The Super-Huge Siggraph 2007 Summery Post

Preface:

I had originally intended to post periodically over the course of the Siggraph conference, however my wireless card was having problems connecting to the San Diego Convention Center's network. Now that I have access to the web again, I'm posting a giant summery of some of my conference experience. If you happen to be unfamiliar with Siggraph please click here to learn more about it.

Siggraph was a great ride which finished far too quickly. However, although this was my first time at the Siggraph conference, I felt like a Siggraph veteran. I learned about efficient networking, made great connections, saw what standards of work is making it into the Siggraph student and professional animation festivals, and had a great time hanging out with my peers in the industry.

The primary reason I came to Siggraph was to make connections which could turn into job leads after I graduate in the spring. I can gladly say that I accomplished that goal and made quite a few friends along the way. My biggest concern before coming to Siggraph was my business cards. I was told to bring around 250-300, but I didn’t believe people when they advised me to bring so many. I figured that I would be doing great if I made two strong contacts by the end of the huge conference. And the conference wasn’t all that large—or at least it didn’t seem that large because of the convention center’s size. Anyway, I didn’t expect much, career wise, to come out of Siggraph. Once I was at the conference—almost the first day—I made two very promising contacts. In fact, I averaged two good contacts just about every day I was at the conference! What blew me away was that the contacts got more and more promising with each day!

Something that I discovered was to be bold. Don’t be afraid to talk to random people in lines, before and after the Animation or Electronic theaters, or even at a book shop booth while you’re browsing over all the cool stuff. Just striking up a casual conversation about practically anything is a point of entry. Be friendly and sociable. You really want to genuinely care about their interests or function in the industry no matter how small or seemingly divergent from your industry function—casting a broad net so to speak. Who knows? They may know of a job or someone who may help you later down the road. Kind of like the Grip guy who holds the motion capture camera wires for the director James Cameron, but he only refers to himself as a Grip. I didn’t meet this guy, but if you do, please let me know. If some people snub you off, they might not be worth working for or with in the industry anyway. Bad attitudes burn bridges. Burning bridges is career suicide, especially in the computer graphics industry.

Another thing I learned by the end of the conference is how to spot appropriate times to exchange business cards. Sometimes when I talked to a person and there was no energetic interest or connection, just a friendly conversation that doesn’t go anywhere, that person may have no personal interest in contacting you in the future—much less helping you find job leads. I know some exceptions might exist, but logically, the chances are extremely slim. If you discover a personal or professional connection with someone, such as a common interest outside the industry or common passion for an area within the industry, don’t hesitate to exchange your information. A good test of this type of connection is to ask yourself, “in the future, if I hear of a position that this person would be great for, would I go out of my way to let them know about it?” If you can answer yes, by all means, hand them your card. See if they hand you theirs, or you could go the bold route and ask them for their card first—it depends on the situation.

Siggraph is known for its great ‘after parties’—some of the best places for networking. The only party I was able to attend was the annual Breaking the Barrel ceremony, one of the oldest traditions in the history of the conference. The event was huge mystery initially because, although it was listed in all the Siggraph event information, no one could tell my friend Melissa and I what the event was or what “Breaking the Barrel” meant. So, we decided to go out of sheer curiosity. The event began with a projected visualization made with seething and pulsating, zero gravity fluid dynamics in on a screen with the motion precisely timed with live music and traditional Japanese dance. After the video art presentation, several Japanese officials, members of the Siggraph administrative committee, and the president of Siggraph—all donning traditional Japanese jackets—broke open the top of a Sake (rice wine) barrel with large wooden mallets and personally served the drink to each attendee in square wooden cups. Before the barrel breaking, the president of Siggraph announced the launch of Siggraph Asia, set to debut this October in Tokyo, Japan. In addition to drinking some really good saki, I got to meet some amazing people, such as Shuzo John Shiota, Executive Producer and CEO at Polygon Pictures in Minato-ku, Tokyo. He told me a lot about the Japanese CG animation industry and especially about working overseas.

Later in the week, more great people kept popping up. I ran into Valerie Lettera-Spencer, one of the Layout artists I worked with when I interned at DreamWorks Animation, and she introduced me to a friend of hers, Pamela Thompson, a professional recruiter who had tried to recruit her for another company before Val was hired at DreamWorks. Pam graciously invited me to a class she was speaking at concerning demo reels and resumes. I couldn’t pass up some great career information. The class was in a huge room and was packed to the doors with people! I went early, so I got good seat. The title of her talk was “If Your Resume Doesn’t Work, Neither Do You.” The biggest lessons I took from the class were these: Like it or not, I’m a product, so market myself with that in mind; keep my contact information on everything—it’s a common mistake; refer to myself as what I want to be, not what I currently am; always show my best work first, because I have about 30 seconds or less to sell myself on a reel before a recruiter moves on to someone else; and a lot of other great tips that I transcribed in my very thorough notes, but I can’t seem to remember them all off the top of my head. It’ll all come back to me, eventually. She also gave some good tips for the Siggraph Job Fair.

The job fair and exhibition didn’t impress me much. I’ve been to many other tradeshows in Denver which dwarfed the Siggraph exhibition in size, but the average booth height and presentation quality was amazing. Most of the booths had seemingly little to do with my focus in the industry—Character Animation and Layout. Although when I really think about it, the exhibition is representative of the industry’s diversity. However, I was extremely shocked at the shear number of motion capture companies, which may be a sign of things to come as this new wave of the future rolls in. Just the thought of that fact and what it illustrated about the current state of the industry got me all fired up, but that’s for another blog posting. Even with all that, I enjoyed the exhibition. I even took the time to look at some of the other really cool products that were geared toward other industries entirely. For example, I got to play around with a civil engineering program that allows the user to place roads and buildings in a city and test drive the roads that he/she has just built. The company, who made the program, designed it to enable civil engineers and city planners to design roads and highways better by allowing the them to test drive proposed road systems or developments to find real-world problems before going into construction. The program was a lot like playing an industrial strength Sim City game.

If gaining career contacts was my primary reason for going to Siggraph, the animation events were a very close second. The two major events were the Siggraph Computer Animation Festival (Electronic Theater included) and the iron animator contest called “Fjorg!” The animation festival wasn’t the best I had seen overall, but nevertheless it had a few excellent pieces. Here are a few, but not all, of my favorites:

Moutons - a shepherd’s tale set underwater. A fisherman with a shepherd’s crook with a harpoon on its back end dives to hunt water-born sheep grazing on seaweed on the ocean floor; however, he makes an unlikely friend in the process.

Boneheads – Two prehistoric boneheads versus everything to hold claim to their banana.

Fetch – Hilarious events ensue when a stuck-up dog gets even with his owner after being asked to fetch.

Clik Clak – two wide-eyed robots teach a mute boy to read with words represented by sounds to create some amusing famous adages using the different noises.

Oli’s Chance – A young German boy gets hit by a high-speed train only to wake up unharmed on the ground and meet a group of kids living in the train yard. Each child has their own story but all share a bone chilling secret.

DreamMaker – A bitter, retired, old, dream peddler finds the true source of happiness when a poor, mute, orphan girl comes to him for work and shelter.

Lifted – an alien trainee struggles to pass his abduction field test.

Some of the shorts in the animation festival were great, but “Fjorg!” was an out-right blast. 15 teams of 3 were each selected to create a quality shortfilm within 32 hours. The teams’ stories had to involve “An impossible escape” and/or “A fate worse than death.” Spectators in grandstands watched the contestants take their films from concept to finish in a little under a day and a half. Anytime during the day, we could check in to see how the teams where doing, but I think all the spectators were kicked out when the convention center closed at night and let back in when it opened in the morning. The two teams I was rooting for the most were “Picture This Short” and “The Pillage People.” Picture This won second place, but unfortunately, The Pillage People—who did their film in Flash—weren’t in the top three finalists. No, I didn’t declare Flash discrimination. Seriously, just being part of Fjorg! and finishing with a great film is a big accomplishment. Congratulations guys! You might be seeing a RMCAD team next year, who knows?

The speed at which the convention flew by was amazing. Although I saw a lot at Siggraph, an extra day would have been nice to see and try out everything. I accomplished my goal of establishing good connections, met a lot of great people, learned an immense amount about the industry, saw some amazing work, and got to hang out with some great people in my industry. If you haven’t been to Siggraph yet, I highly recommend going—it’s worth your while.