|
This whole internship deal has gotten me thinking about college, for sure. Well, aside from the fact that I'm currently working at a college campus. Even got to see a real protest! The true experience.
I've been working different places each day so far. Yesterday in an office at the clinic where my mom actually works, today I was in this more involved area where people came in and out on their computers to just chill out. Chill. It was very that. That's the aura I get from college? It seems that way, compared to most schools I know. I get to eat at real restaurants for lunch. I know the school I'm going to now does that but it's still fairly new to me. I've also been animating a lot! I'm doing a short, roughly five second animation with the character from the story I illustrated. That really got me sort of pumped up for some sort of animation school. I want to do short films, learn techniques, oh it'd be great! Definitely probably going to be investing all I can into an animation school. We have looked around a bit but I've been afraid to get too serious about it just yet. Maybe I'm ready.
1 Comment
What are you most thankful for in your internship experience? What people, experiences, situations, etc. What new appreciations have you gained through internship and how did you develop these?
This entire internship experience is something I'm incredibly grateful for. I've said it a few times here, I know, but it really is true. I was able to do something I have a passion for- drawing -and essentially have a full fledged real big time job doing it. I'm thankful for having just such a cool, nice mentor, I'm thankful that the author of the book chose me to illustrate for it, it's all big thanks to go around for this whole internship. I did gain a moment of appreciation, too, for the kind of work that goes into illustrating books and animating for TV. The animation studio I visited was super cool, as I saw all these people working for these major networks, doing projects that will end up on TV this year. There's so much work that goes in from so many people in any given industry, really. It's marvelous, almost. It really is. What qualities or characteristics did you see in the people around you that you want to develop in yourself?
For this question, I'll take from my time at the Roger studio, which really resonated with me. Everyone there really had their own thing they were all focusing on, work for different channels and shows and networks and such. In a way, I saw myself in those people, like a future successful me, ready to take their place. That seems the kind of job I can really get into, I'm already sort of doing that now, being commissioned to do projects and having a specific goal in mind. For a lot of my life I've been a bit lost. People will point to jobs, ask if that's what I want, and I'm never exactly sure. Something about being in that environment, in that studio of animators and video editors doing work for some rather major networks, it felt right. It definitely seemed something I could be comfortable with in my life beyond high school, I've learned such from doing that kind of work in this internship, too. Oh, right! Some progress today, I'm pretty proud of. I've started keyframes and the basic idea of the video I want to do. It's in similar vein to what my mentor and the people I work with do, just a very brief little commercial type thing? Something that could suffice as a cute little TV bumper. I'm going to have the main character, a three armed octopus, do a little flip and wave at the camera, with as fluid animation as I can do with the time i have. So, here below are the basic, sketchy guidelines I'm going over. I've overlayed them together so you can get a feel for the motion that will be going on. Today will be about my iPOL presentation. In all, sincere honesty, I haven't been thinking about the upcoming presentation. I only just noticed the email about it today. That's a bit of a bad thing, yes? I'll have to ask some questions about it because my situation's a bit unique. A lot unique. My internship advisor, Carissa, did tell me a little bit about it a few weeks ago when she visited me. She said our meeting that day would be the most of it, she suggested I do a bit more planning ahead of time just so it's more organized, as I was a bit unsure of what to do during her visit. I'll plan something out for sure. I'll open it up with a description of the story, show off some pages, go step by step in the process of drawing, maybe even go into a little detail of the animation process. Right! The animation process, I did start that. I spent most of the time on the background, have worked on some kelp animations. I don't know how long of a video/what direction I want to go for it exactly yet. It probably won't be too long considering the time I have left (I really didn't think it'd go by so fast!). This has been a pretty great opportunity, I'm sure I've said this plenty but it truly has. The contributions I'm making for the author are pretty spectacular; not to sound narcissistic of course, but this is a pretty cool thing I'm doing. Touring that animation studio was excellent as well, I'm glad my mentor was able to help provide that to me. Overall I feel I'm doing good. Hopefully I can pull something together that shows that. Oh, and this! This here is the first background shot i did today for the video. I was thinking the empty space on the left would be a good fit for a title, eh?
The importance of communication!
I've had tons of communications this whole project. I've made more emails these past few weeks than I probably have in one year! I've had to email my mentor to update him on things, the author for feedback on my illustrations, the people at that animation studio to schedule that tour I went on, my teacher-- it's a lot of emails! I'm not used to taking responsibility of things like scheduling meetings with professional studios and such, so it's definitely something new! Something I could learn on. It's definitely something I'm going to have to do in the future, oh, it's only going to get more intense with job interviews and the like. It's good to prep me up now for the inevitable. I'm more than halfway done with my internship project? Wow!
To be honest, I expected to be a bit further along in the more-than-halfway point, but oh well, I guess. I'm about finished illustrating, today I pretty much redid a lot of work on the last page and that took up more time than expected. I've already started discussing with the author what kind of video I should do, so I'll probably be able to start something on that tomorrow? I'm honestly a bit unsure where to start but that's what I have a mentor for! I've done a lot these few weeks, looking back! I learned a lot about myself, like how much work I can get done in a day of focused efforts, or how anxious I am to check my email. Haha, whoops. There's been a lot of drawing, I think I've even learned my drawing program more, too. Experimenting a bit with more tools and the options around them. It's been pretty splendid! I don't want to spoil much for the last page, as, it is the last page, but here's a little bit from it! It's pretty much finished, just one little background character will finish the job. My internship weeks compared to my school weeks are pretty different. For starters, I don't leave the house nearly as much. I'm still doing work for 6-7 hours a day, so it feels similar in that regard, but even the kind of work I'm doing is a lot different. It's less stressful, I'm more comfortable with the field I'm working in and I have more control over it. I really like it honestly. That's why I often feel like I could have an easier time with certain jobs than I do with school. With school, I come in a lot of the time not entirely knowing everything that's going down, anything is bound to change in our assignment and such, but with a job, there's more control involved. Or, at least, I have a better understanding with what I'm doing. If I work at Burger King I know that today probably will be very much like yesterday. That's the same with my internship, I know pretty much exactly what I'm signing up for, while with school that's not always the case. It's just a totally different vibe, really. Look at this; these are my hours for the week. I pretty much choose it myself, I'm not really working a set amount of time. There's a certain frame I clock in and out at but, technically, I could work for twelve hours straight and there'd be no one stopping me.
I wouldn't though. Today's prompt: What limitations have you recognized in yourself that you want to overcome during internship, or use this internship experience to help you overcome?
Hmm. I think I kinda space out after working for a few hours. It's definitely due to a lack of structured breaks, I usually try to work as long as I possibly can in one stride. I've already started to try to make my days more structured, starting at around 8-8:30, and clocking in my time about 6-6.5 hours later. Maybe I could set times for breaks too? Even just short ones where I get up and walk around, stretch a bit, maybe look outside. The medium I'm interested in, art, could potentially have a lot of me working freelance from home, so this is a good opportunity for me to get that straight. A little update too, here's the progress I've done on the eighth page so far! The biggest challenge I face at my internship? I'm not really sure, to be truthful! Every day seems pretty consistent in what I face. I feel like the biggest hurdles will come once I finish the illustrations of the story I'm doing (which will likely be this week). That's when I'll be moving on to the animation, which, as I've experienced, is a long and tedious process. But rewarding! So I'll be anticipating that. Speaking of animation, I visited the animation studio Roger in LA a few days ago! It was a super cool experience. I didn't really take any pictures, in hindsight I should have, but I did take notes! An interesting coincidence came from this. At the hotel the night before, I put on some Disney Channel in the background. One of the shows that came on was Bizaardvark, which I had never heard of before. It turns out the people at that studio work on that show, and I got to see them do a little work on it! It was super cool. It does look interesting there; who knows, maybe I'll visit again sometime!
|
AuthorI'm a 17 year old junior in high school, and my dream is to hopefully work in animation. ArchivesCategories |