So where do I go from here?

My goal is pretty clear but how to reach it is still an unknown path for me. The secondary research I have done so far has helped me getting a better overview and has taught me some things I didn't know. I do have hopes that I will get some primary research done about Pixar and I have contacted Chris Williams in hopes that he somehow can connect me to Pixar for some kind of interview so I can get more inside info that won't be revealed with secondary research. So far I'm still awaiting my reply and whatever the reply will be I have a feeling I won't get that part of my research done before Pixar is here during Animex so for now I guess I'll put that on ice. As much as I could wish for it I don't expect to get my foot inside Pixar straight from the university so naturally I will have to start working somewhere else to get experience and climb my first steps on that ladder. The industry might not be as big in Europe as in the U.S but it's still an exciting and growing industry. Working in Europe is defiantly (almost) just as interesting for me as working for Pixar. I've seen a lot of great work coming from Europe and particularly from France. I don't think I would mind working in several places in Europe to gather up experience. At the same time I would get to travel and see more of the world around me which I also consider a plus. Preferably I would like to get hired under a contract for a studio or a smaller company but will also look into the opportunities of working as a freelancer. It is hard enough already to get into the industry so if I'm not including freelancing in my job search I'm afraid it's going to get a lot harder to get a job. My first priority will of course then be to get hired under a contract. That way I can gain more working experience and feel more confident and independent as a freelancer later on. Even though I am studying specifically to become a 3D Animator, I still have some skills within modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering and if I'm offered my first job within one of these areas it would be just as interesting to me because then I have my feet inside the door and can take my first steps on the ladder.

National Companies

So where do I start searching? As I've mentioned earlier I don't expect to be walking in the door to Pixar straight from the university and will have to start some place so why not start somewhere local/national where I'm from? I think starting my career in my own country could be a good thing since it will most likely be the most comfortable starting point (language, close to family/support etc.) when I'm still fresh in the game. There are some companies locally in Bergen that I'm interested in working for:

• Bug (One of the major companies in the region and probably Bergen's answer to Pixar)
• Gosu Design (Also one of the larger companies in the region with a big client list and impressive portfolio)
• Michelsen Design
• Northern Visual
• Maestro Media

The 2 first companies are defiantly the ones I would like to work for the most because these are the companies that most likely would need animators. Bug for instance is currently working on a TV animated series for children called "City Of Friends" where Disney is the distributor. City of Friends is currently the most expensive production of its kind in Norway and I'm excited that it's happening "in my backyard" which is just one of the reasons why I would love to work for Bug. Gosu Design might not be currently working on a TV series but they still have an interesting portfolio and client list including TV2 which is one of the major TV channels in Norway. The last 3 companies on the list also do 3D but mostly I expect that their projects are visualizations for the real estate industry. I am interested in doing some visualization but primarily animation, which is the reason why Bug and Gosu are on the top of the list. Bug has grown a lot as well and has become a very profiled company in Bergen so they mostly seek specialized employees. The reason I know this is because I have visited them and talked to the manager 2 years ago. Ergo. If I will be working for them it will most likely be as an animator. When it comes to the rest of Norway there are very few companies I'm familiar with and the only 2 I can think of are based in Oslo:

• FunCom
• Toxic

FunCom has grown to become an international known company within the gaming industry and has released worldwide known titles as:

• The Longest Journey
• Dreamfall (The Longest Journey 2)
• Anarcy Online
• The Age of Conan

Currently, FunCom is primarily focusing on producing MMORPG games like the last 2 mentioned in the list above. I know it's the gaming industry but based on what I'm studying I don't see why I can't work for that industry as well. I've loved playing computer games since I was little anyway so joining a team making one would defiantly be interesting and give me a lot of experience. As far as I know, Toxic is doing much of the same thing as Bug and Gosu in Bergen so based on that I'd much rather work for Bug or Gosu if I get the chance. This because it is closer to my family/relatives/friends and it's in Bergen which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world (I'm not kidding, I've lived close to it most of my life and in the centre of it for the past 2 years and I love it).

The Rest Of Europe

When it comes to the rest of Europe I still haven't researched enough to know what companies are there but France is defiantly an interesting country for me based on what work I've seen from them (even the French student works are amazing). In the UK I still have little knowledge about what companies exist here except from the ones we have been introduced by in lectures and the one that interests me the most is Blue-Zoo Animation Studio. Based on what I've seen on their webpage they seem like a very profiled studio with a lot of exciting projects that I would love to be part of.

Freelancing

I guess the beauty of freelancing is that I don't necessarily have to be with my client physically so I can work externally which then opens a lot of doors and job opportunities. Being realistic about it though, I suspect I already should have a good rumor about me in order to get such projects without meeting the client in person. Putting that aside. Where to search for such jobs? There is a chance I could come across a work ad in the newspaper or through some recruitment agency. But based on my own experience, this industry doesn't seem to announce job offers (not in Norway anyway) in newspapers and similar media that often. Most likely they will announce this on their own homepages or on forums.

CGTalk - A Highly respected community on the web. This is where the "big boys/girls" are and from what I know this is also where people from the industry and potential employers/recruiters log in now and then. CGTalk also features a page for job search alone where companies often announce jobs. The good thing about the system is that it also consists of filters so you can for example look for one discipline and even narrow it down to one country if you want. I've seen a lot of job announcements here for the U.S and UK. Unfortunately it's been rather quiet from Norway there.

Det Store Dyret - Norway's answer to CGTalk. This is probably the most respected forum/community within the creative industry in Norway. Like with CGTalk, this forum is also visited by potential employers/recruiters within the Norwegian industry. The forum does also include a thread for jobs where both employers and employees can announce job offers/looking for jobs. It might not be as sophisticated as the job search at CGTalk but it works for its purpose and I've seen a lot of announcements there that has never been announced at CGTalk filtered to Norway. If I'm looking for vacant jobs in Norway this would be one of my first places to look (especially as a freelancer).

3D Hue - Another big Norwegian forum/community but I would say less respected than Det Store Dyret since I've seen work here that should have never been posted (people posting their first 3D models. Like snowmen for one example). The forum also features a job thread like Det Store Dyret and there's a chance jobs could be announced there instead of Det Store Dyret so it's still a resource worth checking when searching for jobs.

Festivus - A job search webpage for jobs in the animation industry, mainly in the UK. If I'm looking for work in the UK it's defiantly a place to stop by and check. That's how far research has taken me on these subjects. Any further research will be to look more into Europe and what companies it has to offer, especially France.


Sources:

• Design Region Bergen
• Western Norway Film Commission
• Animation Industry Database
• Bug
• Gosu Design
• Northern Visual
• Maestro Media
• FunCom
• Toxic
• Blue-Zoo Animation Studio
• CGTalk
• Det Store Dyret
• 3D Hue
• Skillset
• Festivus

The U.S Green Card

Since my goal would be to work (even do internship) for Pixar it also means that I of course would have to move to the U.S and therefore would need a visa.

Personally I wouldn't apply for a visa to the U.S without already having a job offer so based on that scenario the most relevant type of visa (or green card) for me would be to apply for "immigration through employment".

What I've found in my research on this subject is that there are four categories for receiving the green card based upon employment:

• EB-1
• EB-2
• EB-3
• EB-4

EB-2 and EB-3 are the alternatives I consider relevant ones for my situation which I'll quote in more detail below:


"

EB-2 Professionals with advanced degrees or persons with exceptional ability

• Foreign nationals of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business
• Foreign nationals that are advanced degree professionals
• Qualified alien physicians who will practice medicine in an area of the U.S. which is underserved.
  

EB-3 Skilled or professional workers

• Foreign national professionals with bachelor's degrees (not qualifying for a higher preference category)
• Foreign national skilled workers (minimum two years training and experience)
• Foreign national unskilled workers

"

I can't say I'm certain of what "advanced degrees" would classify as but since I'm planning to do Master's degree I'm thinking it could possibly fall into that category.
If not, EB-3 should be my best option.

Applying for any of the two options mentioned above is still a 3 step process:

1. The employer needs to obtain a labor certification from the US department of labor (DOL)
2. The employer needs to fill out a form with U.S Citizenship Immigration Services (USCIS)
3. Once the form has been approved and the visa bulletin reflects that a visa is available, the employee will apply to a U.S. consulate for an immigrant visa or to USCIS for adjustment of status.

NB. Part of the text above (written in italic style) is a quote from my source since there really wasn't any better way of explaining this in other words.


I guess that pretty much everything in short about what I've found out during my research about work permit/green card in the U.S.


Source: U.S. Citizen Immigration Services

After all. Pixar is where I want to be in the end so because of that I have decided to start my research there.

Pixar's History

Pixar is based in Emeryville, California, US and has been around since 1979.
At this point Pixar was originally a part of Lucasfilm ltd doing graphics and visual effects (Graphics group).


1984 was the year when John Lasseter left his job as an animator for Disney to start working for Pixar as an animator instead. Here he animated the first Pixar short ever made: André and Wally B, which was premiered at Siggraph the same year. Pixar's goal with this short was not only to showcase animation done by a real animator but also 2 technical inventions which were a particle system and motion blur. Motion blur became a huge success commercially, and is still being used today. The crowd loved what they saw and one guy asked John Lasseter what software he had used to animate the characters since it was so funny. Of course this proves the focus and interest was still on the technology.

In 1986 Pixar was bought by Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and the company got divorced from Lucasfilm as an independent company called Pixar. The same year the Luxo lamp was born when Pixar released their second short film "Luxo Jr" to demonstrate the new technology that their software and hardware were capable of doing. Luxo Jr premiered at Siggraph and was a huge success. This time, when John Lasseter was asked about the characters the question was not about the technical aspects of the film but if the big Luxo lamp was a father or a mother. John smiled and thought for himself that he made it. It's not just about the technical aspects any more; it's also about the characters which today is what Pixar's films are all about.
Luxo Jr showed to the world who Pixar is and what they're about and has become a trademark/logo that the whole world knows them for.

In these early years, Pixar was mainly a high-end computer hardware company selling both hardware and software which was mainly sold to government managed companies and Disney. Their core was the "Pixar Image Computer" where their leading buyer was Disney. Even though they had such a big studio as Disney buying their Image Computer, it never sold well. Next to selling hardware and software, Pixar was also making short animation films and they were the first ones to ever release a CGI film.

Even though Pixar has managed to amaze the world with their short movies as demonstration of what their hardware were capable of the sales were still too poor and Pixar was threatened to bankruptcy. To save the company from facing that fate, John Lasseter and his animation department started producing CG commercials for third party companies. This saved them from bankrupcy with campaign success' like Listerine, Tropicana and LifeSavers. Next to doing the commercial work, Pixar kept their relationship with Disney who later proved to become a major partner in Pixar's success.

In 1991 Pixar signed a contract with Disney to produce up to 3 feature length films were the first one to be released was Toy Story in 1995 with huge success as the highest grossing film of that year.
Because of Pixar's success, Disney went into a new agreement with them in 1996 to produce 5 films where the following films were: A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles.

In 2006 Pixar gets bought by the Walt Disney Company which makes Pixar a fully-owned subsidiary company of the Walt Disney Company

Throughout the years Pixar has produced several short films as well as feature-length films which are listed here chronologically:

Pixar's Films













Pixar Short André and Wally B (1984)













Pixar Short Luxo Jr (1986)













Pixar Short Red's Dream (1987)















Pixar Short Tin Toy (1988)












Pixar Short Knick Knack (1989)




Pixar Feature
Toy Story

(1995)


















Pixar Short Geri's Game (1997)


Pixar Feature
A Bug's Life

(1996)























Pixar Feature Toy Story 2 (1999)
















Pixar Short For The Birds (2000)





















Pixar Feature Monster's, Inc. (2001)

















Pixar Short Mike's New Car (2002)













Pixar Short Boundin' (2003)

















Pixar Feature Finding Nemo (2003)

















Pixar Feature The Incredibles (2004)













Pixar Short Jack-Jack Attack (2005)



Pixar Short

One Man Band
(2005)




























Pixar Feature Cars (2006)













Pixar Short Mater And The Ghost Light (2006)














Pixar Short Lifted (2006)























Pixar Feature Ratatouille (2007)














Pixar Short Your Friend The Rat (2007)














Pixar Short Presto (2008)






















Pixar Feature WALL-E (2008)














Pixar Short BURN-E (2008)













Pixar Short Partly Cloudy (2009)

















Pixar Feature Up (2009)


















Pixar Short Dug's Special Mission (2009)




Career opportunities at Pixar

So how do I get there? How do I get my foot inside their door? Become part of their team? Simply, how do I get a career at Pixar?

I guess there's the same difficulty (if not more difficult) as with any other job you would apply for to actually getting it. One way in however could be doing an internship so at least the employers at Pixar will get to know me and see what I can do. As far as I've found out, internships are possible for anyone in the world and not US students alone, as long as the applicant have the required qualifications.
As with probably any job in this industry it's important to show the work I've done to any potential employer if I would have a chance on getting a job. In most cases this is done by making a show/demo reel and Pixar has a list of 11 points on how to do this right:

"

1) An application that requires a demo reel submission has 5 parts:

a) the cover letter
b) the resume
c) the demo reel
d) the demo reel breakdown
e) the on-line application (the application contains the Reel Submission Agreement)

2) Your reel should be no more than 4 minutes.

3) Don't show un-approved work.

4) Nobody cares about music/soundtrack.

5) Put your best work first.

6) Demo Reel Breakdown (DRB).

7) Include a title card at the beginning and end with your name, address, phone, and email.

8) Show work that proves that you know what you did.

9) Take the time to polish.

10) Show it to other people.

And 11) If you really don't have stuff to put on a reel, don't send one.

"

The list is a quote from Pixar's webpage, to see the list in more detail go to:
http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/howto.html

Pixar announces job vacancies as well as their internships on their webpage. Unfortunately they currently don't have anything about animation and they don't answer emails from students who have questions regarding their school projects.

That is in short what I have found out about career opportunities at Pixar. Even though they don't answer emails for students who do projects I still hope I can manage to get an interview of some sort when representatives from Pixar will be here in Teesside at Animex to find out more about what pathway to go in order to get hired at Pixar.

This concludes my research about Pixar so far.


Sources:

• Pixar
• Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1 (DVD)
  
• Wikipedia

Welcome

Hello!
Welcome to my blog about Studio Practice & Business.

This is the blog where I will post all my work progress and reasearch material for my Studio Practice & Business module.

First off I might as well tell you about me:

I'm a 23 years old (born in 1986) Norwegian which have always had a big interest when it comes to computer/video games and Computer Graphics. The interest started of course with games as I got my first meeting with computer/video games at the age of 4-5 and was basically hooked ever since, and of course had the dream about participating in creating games in the future myself.

In my early teens I started to become more aware of 3D software and tried whatever software I could get my hands on. Of course as young and dumb as I was I didn't get very far with any of them. Softwares like "TrueSpace" "Blender 3D" "Cinema 4D".
It was first when a friend of mine gave me a copy of LightWave 3D 7.5 I started getting hang of the basics and principles within 3D which helped me a lot once I started my education for this field of study.

Of course by this point, several CG movies had been released (Shrek, Ice Age, all the Pixar movies etc) and I have gotten more and more interested in film production and animation specially. It's a lot of hard work, but so satisfying seeing that character come to life.

For the past 2 years I have attended Noroff Instituttet in Bergen where I have finished "3D Design and Animation" and "3D Filmproduction". The first year mainly focuses on teaching the technical aspects of 3Ds Max (Modelling, Texturing, Lighting, Animation, Rendering) while the second year focuses on how to produce a short movie in terms of story telling, concept art, storyboards and everything that has to do with Pre-Production. At the end of year two we are given the task to produce a short film (2-5min) in approx 6 months.

I fancy 2D animation but personally I'm a 3D animator.

My biggest goal and dream is of course to end up working as an animator for Pixar. Which I hope will be the outcome of this module. By this I mean that I will learn the pathway to get to reach my goal (Pixar) in the end.

From here I guess there's not much more to tell about me so if you have further questions just ask me=)

SWOT Analysis

Well here's what I've managed to put down on my SWOT analysis (so far at least)