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Q. How did you get involved in the 3D computer graphics industry?
A. I've been drawing since I was about three years old. From about age twelve, I was always trying to combine art with the computers I was exposed to at home and at school. In junior high school I took a BASIC programming course and soon one of my favorite things to do was to grab a computer, and whip out a 20 line BASIC drawing program and plot a picture of Garfield or Goofy while waiting for a student-teacher conference.
In university, I was initially working towards a degree in Communications. My room mate, Christian Fagerlund, was an amazing painter. Every day I would come home frustrated and drained after sitting in a lecture hall with 300 other students trying to answer questions I really didn't care about. Christian would come home fully energized after a three-hour painting or drawing course. He had paint splashes over his jeans, gesso in his hair, and just the biggest grin. So I decided that I had to give the whole "art studio" thing a try. I took a Photoshop course and within a week I knew that I had to change my major.
After switching my major, I began learning all the basic Mac packages that everyone learned in school: Photoshop, Director, Freehand, etc. etc. Nothing really 'spoke to me' until I sat down with Strata and animated my first bouncing ball. Suddenly, it all made sense.
I had spoken to my professor, Victoria Vesna, about teaching a 3D animation course and she said she'd be happy to as long as I was the teaching assistant. She had some contacts at Alias so to make sure I was prepared, I spent a week taking a course at the company's office. I felt like breaking into song, I was so excited: I was sitting with a bunch of 3D artists, all of whom worked in the industry, learning with them and from them, and asking them questions--I couldn't ask for anything more!
Pretty soon, I received word that Alias was looking for an intern to help out. I leapt at the chance, both interning and finishing my degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Q. How do you use Maya software?
A. I use Maya mainly for technical character work, animating, and MEL scripting which is a big part of what I do. My main interest has been, and always will be, telling stories through characters. I love character animation, especially the variation between manic insanity and extremely subtle acting. I can't do the subtle stuff so well yet, but I'm working on it.
Q. What projects have you worked on?
A. Lord of the Rings is the first feature film I'm been a real part of. I've helped out a number of companies, Dream Quest and Disney most frequently, in a Maya support role while working at Alias. Also, while there, I spent a lot of time working on internal productions including Ruby's Saloon, Bingo, Roach-X, and Stain-X.
I've also prepared and delivered Maya Master Classes at SIGGRAPH.
Q. What makes this industry so exciting to you?
A. It's the passion that everyone in this industry has for what they're doing. That's what I love.
I love the process of animating, and the deep combination of fear and excitement that precedes each shot. "Can I do it this time? Is it going to work? How am I going to fit all this business into 52 frames...?"
I love the act of blocking the scene out and how you can see it in your head as you work and work... trying to coax that perfect timing out onto the monitor. How adding or removing a single frame will help the action 'pop'. It's amazing to me how in a matter of a few frames you can go from a character looking like nothing, to suddenly appearing as if it were a living, thinking being.
I love watching children enthralled by the talent of a group of amazing artists who were able to add the right subtle motions, just the right highlight, a 'mere' fold in the skin. How all of this creativity allows the children to believe in their favorite characters 100 per cent as they watch them romp about the screen. They feel what the character is feeling, they know what they're thinking.
I even love those moments when I'm looking at a shot and it's just not working — something's wrong. I can't quite tell what it is, but there's something not quite right. Then you make a minor tweak and BANG! You feel it. It's good — it's right. Suddenly your character is alive, or your explosion has impact, or your background suddenly becomes 'real'. Then comes the satisfaction that makes your next cup of coffee taste like it's the best you've ever had in your entire life.
Q. Where do you see the industry going in the next five years?
A. That's an interesting question, because there are so many aspects of the industry that are going to go different places.
There's some great computer animation and compositing going on — very innovative and fantastic work, but what sells these movies is their stories. I hope that the movie aspect of the industry continues to focus on the story before going for the "big boom effects". This past year we've had a number of amazing works of CG and the most successful have had to do with the quality of the story. Look at Lord of the Rings, Moulin Rouge, Monsters Inc., Ice Age to name a few.
I can see more and more animated features getting created, with much better quality. It feels like there's a big opening right now, the public seems primed for it. Thanks to lower priced software, hardware, and easier to use tools I have a feeling that we're going to see a lot more animated shorts of higher quality. Hopefully this will extend to the feature film industry.
The games industry is another example of a technology art that's going to keep expanding as it has over the past decade. Entertainment constantly pushes technology, and the games business is the fastest evolving sector. In the next five years, I can see much more interactivity between the players and the games themselves.
Hopefully, the artificial intelligence in games will get to the point where the game starts learning more about the players and can begin customizing itself based on what it has learned. As hardware gets faster, software gets faster, and users get more sophisticated, I see no reason why this can't happen.
Q. What words of wisdom do you have for anyone interested in entering the world of 3D computer graphics?
A. Make sure that it's your passion. The important thing is to do the job because you love it, and it makes you happy. If you can work two days straight on a project, sleep for two hours, then arrive in the morning with the ability to laugh when someone says, "Hey, that's great.. but I changed my mind, I want it this way." If you can then go back to your work and do your best — yet again — then either you've got what it takes or you should be taken away by the men in white coats!
This is a tough industry, not just for the hours involved. There are a lot of political battles that you may have to face. You have to show that you have the type of attitude where it won't kill you each time someone changes your shot. You've got to be able to appreciate and understand someone else's vision. You may have different ideas, but in the end the person you're working for is the one who's vision is right, in terms of the project at hand.
It's a competitive industry and sometimes you'll work your hardest and things still won't pan out. There could be a number of reasons why. Just continue to do your best because this is an extremely small industry and it therefore pays to have a good outlook about its ups and downs — both personal and professional.
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Jason Schleifer is currently a Animator/Character Technical Director with Weta Digital in New Zealand and part of the talented team working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.