GDC Trip 2016- Kat Collins

Post date: Mar 22, 2016 9:10:2 AM

To start off, this was my second GDC experience, and instead of doing the full pass like I did last year, I decided to do the expo pass to save a bit of money. My experience of the expo pass versus the full pass were honestly not too different other than a few talks I went to last year that were nice and helpful, but definitely not worth the full pass price. But this is only with my experience however, other people might find more use in the talks than I did. To each his own.

I flew in with one of my roommates, an illustration senior (also a 2nd timer), on Saturday, and we got to San Francisco late, enjoyed some food and then passed out from the long flying day. We both have been constantly keeping tabs on the fellowship party page on FB to make sure that we were signed up for as many mixers, parties, networking events as possible throughout the week to ensure that we could network as much as possible.

SUNDAY

Sunday was my birthday, and although my roommate and I planned to go out somewhere cool for brunch, we ended up spending the day trying to dispute a problem with our hotel, who decided to take all $500 out of my account without notice. (Some whole issue with my roommate's parents card not going through for the reservation, them not even telling us, and then they try charging my card for $2000 & $1000 4 different times until they got my only money for the entire week of GDC. Didn't get it back till 2 days later.It was a mess) 

Despite that rough beginning, we did have two events to go to later that night. We started with the kickoff dinner, and I remembered it being fun and easy to network with since it was forced seating. I easily exchanged at least 10 cards at the dinner last year, this time not so much. This year, it was at a restaurant different than where they normally have it, and it wasn't forced seating, which meant that everybody pretty much sat with a group that they came with, and everybody was more tight nit. Nobody seemed to be interested in talking after we introduced ourselves when my roommate and I sat down with a few other random people by themselves. We decided not to stay for longer than an hour, since we had made no connections throughout the entire dinner. We didn't want to waste any time when we could be at the second event networking. 

Next we went to the Dutch Courage mixer at a local bar. The first person we talked to in line was an art director for Iron Belly studios, and we both got portfolio reviews and exchanged information while in line. We talked about freelance opportunities, and talked with him for most of the time we were at the party. We met a couple of other people, one other student and I ran into a connection I made last year. Overall, it was a good warmup and a fun time to kick off GDC. We were also happy that our first connection was with an art director who was interested in possible freelance opportunities for both of us.

MONDAY

On Monday, we got up early and explored the Moscone center, and played some of the indie demos around the xbox lounge and the demo area close to the career center. My favorite games were Arena Gods & Tumble Block (which was there last year as well) We enjoyed some delicious thai food and then went back to our hotel to change for the events that night. 

The first party we went to was the AMD Radeon party, where we talked with some student connections from the previous night. We checked out some of the demos, and tried to mingle within some of the people, but we quickly realized that this wasn't exactly a networking party for artists, and left after about an hour. 

My roommate and I then went to the VR mixer, which I also went to last year. Same venue, really pretty, and they had some really neat VR tech that we tried out. It was a lot more crowded than last year, and we could barely walk through people, let alone try out more of the tech that we wanted to. We did exchange a few cards with some people, but not the people that we were looking for yet.

Lastly, we went to the Pocket Gamer party at The Grand, and that was a lot of fun and we exchanged a lot more cards there. ***The thing about parties and networking is that YOU have to push yourself to go talk to random people. You shouldn't expect them to come to you. Making eye contact with anybody should be a starting point of a conversation. I did what I did last year, and looked for empty spots next to people and asked to sit next to them, and would then start a conversation with them. We did this time, and ended up meeting two lead artists for Planet Diver. They were pretty cool guys, and they looked through our portfolios. We then met a french art director/consultant (his card has many titles on it) and he went into depth with our portfolios. It was a bit hard for us to understand him fully with the accent, and the loudness of the party, but we did get some decent feedback from him after talking with him for almost an hour. 

TUESDAY

Tuesday was pretty much a repeat of Monday. We got up early, wandered the moscone center testing out new tech and games, and both of us actually ran into people from our high schools. We exchanged a few cards with other people playing some of the game demos, but there wasn't a lot of action other than what we've already done. 

Later in the night, we had 4 parties to go to. We started off at the Playphone party, and actually met quite a few people there and we made a friend that hung out with us the rest of the week. Lots of cards were exchanged here, and we started building up the guts to look for people in company hoodies and such, and then going up to talk to them. All 3 of the ones that we approached this night however, were all non-employees of the companies, but one was good friends with a Naughty Dog artist. We had good conversation and networking here, but eventually moved onto the next event.

Next we went to the chartboost party. This party went a little bit differently than we expected haha. There was this little ball pit in the studio, and me, my roommate and our new friend decided to join another girl in the ball pit. It suddenly started drawing in a lot of attention, and people started taking pictures and starting coming up to us to talk. More people joined in the ball pit, and we actually networked while sitting in the ball pit haha. We had some people that were looking through our portfolios, and lots of cards were exchanged. My roommate landed a confirmed freelance job for character art. :) After about an hour of just letting people come to us, we moved onto the next event.

Next we went to the Destructoid party. We didn't really know what type of party this was going to be (this was a common thing for a lot of the parties. You never exactly know what you're getting into unless you've been before). It looked cool, but once we got inside and down into the main area, we knew that this wouldn't be good for networking at all since it was extremely dark, and muuuuuuch louder than any of the other parties we'd been to (even way louder than parties at The Grand). We were literally screaming to try to talk to people, and our voices were starting to hurt from the effort. We did run into some Ringling kids, and hung out with them for a bit, but with it being almost impossible to have any type of conversation with the few people we were trying to network with, we decided to leave after about 40 minutes. Especially since it started to get over crowded along, especially since there were people trying to rave dance on the floor. 

Lastly, we went to the YetiZen party at the Infusion lounge. I loved the lounge last year for a different party, so I knew what environment we were going to. The party had way less people than I thought it would, and again, lots of people were just interested in dancing instead of networking. They did have a really awesome violinist playing during some moments, and that was entertaining. We sat down next to some people and started talking, meeting the creators of Shark Thrower, which just seemed to be Angry Birds but with sharks. Other than that, we just met some University students. The party was scheduled to go till 2am, but it cleared out reaaaally quickly around 12, so we eventually left. 

WEDNESDAY

Our other roommate (CA major) flew in last night and joined us for the conference. We got up early and immediately went to the career center. I talked with an art director at Avalanche studios, and he really liked my portfolio. I also went to High Voltage, Crytek, and talked with a SONY artist about my portfolio. All were good reviews, and then we had to leave for the 5 hour Blizzard University event. The event was cool, but I wasn't too interested in a lot of the Q & A, and wish that they had separated that from the actual portfolio reviews, which were totally worth the wait. I got Paul David, a Senior Artist, and despite my portfolio not having anything stylized in it, he really enjoyed my work and gave me great advise on how to move forward with it. I spent about 15 minutes with him, and he had one of the better reviews from all the art directors I've talked to thus far. 

After Blizzard, we headed towards the Polycount party. It was at the same venue as last year, so I knew it was going to be crowded, so we tried networking early into it. We exchanged a few cards, and mingled with fellow Ringling kids. We met a freelance environment artist, who frankly, was kind of a jerk. While reviewing my friends portfolio, he was harsh from the get go, and his friend would constantly try to through in some positive notes to level it out. We're all used to harsh crits, and I appreciated some of the notes he was saying with my portfolio, but some of it was a bit unnecessary.  

Next we headed to the Epic Party and again, tried using the same techniques we used at The Grand last time we were there for networking. We tried looking for company sweatshirts again, and did eventually find somebody that I was a looking for, a Naughty Dog environment terrain artist. He was really friendly, and gave the 3 of us portfolio. He gave us networking advise and told us that we were on the right track for success. His notes were especially valuable as he gave some insight as to what the company looks for in portfolio work. He said he would add us on LinkedIn, which he did, so that was a great connection to have. We talked to a Blizzard designer as well.

Lastly, we went to That Party, which was hyped up the wall, so we expected it to be one of the best parties. It was the weirdest party we went to. The music was odd, and they were letting people in that didn't have badges, which meant that most of the people in there were random people. Despite paying for the party, we left in a bout 15 minutes because nobody was networking there, just dancing...really oddly. 

THURSDAY

A repeat of Wednesday. We got up early and went straight for the career center. I talked to recruiters at Crytek, Tripwire, and talked to a senior 3D artist at Wild Card and an artist at Imangi. Some were hoping I was going to apply, but since I'm looking for internships at the moment, I guess the jobs will have to wait till next year. But I did establish the connections and felt like I improved a lot with this portfolio compared to the one I brought last year. 

Roommates and I had a Warner Brothers review scheduled, so we each got to meet with an artist. I got the lead environment artist for NetherRealm, and he gave me more of an insight as to how to prepare my portfolio for certain companies, and also told me to never give up on pushing forward since it takes a lot of hard work to get where I'd want to be. After talking to all the people we wanted to in the career center, we finally started to wander around the expo hall. We checked out some of the VR stuff, and also looked at other school booths. I'm definitely proud to be going to Ringling because our work definitely stands out visually compared to the others.

The only party we went to that night was Zynga, which was fun, and we met an animator that worked on King Kong. He gave us more life advice. One of the most memorable parts were that ***You will be judged by your worst piece, not your best.***

FRIDAY

This was pretty much a chill day. We walked around the center one more time just in case we missed anything we might have wanted to do, but at this point we were all pretty much exhausted and so were our feet. We ventured into Japan town and enjoyed some cute little treats and food, and bought some souvenirs. We shopped for a bit, and then went back to the hotel and began packing since we had early flights.

Overall, I think I had better luck last year networking wise, but this year I got a whole lot more portfolio reviews that will help me push my portfolio to be stronger and ready for the companies I want to be hired by. I can definitely tell that this year I had a better portfolio compared to last year, as the feedback was really positive this year!

FINAL POINTS:

-BE SOCIAL: Push yourself to your social limits. You've spent a lot of money to be there, so try to be as social as possible. You want to meet as many people as you can. Go to as many parties as you can, signing up well ahead of time. Many of these parties you won't even know what type they are until you get there, unless you've been before. If you're at a big venue like Epic (the Grand club), then look for possible empty seats next to people, ask if you can sit there, and start a conversation. 

-PARTIES: Even if parties aren't your thing, you should be going to at least some of them. I often found that I had an easier time finding people/networking at the parties than I did at the center. Do prioritize some of the parties, since it should be clear after a certain point if you're finding the right types of people at some. Know if a party isn't worth staying. (Like Destructoid. Was waaaayyy too loud and dark to have any type of conversation. Mostly seemed like a raving party). You should have fun, but keep track on how much networking you're doing while at the parties.

-KEEP AN EYE OUT: If you see somebody wearing a hoodie with a company name you want to work for on it, go talk to them! There will be some decoys, meaning people just wearing company shirts, but I did run into a few that were from the company. This will lead to some really good connections.

-LUCK: Unfortunately, there is some luck behind GDC. You may put your best efforts into trying to meet the right people, but sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want it to. That doesn't mean it's not worth it, it just means that some elements were out of your control. If you have enough motivation, you should have found at least one really good connection, multiple, or gotten something really worthwhile portfolio review wise at least. I know last year I made a lot more connections than this year, even though I tried the same methods this time. 

-CAREER CENTER FIRST: On Wednesday opening, you should be at the career center in the morning, bushy tailed. The professionals will be in a better mood, and so will you. The expo floor is cool, but remember the main reason why you spent a ton of money to go to GDC, to get connections and potentially get a job :)

-DON'T BE A CONTINUOUS CLUSTER: If you're hanging with a continuous group, don't forget that you should separate at certain points of GDC (parties, career center, wherever). Even though being in a group can benefit for group networking, don't forget that you should wander a bit to see who you could potentially run into. 

-WEAR COMFY SHOES ALWAYS: I don't know how I managed to wear heeled boots last year, but I just couldn't do it this year. Make sure you have one nice looking, outfit mutual, pair of shoes/boots that won't destroy your feet.