During this term with the tutorial project I've become increasingly fond of Maya and have learnt that I enjoy animating the most. I also had the role of animating in our other term project of Post-Production and Visual Effects but I mainly used After Effects, and found that I much prefer Maya as although it's more complex I have the freedom to do a lot more.
One of my weakness I've noticed is definitely time management, as although I actually started working on my tutorial very early on and completed it weeks before deadline, I neglected my other project. This is probably due to the fact that I enjoyed one much more than the other. And with other priorities outside uni projects such as my part-time job, I was balancing a lot of things all at once. Therefore next time I will need to organise my self better by spreading out my workload into manageable proportions and to actually follow through when I'm suppose to so I can relieve as much stress when deadlines draw closer.
I found several internships at highly respected companies such as Framestore, Cinesite and the Mill. They all offer summer internships for students entering their final year of study and will graduate in 2012.
Framestore's internship cover both 3D animating and modelling, and 2D roto-scoping and compositing.
And Cinesite cover the same areas but a few more such as lighting, texturing, digital matte painting and programming.
But all the internships require a certain level of experience and advise the applicant to be confident in at least one of the major software packages they use such as Maya. A showreel also needs to be submitted when applying where I showcase my best work and what I can offer them. But because of the high competition as there's such a vast amount of young talent fighting for these positions I will need to up my game and become confident in Maya. So far I'm just a novice, as I know the very basics and I'm limited to what I can do so therefore I need to carry on following online tutorials and reading books to increase my knowledge. I've been doing that already but I need to study much more to get to the industry standard. With the skills I learn I can input them into my uni projects and start building a showreel.
I feel like I've grown a lot since the beginning of the academic year, as I've learnt to cope with the work load and become fond of some of the software we use. Even with limited technical skills I can still apply for runner positions which for some require no showreel or actual software skills. Framestore and the Mill say that successful candidates are enthusiastic, hard working and passionate. If I can show them that I hold these qualities and more, then even as a runner doing odd-end jobs I'll gain knowledge of how their industry works and be able to make useful contacts.
