with the first. If you didn't mean it, fine, but you said it. I'm sorry that pointing out what you said is insulting and condescending.
But, fine, what you said and what you meant to say (after being called on it) are two different things. That's cool. Pity we're now a fair distance from where we started.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
Did you look into it at all before you made a purchase? I ask because every time I've seen a complaint about this the announcement was made before the release of the lite DVD.
Not all do. Regardless, I never said there was anything wrong with that. All I've stated is that one can create for creation's sake, not caring one whit about being paid for it.
Actually what you stated was that they didn't do it for the sake of health insurance and rent. It's possible, but it's unlikely. You're trading one extreme for another. It's more than likely they agreed to their contributions because it benefited to them in a way that's appealing. Otherwise they would work on their own project.
I fail to see where you got this idea from. I just said some people can be motivated by the desire to create.
Haha, okay, whatever. We've gone from "making money from it never entered their minds" to "people have all sorts of motives!!" to "some people might not care about money". I think the miscommunication here is that you're assigning these guys to one category when really it's a combination of a number of factors.
....otherwise you'd know that that's not some sort of grand anthropological sacrifice....
That came from your own phrasing of it and you know it. Heh I do love being blamed for your use of extremes, though.
For a lot of artists, and in fact I'd say for *most* artists, it's their creation that drives them and they're just happy if they can make something that others enjoy.
I know a lot of artists, some you've likely heard of. They're in this business because they like to create and have found a way to turn that into a living. When they choose a project, money is a factor, in a lot of cases a dominant one. It's not greed. It's not even bad that they do so. They're not Ferengi, it's just how they choose which one to work on.
It doesn't matter how philanthropic anybody is, they still have to have a roof over their heads.
Why wouldn't someone do that? Your resume is meant to show what you've done. The point still stands that the motive for making the film need not involve profits, either immediate or future.
Putting a roof over you and your family's head and keeping everybody comfortable isn't a 'profit motive'. Artists want to be successful. Nothing wrong with that.
What I don't get is why you're putting artists like us on such a high pedestal.
Then they're not really artists, are they? More like content manufacturers.
No, we're artists. We're given a challenge to create something visual the audience can read and we get it on the screen. If the director tells us to put a singing dog in it because the studio wants to appeal to a larger audience, we make that dog with the right color scheme, composition, lighting, and animation. We don't mark up the script. That would be like blaming the coders because the SNES version of Mortal Kombat didn't have blood in it.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
... and then every single one of them puts it on their demo reels and resume.
Slashdot Mirror
But what happens when they ...run into the building?
Did anybody think of that?
No, you're just waaaaaaaaay smarter than the large group of people in this liability-happy society working on this project. What's it like being a highly sought after engineer?
Pffft... That's nothing. "Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world."
Spouting cliches only enhances your cosmetic intelligence.
"...except that he's so tiny in the photo, it's not like anyone's going to recognize him."
Uh.. yeah, it's an iconic photo of a man doing something that precious few people on this planet have managed to do of a completely anonymous person.
Hahaha.
That's what I get for copying/pasting without my glasses on. :)
Have a good week, man.
I'm surprised at the hate people get for mentioning the N900. It's almost as if people are incensed at the mention of a non-Android, non-iPhone device.
Uh, no, that's not it. It's the same reason nobody wants to hear anybody blindly mention how the iPhone solves everybody's problems.
What would it take to get slashdot to stop the over sensationalizing?
They would have to get rid of the comments section. But since they generate a lot of ad revenue from them, it'll never happen. Slashdot's a business, sorry.
Oh did I mention it has been out for little over a year and is stable and has a really cool community constantly building open source apps ?
You didn't need to mention it because your one of your dedicated marketing drones mentions the phone on every single smartphone related story Slashdot posts.
By all means, produce as much as possible. Working quickly on smaller projects (1 person, 1 week) are great ways to get better at your craft. But for your portfolio, take a critical look and only put in 5 of your very best pieces.
Well said. I do have a tip about this, though. It is really hard to pick a piece and then stay with it. Your interests wander, especially when you hit a 'not-fun' bit. I spent a year doing that with nothing to show for it. I hate this. This sort of 'laziness' really roughed up my morale.
To combat this I took on 'free-work', i.e. work that doesn't pay in order to fill in my portfolio. There are people that scoff at the idea of working for free, claiming it devalues the work of other artists. I personally don't believe that. Whether or not you get paid you get work experience. You need that experience to get work. It's that stupid catch-22 that bites every aspiring artist. The 'free' work I did was under these conditions: "I can show whatever I want when I want." and "I choose when I'm done, not you. You want a deadline? You pay for it." What did this buy me? First, I could make it as lovely as I wanted. (It has been my experience that people asking for free-work don't have high standards, sometimes just out of respect for the fact that the work is 'free', so it was up to me to raise them.) Second, the in-progress updates of my work were being posted on popular web forums. Believe it or not, the actual work-in-progress updates got me more attention than the final pieces themselves. It also bought me a new entry in my resume, giving me more experience to boast about.
I highly recommend this approach, especially to people like me who aren't super-strong in the self-starter department. The whole point of this line of work is that you're challenges to create pieces to other people's standards. Your portfolio should represent that, that's one of the reasons why the reels based on actual work look better than the ones you pursue for your own ends.
Yeah, if you're willing to wait ages to get an already outdated device.
Really? What's the most modern portable gaming platform with the best hardware specs?
touchè
Blender is a great free tool to get them started on this and the alternatives such as Autodesk 3d max are generally only reachable by pirates, the rich and the corporates.
Uh, no, guide them into using the software they'll be expected to use at the studio they wish to work at. Virtually all of them offer student pricing. Some places will let you in if you model in a different app (I've had it happen myself), but it's a much steeper uphill battle. You pretty much have to have made a name for yourself before anybody'll extend you the credit you'd need make up for the lack of experience with the package. The money you'll lose by having to accept lower pay or by going through un-paid training will easily exceed the ~$400 you'd spend.
I don't disagree with your whole post, just this one comment. :)
Remind them that for a port folio to put their very most impressive work on the first frame or page because that's often all that is looked at.
This is so spot on I wanted to make sure it was mentioned a second time. I also wanted to add one little bit: Don't show crap work to make your reel seem longer. Nobody's looking at the length of your reel to get a feel for how long you've been working. They are, however, looking for potential ... areas of improvement... you might have, and that will affect your value. You're being graded not just on what you show, but what you choose to show. The reason for that is you have the same interaction with your clients. I've worked with guys who have set directors into orbit because they showed something far too early to be seen. (Actually I'm guilty of it myself, it's sooooo tempting to prove you've started on something but they often don't understand the concept of 'filling in the canvas'...)
Which would be of more benefit: pursing a Computer Science degree or taking an accelerated program like those at FullSail?
I have worked with several artists (and one programmer) from Full Sail on several movies. They are all gifted, talented, and easily employable peeps. I think these people speak very highly for that school. However, I do feel that these are the crem-de-la-crem. I never, for example, met the wash-outs. Whatever students you send that way will need to step up and kick ass. They get hired because we call the school and say "send us your best!"
The reason I mention this is that I think it's more important that the right expectations are set than it is to pick which direction to go. You might get some info that suggests a fairly noticeable change in pay going in one direction vs. another, but it's all for naught if they don't treat it like an extended job interview. I have heard some terrible stories about students paying >$25,000 only to storm off on one of their projects because another student was acting like a tool. None of those stories ended with "he's in Hollywood now!"
I imagine the path down a CS degree is similar, but I haven't heard of cases where impressing the instructor was more important than getting that piece of paper. This is, of course, something I wouldn't want to speak authoritatively about.
I realize that you're looking at the long-term return on the education, but I think that depends too much on the student. If they're insatiably curious, I'd nudge them down the Full Sail route. If they're not, well I'm not saying they should go the CS route, but I would say that they'll have to get the requisite knowledge spoon-fed to them and they'd need to go down a path that'd make that happen.
Quit being such a fucking asshat about it. Even after I corrected your misinterpretation of my words, you continued to act like your initial reading was what I was saying. That's not a way to act.
Heh. Gee, imagine someone being an asshat after a buttload of arguing, denial, and back-tracking.
Even if my initial phrasing was wrong (it wasn't), when someone corrects their position, you don't continue acting like they didn't. What the hell is wrong with you?
Mmm hm. You do realize this conversation would have been a lot shorter if you had just said "oh, I don't think you quite got my meaning, let me explain...", right?
I said "never" in regards to the specific movie being made. Not "never" that these people never work for money.
Yes, I've understood that you meant that the whole time. It's a crock, if you don't mind me being blunt.
I said what I meant, and you weren't just "calling me out" on a misstatement, you were continually misrepresenting what I wrote even after I repeatedly corrected you.
Uh, no, you said those artists didn't consider money at all, then you said artists can work without thinking about money. Those are two different statements. I don't have a problem with the latter statement, I do take issue with the first. If you didn't mean it, fine, but you said it. I'm sorry that pointing out what you said is insulting and condescending.
That doesn't say they are extremists...
Heh. Yes it does, you used the word 'never'.
But, fine, what you said and what you meant to say (after being called on it) are two different things. That's cool. Pity we're now a fair distance from where we started.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
Mm hmm. Extreme.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
Mm hmm.
Did you look into it at all before you made a purchase? I ask because every time I've seen a complaint about this the announcement was made before the release of the lite DVD.
A large group of people throw money at a franchise and it's lame that they're 'milking' it?
It's the very definition of the profit motive.
No, it's not. It's the definition of survival.
Not all do. Regardless, I never said there was anything wrong with that. All I've stated is that one can create for creation's sake, not caring one whit about being paid for it.
Actually what you stated was that they didn't do it for the sake of health insurance and rent. It's possible, but it's unlikely. You're trading one extreme for another. It's more than likely they agreed to their contributions because it benefited to them in a way that's appealing. Otherwise they would work on their own project.
I fail to see where you got this idea from. I just said some people can be motivated by the desire to create.
Haha, okay, whatever. We've gone from "making money from it never entered their minds" to "people have all sorts of motives!!" to "some people might not care about money". I think the miscommunication here is that you're assigning these guys to one category when really it's a combination of a number of factors.
....otherwise you'd know that that's not some sort of grand anthropological sacrifice....
That came from your own phrasing of it and you know it. Heh I do love being blamed for your use of extremes, though.
For a lot of artists, and in fact I'd say for *most* artists, it's their creation that drives them and they're just happy if they can make something that others enjoy.
I know a lot of artists, some you've likely heard of. They're in this business because they like to create and have found a way to turn that into a living. When they choose a project, money is a factor, in a lot of cases a dominant one. It's not greed. It's not even bad that they do so. They're not Ferengi, it's just how they choose which one to work on.
It doesn't matter how philanthropic anybody is, they still have to have a roof over their heads.
Whoosh... Trumpets! Thats the sound of a joke going over his head in a scifi movie!
Why wouldn't someone do that? Your resume is meant to show what you've done. The point still stands that the motive for making the film need not involve profits, either immediate or future.
Putting a roof over you and your family's head and keeping everybody comfortable isn't a 'profit motive'. Artists want to be successful. Nothing wrong with that.
What I don't get is why you're putting artists like us on such a high pedestal.
Then they're not really artists, are they? More like content manufacturers.
No, we're artists. We're given a challenge to create something visual the audience can read and we get it on the screen. If the director tells us to put a singing dog in it because the studio wants to appeal to a larger audience, we make that dog with the right color scheme, composition, lighting, and animation. We don't mark up the script. That would be like blaming the coders because the SNES version of Mortal Kombat didn't have blood in it.
They are doing it out of the desire to create. The motives involving money, either making it ("health insurance and rent"), or spending it ("out of the kindness of their hearts") never enter into it.
... and then every single one of them puts it on their demo reels and resume.
I know it's hip to hate on Facebook ....
Of course. It requires friends.