Job Interview-ish

This last Tuesday, I went into a small and upcoming studio in downtown Salt Lake City for an animator interview, which shall remain nameless as I fear legal retaliation. I had no idea what to expect or who I would be talking to, and I thought they'd see my demo reel and say "nice try kid, but keep practicing". When I got there, I arrived at this small on the outside looking warehouse. That's about the only way I can describe it. I walked to the front entrance where I had to be buzzed in and waited for about ten minutes to meet with co-owners John and Ian. I could see in an open conference room a group of people sitting around a table, watching a projection of what appeared to be dailies for a local film. Soon I was approached by John, who was a nice guy, and he walked me over to Ian, a lead animator and most likely the head cheese. From there the whole thing was a whirlwind. Everything was happening so fast, all of this information was coming at me, and I had no idea how to respond without sounding ridiculous. Ian was really cool and the gist I got from talking to him was that they do mostly contract work as the projects come in from various clients. Since they are a start up studio, I shouldn't expect complete full time work. If they liked me stuff, then I had a good chance of work coming my way. I felt more and more unqualified as our conversation went on. Ian then took me around the place, and I liked what I saw. In this small lot of a building, they had an edit bay, and recording studio, and even a section of the building set up as a sound stage with lighting, huge green screen, etc. These guys are keeping busy. Ian took me back to the main office where he sits and at that point we hopped on this blog and he looked at my stuff. This is where I got really nervous, biting my nails and trying to make excuses for my shoddy animation. To my surprise, he seemed to really like the "He's not gone" bit and the hand animation I tried out. He told me that he'd like to send me a trial run project to work on at home, to test out my abilities with something that wasn't so cartoonish, per say. I feel he probably wants to see how I'll do under pressure and with taking directions. I can't say I blame him. If I interviewed me, I'd want to see that too. I'd want to see that this tongue tied kid wasn't ripping off someone elses demo reel and could do his own work. When I left, I felt satisfied, even though he didn't open up his arms and say "Welcome to the team! You Rock!!", I felt hopeful that maybe now I can start to really sink my teeth in to the profession and get to work. So now I wait patiently, for the studio to draw up a contract, get some project cobbled together and send it my way. I'm chomping at the bit! Ready to go. Let's get to work!

My Demo Reel