This weekend was a whirlwind of activity for me as I juggled work and hauling my butt out to Dallas for the Industry Giants 2011 Ten in Texas event at The Kessler Theater, but it was well worth the effort. Industry Giants is a yearly animation conference based in Texas featuring local talent in conjunction with national and international artists. Since 2002, the conference has provided a venue for students, professionals and educators to come together and share information and inspiration thanks to the non-profit animation guild, A Bunch of Short Guys.
Saturday's presentations found me running late (I slept in, whoops! What can I say? I work nights). However, I was able to catch the end of Kevin Johnstone's (Epic Software) talk on Modular Environment Design. From the little that I caught, I took away the idea that to work more efficiently you must make smaller pieces, or modules, and use these pieces over and over again rather than re-creating pieces for each scene. The Student Competition Winners followed. After lunch, Allan McKay, spoke about his career path in special effects and how to make yourself more employable. Funny anecdotes aside, the four key points from his talk were: 1) have a goal, a plan to reach that goal, then work your ass off to attain it 2) choose a niche, become an expert at one thing with which you will be associated, 3) give your name and work as much exposure as you possibly can (i.e. youtube, personal website, forums, etc.) and 4) be humble. Unfortunately, I had to duck out afterwards to make it to work on time so I missed the remaining presentation and the following panel discussion.
Sunday consisted of the Industry Giants Master Classes. For the first session, I chose the "ZBrush Across Multiple Industries" class presented by Paul Gaboury. I am a newbie in this field and hadn't heard of ZBrush (Pixologic) until this conference. All I can say is WOW. I am not super familiar with Maya as of yet, so I can't compare the two, but the images he was creating on the fly were amazing. And Paul was a riot. Even if the software hadn't been amazing, Paul's antics would have kept me entertained! One key selling point for me is ZBrush's ability to import and export images between Adobe Photoshop and Maya!!! After a short break, we returned for the last session. I chose the "Finding Your Voice: Demystifying the Journey Towards Individual Style" class presented by Francis Vallejo. This class focused on the importance of finding your own personal style. To illustrate the point that individual style occurs as a process rather than an innate ability, Francis gave a condensed history of Gustav Klimt's artistic evolution followed by his own journey toward developing his personal aesthetic. Overall I enjoyed the class. I found the crash course in Klimt's work interesting and the following personal tales of style development and work history inspiring and comforting.
All in all, I found the Industry Giants 2011 Conference a success and well worth the money.
