Turns out, Siggraph is super cool. I was expecting as much, but it’s nice to see it in practice.

There’s a ton of amazing animation in the Animation Theater (and some mediocre ones, too, but they’re worth sitting through to get to the ones that are really good.)

First thing this morning I hit up the job fair. It was everything I imagined a job fair could be! I went up to people and asked “Are you accepting reels and resumes?” and they answered “Yes.” I didn’t have to explain what it is that I do. I didn’t have to try to convince a poor bored HR person that their company might need someone like me. And best of all, there were people hiring for jobs, I wanted. Totally different from past job fair experiences.

Needless to say, it went pretty well. I got some good feedback on the reel from Shawn Kelly, ILM animator. It really made my day when he was impressed with part of it! AN ILM ANIMATOR!!! And for the rest he had absolutely great advice. Really cool. I also may have gotten an animation test from a video game company. The art director of another company may be sending me an animation test, and a couple of booth staffers told me that they’re getting ready to hire a bunch of people, so I’m pretty excited.

Tomorrow I’m hitting the electronic theater and returning to the exhibition floor, which is crazy. So much loud noise, and flashing lights. It’s like punishment for epileptics, but it’s pretty cool for me!

Final thought, I met a guy today who not only had reels to hand out, but his reel was on PSP, so it was easy to show to people on the spot. Genious!

New animation sometime coming over the weekend. In the meantime, Summer 2005 Demo Reel is up on my website. Critiques welcome.