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View Full Version : When did you feel your education/experiance made you ready for the real world?

TGNSD
10-17-2009, 01:46 AM
Not that long ago I started a thread regarding my decision on attending SVA. I'm not here to beat the dead horse or revive an old post but I do have concerns I wanted to get opinions on....

How many years did it take you to feel comfortable enough to consider yourself an artist and/or when did you start considering yourself a production artist? When did you feel ready enough to start applying to jobs?

Also, did you have any internships and if so was it more efficient to learn through the experience of working in the field rather than the theory's taught in class?

My thought behind this is I'm considering transferring to Gnomon and of the professor's I spoke with raised the question about whether I felt that two years would be enough to reach the level that I wanted to be at both professionally and artistically.


The first post can be found here, (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=283&t=791661) and is in regards to why I chose SVA. I thought I could, I wanted to, but am really having a hard time enjoying the city. I was won over and chose SVA mostly because I wanted to get a real college experiance; as in a real campus, regular clubs, and sports teams. SVA for the most part doesn't have any of that, which could have been my misconception when I was deciding that I wanted to beleive SVA would give me this experiance. Now I'm faced with the reality that this was far from the truth and makes me feel that Gnomon could give me an education for twice as less and in twice as less time. . . . . I don't know, It's a big decision to make and I really felt like I had everything figured out before I left for NYC but this city's enviroment has seriously drained my creativy and exhausted my love for art...
JesseDavis
10-21-2009, 06:05 PM
Honestly, I don't think I was "ready" when I started applying. Most people are afraid that they aren't as well (and mostly afraid of rejection). Get over it. Just start applying when you've got a minutes worth of work on a showreel. You'll get a job where your work is appropriate, and hopefully go up from there. 2 years is plenty of time if you work hard.
KrzysztofFus
10-22-2009, 05:41 AM
Tom, I go to SVA and im in your department. I'm 2 years ahead of you. Im working on my thesis and I'm already freelancing in the city.

Check out my reel.

http://www.vimeo.com/7178892

SVA is great because when you get better. (Summer of your sophomore year)
You'll be ready to intern at studios.

If you want I can show you some more of my stuff. Hell I can show you how shitty my stuff
was freshman year. I was terrible. But I tried my best and I punched in more hours into Maya than most other students and I really pushed ahead of most of them. I can honestly say that I'm in the top 5 of my class right now. Probably #1 if you only look at my resume.

I have more 3D Modeling to show because thats my passion but I used that reel to land an editing gig for a while.
spindraft
10-23-2009, 03:57 PM
Honestly, I don't think I was "ready" when I started applying. Most people are afraid that they aren't as well (and mostly afraid of rejection). Get over it. Just start applying when you've got a minutes worth of work on a showreel. You'll get a job where your work is appropriate, and hopefully go up from there. 2 years is plenty of time if you work hard.

Got this problem myself. Thing is, in my current career I've kinda already done/know everything I'm going to (at least at a considerable rate). This is the reason I want to leave it behind (not learning new stuff sucks), but is also the reason I'm hesitant to take the full plunge & get out. When you already know what it feels like to be on top of your game with something, you feel like you need to bet at that (or close to) level of efficiency to be competent elsewhere.

I've been tooling around w/ 3d stuff for several years, but for the most part on my own time & just learning via. trial/error & from other people of the interwebs. I recently ponied up for the gnomon sub, thinking it will give me insight into the generally accepted "working pipeline" methodolgy in the industry. Something that I had worked up in my head to be some kind of black art. But after several days of watching tuts for 8-12 hrs. while plugging away at work I noticed something. Most of the stuff I'm watching is stuff I've already figured out how to do anyway.

Sure I've picked up many neat little tips/tricks that are sure time savers. But it has pointed out to me that it's not neccessary to wallow in "am I ready yet". That the bottom line is, put in the work, get a reel together, and get to knocking on doors.

Jesse's absolutely right. Especially for the 'creative' type, there's no such thing as ready, the drawing is never good enough. But at some point you have to learn when to say to yourself, "That's good enough." and just get on with it.
JaredTaylor
10-24-2009, 12:05 AM
Why don't you let the employers decide if you're ready by showing them your reel? ;)
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