The weekend of October 25th-27th I was able to travel to Pasadena, California with multiple fellow DAC grads and current students including Jay Ramirez, Logan Schwartz, Channing Han, Isaiah Heath, Piper Combs, and Haley Barrington to attend LightBox Expo. This is my second year attending the convention and I had a blast. This convention is certainly the current place to be in the industry. While it is mainly geared towards illustrators and 2D animation, there is still so much to see and so many people to meet in terms of 3D opportunities.
Before leaving for LightBox, I was sure to post several times on LinkedIn in different groups to drum up some attention on my page and my connected socials. My most numerically successful post was a breakdown of my Mary the Toymaker project which I posted to the 3D Texture Artists group which recieved nearly 700 likes. The post that got the most useful engagement though was my (now outdated) demo reel which I posted for #PortfolioDay which got 26 comments and 6 reposts from within my network of peers and mentors.
Getting to travel to LightBox with a group of peers this year was super fun as we got to explore Pasadena together and continue to build bonds post-grad. The hotel room that we operated out of was directly in the convention center so it was super easy to meet up and then walk 2 minutes to whatever talk or building we wanted to go to. I look forward to going again next year and being able to meet up with other DAC students I likely won't have seen for a while and catch up.
Women in Animation Hallo-WIA Networking Event
The day before LightBox Expo began, Women in Animation held a Halloween meetup event at the Lawless Brewing Co. near the convention. Fellow Class of 2024 DAC graduate Jay Ramirez and I who are both members of WIA decided to attend the evening with Channing Han and Logan Schwartz as our guests. The evening was a great warm-up for our networking skills for the convention as we all needed a bit of time to defrost our extrovert personalities. It was nice to connect with other animation folks from all walks of life doing animation and non-animation jobs throughout their career path. I often feel like as a student, it is difficult to break out of the collective echo chamber to network beyond fellow students from around the country and get to hear perspectives. It was very refreshing to talk to background artists, layout artists, and storyboard artists from different companies around the country. One thing I was surprised by was the amount of people at the event who weren't currently working in the animation industry but were still involved with WIA. As someone who has struggled with fears of the industry's current state, it was nice to see people who were optimistic about the return of the industry, or just taking time apart from their career path to focus on themselves and their wants and needs for their life.
PIXAR Win or Lose Screening Party
During LightBox, I was lucky enough that thanks to some professional connections through DAC Senior Instructor Paul Conner, I was able to attend a special preview screening of PIXAR's first-ever original animated series Win or Lose which premieres on Disney+ on December 6th. The event was held in a small private art gallery in old town Pasadena. The entire event was themed like softball practice, featuring fun foods like cucumber sandwiches and softball cake pops, with drinks in sports coolers and Win or Lose softballs in buckets around the room. So much thought was put into putting on this event and making it extra special for those attending. I had a great time chatting with everyone at the event. It was so special to be able to have a very normal casual conversation with the directors of the show while milling about eating tiny sandwiches and get to know them a bit more as people than just a name in the credits.
I really enjoyed getting to see two episodes of Win or Lose at the screening party and I was also able to attend a panel the next day during the official LightBox event where an additional episode was screened. I'm very invested in the way that PIXAR has pushed the representation of physical space and objects to represent the metaphorical or emotional obstacles of the narrative. It heightens the emotional impact of a scene to see impossible landscapes or character animations paired with punchlines or deeply emotional moments. It is something that previously I have only noticed in much more experimental animation, so I appreciate seeing it more in the mainstream. I was also really impressed by the color, lighting, and compositing work done in the show. I look forward to viewing the show in full and showing it to my family.
Win or Lose (2024)
Connecting With Recruiters
I met with many recruiters from PIXAR, Disney Feature Animation, ILM, Lucasfilm, Netflix, and Sony Pictures Animation, just to name a few. I also met with people from Adobe, Gnomon, SCAD, and many others. I am very happy with the contacts that I made and strengthened at LightBox this year and I am looking forward to continuing to keep up with my connections.
Portfolio Review from Michael Launder
I was able to snag a portfolio review slot with DAC grad Michael Launder who currently works as a CG Supervisor at Nickelodeon. I've previously met Michael back in 2019 when he led a tour of DAC students around Nickelodeon on a trip to LA organized by Paul. I also got to meet him again at SIGGRAPH this summer as he was doing a panel with my Women in Animation mentor Areeba Rikhan. He gave me a lot of good advice about how I can continue to make my textures more cohesive and have each individual texture flow together seamlessly in a stylized manner. He actually surprised me and I wasn't expecting some of his feedback that my textures were good but they needed more work to look like they belong together. It is something I agree with now that he has pointed it out but I wouldn't have originally thought of that critiquing my own work, so I am excited to see how focusing on that in future projects will elevate my texturing abilities. As a CG Sup who oversees many textures in his department, I trust his eye to point out when something clashes and doesn't quite fit together. Overall, he said my demo reel was looking strong and to keep creating and keep applying.
Arcane: The Alchemy of Animation Panel
My favorite panel that I attended at LightBox was a Fortiche/Riot Games panel discussing Season 2 of Arcane. The panel focused on breaking down the entire process of creating the intro music video to Episode 4 which features "Cagefighter Vi" struggling to cope with returning to life in Zaun. The entire process from the script to storyboards to a rough animatic and in-development music was shown. My favorite pieces that were shown were the visual development pages made for Vi's new look with callout pages for her outfits, hair, and makeup. This previously unseen concept art was really cool to see, as well as the full music video and unreleased demo versions of the soundtrack.
After the panel, I was able to meet Riot Games Production Designer/Senior Concept Artist Arnaud-Loris Baudry, Principal Artist Jason Chan, and Screenwriter/Producer Amanda Overton as well as a poster personally signed by all of them which is super cool.
Cool Swag & Art
After returning from LightBox I was sure to post again about my experiences and give thanks to my peers, new connections, and the companies that made my time worthwhile.
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