OIAF Day 3

 Today was a bit of a slower pace, only 2 screenings, so I took the time out to check out the National Gallery (wonderful place to go if you have any appreciation for art of any kind) and to my surpirise, it was teeming with animation students from all over the country. Needless to say, I did plenty more gabbing, cardswapping. Many even asked for my feedback on their portfolios they brought with them, which was really an interesting
experience for me!

After that, however, there's an event that happens every festival, that would be a networking exercise in disguise, had the website not told you in the guide that this event was geared to just that! At any rate, the event is called 'The Animators Picnic' and event for passholders only where we all get on a bus, and get carted off to this field for team pumpkin carving, and you know. Food. Picnic stuff! And bad music, which is a hilarious given at a picnic. I got put on a heck of a team! Luke Conrad (whom I met already and talked about in yesterdays post) and Jerry Beck (co owner of Cartoon Brew). I also managed to cross paths with Rick Knowles in my travels, an old school 2D Disney Animator. He's done a good deal of traditional work, mostly on sequels, but decent ones I've seen! Like Return to Neverland. He's lucky I didn't talk his poor ears off, but lord knows I tried! He was very gracious about it all, though.

Now those who have actually been following this, you might be wondering something. Namely 'You're doing lots of networking, which is important for jobsearching, but what about actual jobs, how do we get those?' Fear not! I've been surveying from studio reps what is lacking or what they want to see in new portfolios, I just want to have more of a consensus assembeled before I really start shooting my mouth off! and on top of that, there's  3 hour session tomorrow (likely today by the time any of you get to read this!) about recruiting from a studios point of view, the whats and whys with panelists from Rainmaker Animation, Walt Disney Studios, Nelvana, Mercury Filmworks, and Guru Studios. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for my findings! Same GAIF time, same GAIF channel!