Monday, September 5, 2011

Demo reel & Job research episode III

Job Research


Wild Brain Entertainment is still looking for an Editor.  I would totally bend over backwards to get an editing job. But along with the normal 2-3 years experience in editing required, I also need to know pacing, staging, and translation to CG layouts.  CG isn't something we cover in the school.  That's a problem, considering that otherwise I would be totally qualified.

Best Boy Media is looking for a 3D animator.  Surprisingly, I actually have a lot of qualifications for this, because they're looking for younger artists.  What I don't have is character design experience, rigging, or experience in 3ds Max.  Yes, everyone requires 3ds Max.  We need it here really bad.  For the additional skills, zBrush would be another helpful element.  And what is Cinema 4D?  I've heard about it, but I still don't understand what it actually is.

There are also lots of listing for concept artists which is a fine field, but it's not the way I want to go.  More clearly, I don't think I would be any good at it.  They need someone with a crazy amount of artistic talent and ability.  That's something I only have a small amount of.  Drawing is difficult for me, so this wouldn't be a great field for me.


Demo reels

The Good:



This reel is so flippin' pretty.  Nothing quite like full texturing and awesome animation.  The pacing is also wonderful.



So here's one from a fellow student in a 3D art college.  Pretty freaking amazing for someone who's been in school just about a semester and a half longer than me at this point.  Anyway, what makes this reel good are several things.  First, it's hilarious.  The pacing is a little quick in the beginning, but I can totally deal with that.  He shows the animatic, video reference, and notes.  Those are all great things.  And he makes a point that I've been trying to make forever. No matter how good the reel.  A good reel is not a substitute for good animation, period.



I like this reel mostly because of the emotions that each character has.  Even when they're speaking different languages, you can tell the basic idea of what they're say.  Also the way the clips in the reel are arranged makes you stay engaged.


The Bad:


Okay.  So the person who modeled this girl did a great job with her.  That said, the reel is horrible.  Quite literally, we see every inch of this one girl, and only this one girl.  We see her with textures, without textures, in solid object form, and in wire frame.  We see the same parts of her, over and over again.  Not interesting.  What's more, while I'm sure it's awesome that someone can make a nude girl, no one really cares about seeing the texture of her nipples three time.  End of story.



I'm not too big a fan of this reel, just because I feel like it puts all the cool stuff in the beginning, sits on the titles forever, and then drags us along for the rest of a demo reel that doesn't showcase much.  The longer we look, the less interesting it becomes.  So, this reel is a fail.


The Weird:


For the most part, this is a good reel.  I like that we get to laugh.  I kind of wish he would focus on 3D only though, because it's obviously his strong point.  I feel like he could completely cut out the hand animation and it would be a good reel.



So this reel is more on the professional side from what I can see.  It gets points for being cool, as well as slightly creepy.  The one thing that bothers me though is that things are extremely out of order.  One object is shown, and then another object comes up, only to be thrown back to the first object again to show us something like texturing.  So I don't like that.  it does showcase his skills well, but honestly, I don't think we need to see his texture maps in Maya to know whether he's good or not.  So, this reel is okay, but I would definitely do some things differently.

No comments:

Post a Comment