Aryo Jati Darmawan - GDC Experience

Post date: Mar 29, 2014 7:21:30 AM

GDC Adventures

1.       The abysmal level of Effects Artists out there.

So throughout my entire trip, I visited almost every VFX talk / roundtable / event and I observed the amount of students that were in these events. Much like last year, there seems to very an extremely small percentage of potential students moving into VFX. At every opportunity to talk to VFX leads, it seems that I was one of the few (if not thee one) vfx artist student that they have met at the entire GDC.

                Many industry VFX artists mentioned at the roundtable talks that this was a problem, considering how high in demand vfx artists are and how specialized the skills are. Many of them mentioned pushing effects more in schools, instead of the very common environment artist or concept artist. Because of the sheer lack of VFX people, there have been jobs that have gone completely unfilled for months at very respectable companies such as Blizzard or Epic.  I am very encouraged by the fact that students at Ringling have shown interest in VFX but I am also concerned that people are jumping into it because there are a demand for them out there.

                Overall, it also seems that the industry has been putting more emphasis in vfx, as can be seen by the sheer number of talks based on them. The effects talks by Naughty Dog and the guys who make Infamous were awesome. Definitely worth checking them out at the GDC vault if missed at GDC.

2.       People are really really bad at talking with potential employers

So this was a casual observation that I made at the Epic party (also at almost networking opportunity) on how bad people are at networking. You might think that it’s because they don’t speak up or they don’t attempt to try and talk to people. The actual case, is that many of these people don’t seem to understand that these employers are people and want a conversation. It seems that many students (From multiple colleges including our own) pretty much rattle off their resume’s and hope for the best.

        At the epic party, there was a woman student from SCAD that was talking to the lead VFX artist when I got there. She was very insistent on talking to him over everyone else who was trying to talk to him (which was her first no-no). Not only that, the only thing that she was talking about was her resume and not actually trying to have an actual conversation with the guy. To take matters into the crazy zone, and I am not joking, it seemed like she was using her lady assets to convince him to talk to him.

I think that we should definitely have some more classes on public speaking at schools. I have learned from the Lead VFX artist at Blizzard that professionalism is not knowing how to conduct yourselves in front of others or whatever. In reality, professionalism in the game industry is the ability to be able to talk to others and collaborate without making it painful. I think once more people understand, they will have easier times striking up conversations that may end up leading to more fruitful talks later on.

3.       Constantly and always meet up with your networks

This GDC, I met up with a lot of my friends and alumni that I have come to know over the years. I have come to realize that the importance of constantly meeting and talking with others is the fastest and most fruitful way of obtaining a job in the industry. Through email and facebook, I tried to correspond with everyone that I met at GDC. This has allowed me to get invites into a ton of exclusive parties such as the Blizzard party and the Riot party.

It kind of works like a domino effect, once you have one contact, it will lead up to many more. The best type of networking is just to try and make friends and really stop worrying about meeting the lead art director at some company. It is often times not the art director that will land you a job, but your close friend who happens to be an environment artist there that you got to know.

Ultimately, go to GDC, party like crazy, have fun, and meet some friends. The portfolio touting can come later.