What:
As a recent graduate who has just entered the work force, this is a compilation of the knowledge that I have gained during that time that I hope will be beneficial to prospective students.
Why:
I’m bored and it might be helpful, let’s assume the latter
Disclaimer:
This is my opinion, it may or may not be correct, please use your best judgment to interpret the information to suit your needs. I currently work in VFX so most of this is based off of my experience there but may transition to other industries.
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########### SCHOOLS ###########
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What is the best school?[/B]
There is no best school, there are some schools that are better than others but there is no one school that is hand down the best school and will. It is more about choosing the school that is right for you.
What school is right for you?
This is very subjective, but some things that I would recommend considering are:
==> What industry do you want to work in? Games? Film? Commercials? Archiviz?
==> What do you want to specialize in? Modeling? Compositing? Lighting? Chain Saw Juggling?
==> Where is your industry currently located?
Knowing what you want to do with the knowledge that you gain at school is going to play a key part in the location of the school that you wish to attend. This is due to one key factor which is your ability to work in the country where the predominant amount of working being done for your industry is (will get more into work permits later).
Visiting Schools:
If you find a school that you think would be a good fit it is almost always a good idea to contact them and view the campus. You will be put in touch with an ‘adviser’ but I would advise looking at this person as more of a ‘recruiter’ for the school. They are the face of the school and are going to put their best foot forward to secure a trade of your money for their information. As schools have turned more into business models over the years in order to thrive, this has become a necessary evil, but luckily this will hold true for most schools (kudos to the ones who dont, granted the ones that say they dont are probably the ones that do)
The demo reels coming out of school XYZ are very impressive, they must be a good school.
The vast majority of highly impressive demo reels coming out of ‘Top Tier’ schools are from people who have previous experience in the industry, 4 year art degrees, or who have extensively home schooled themselves. This is something that most schools will not tell you about unless asked, and even then I would be surprised if a recruiter knew if a certain student had previous experience or not (There were 32 students in my graduating class and the administration on 3 separate occasions with 3 separate students did not know that they were actually part of the class, the instructors were MUCH better about getting to know the students)
Home School vs University:
Having a degree or diploma is a great thing, it will make it easier to travel around in this industry that currently loves to be nomadic. However, a degree/diploma from a certain school will NOT guarantee that you will get a job (unless you go to DD Florida, which btw, so glad that failed).
Most schools will assume that all students coming in will have absolutely zero knowledge of Computer Graphics. This gives us a basic idea of what we can expect to learn from schools, the first step is that they will have to teach you how to use the programs that are commonly used in the industry (most of this information can be found online, and a free student version/non-commercial version of most software is becoming more available).
For my situation, I homeschooled myself for ~2 years before attending school, and upon graduating from school I would say that the information I knew about software, art, had increased by ~25%. I did however have a good enough demo reel that allowed me to get a great opportunity at a top tier company.
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########### Location/Work Permits ###########
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Earlier I briefly discussed work permits, this is a giant part of securing employment upon graduation. The VFX industry is a fairly new and fairly small. With this being said, there will be a limited amount of locations where you will find a ‘big name companies’ in no particular order Australia, New Zealand, Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal), United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, and India.
Why is a work permit so important?
Work permits are very important when trying to break into the industry due to tax incentives provided by the government. These incentives require a certain percentage of the employees to be residents of the country, the basic idea is, the government refunds a company a certain percentage of the money they spend doing work in their country and in return the company provides jobs and helps to stimulate that countries economy.
How do I get a work permit and how do they work?
This is dependent on the country you wish to go to school in and the school that you are attending. As I attended school in Canada (Non-Quebec), the information I am about to provided is limited to that geographic region.
==> 1 year in school = 1 year open work permit (can work anywhere Fast Food, VFX, etc)
==> 2 years in school = 3 year open work permit
==> 52 weeks of Full Time work in skilled labor required to apply for Permanent Residency
==> 1 week = 30 hours work, OT does not count
==> 2 weeks of PT work MIGHT be equal to 1 week of FT work(emphasis on might as my understanding is that there is some legal interpretation here)
Will a company sponsor me for a work permit?
As a recent graduate from school, probably not. If I had to put a percentage on the number of people who graduate and are immediately sponsored by a company for their first job (assuming they have no previous industry experience) I would guess that it is less than .1%
If I didn’t get a work permit from school how can I work in another country?
Depending on your country of origin there are international agreements set in place to allow you to work in a different country after you graduate from school. These are just some of the options that I have ran into, I’m sure there are more out there.
==>Working Holiday:
Allow you to travel to different countries and work for up to 1 year (not sure if the work permit is restricted or not, but I believe it is an open work permit)
==> SWAP:
United States version of Working Holiday
==> NAFTA:
North American Free Trade Agreement, if you have graduated from a 4 year university, NAFTA will allow you to work in a anywhere in North America for 1 year. This is only available to people from North America.
What do I do after my work permit expires?
After your work permit expires, there are two good options that I know of:
1.) Company sponsorship, this will depend on a few factors, you, the company, location, and of course money (different locations will have different requirements for the wage required in order to hire a temporary foreign worker)
==>Here are some rough figures:
==>Vancouver - 24cad/h
==>Montreal - 20cad/h
==>London - 11.5pounds/h
2.) Apply for Permanent Residency (PR). PR is one of the first steps towards immigrating to a country, most countries will not allow you to continue working forever as a temporary foreign worker. If you wish to work and stay in Canada, I would recommend graduating from a school that has at least a 2 year program which will give you a 3 year work permit which will allow you to work for long enough to apply for PR.
Demo Reel:
==> Keep it short, ~1 minute
==> Show what you want to do ie. if you want to be a lighter, dont worry about the animation and show nice lighting
==> Story doesnt matter (most professional demo reels are just shots from different movies)
==> Music doesnt matter (unless the recruiter finds it super annoying)
==> Quality > Quantity
Please attend school responsibly, student loans are not fun. Unless your filthy rich, then do w/e because you can.