Erikos

Disappointing as it may be, after half a year of job hunting, I am still unemployed, so it is time to move back to The Netherlands. Right after graduation, I was quite optimistic, as a fistful of studios had shown interest in my work, but during summer, I realised once more that a Canadian 'Wow' means just as little as a Dutch 'leuk'. That is, most of the studios that had asked me to contact them, did not even respond to my email or phone calls. One the major studios had already told me they were not going to eat through the red tape of supporting me getting a work permit. I appreciate their honesty in this, but in general, the bigger studios have no problem in hiring people, while the smaller studios shy away from the necessary formalities. On top of that, I learnt that it is not always an advantage to be a Max the Mutt graduate, as the reputation of the school seems to be less than stellar.

During the school's Industry Night, I learnt that two of the four 2011 graduates were still unemployed, while one of them seems to be freelancing in his home country; I do not now about number four. So, I was already a little prepared that it would not be so easy to find a job but, of course, I had hoped to do better. Of the seven 2012 graduates, I know that one is working, one is fighting the evil Turks in his homeland Greece and I can only hope he will survive, as he still owes me $2. I spent some time practicing google-fu, but I have not been able to secure a definite status for the others. I wish them good luck.

For now, I will need to find a home in The Netherlands, and hope to start freelancing there, although the emphasis will be more on illustrating than on animating, as the Dutch do not really have an animation tradition. In the meantime, I will keep looking for jobs abroad, preferably out of the euro zone. I am a firm disbeliever in Europe, and am afraid the single Greek who still owes me $2 will be the least of my problems.

Switching gears

The last few months have been very busy for me. Producing my short film 'City Colors', building a portfolio, a website, presentation boards, a booklet and bookmarks to hand out at the school's Industry Night. It all ended last night, at the school's graduation ceremony. It is over.

Over the past four years, I have thought more than once that you can only be a student once in your life. Being a student is so much more than being in a position to learn. It has a lot to do with growing up, and that is something I did about twentyfive years ago, when I was a student in Computer Science. As a result, yesterday's ceremony was more about fetching a diploma, than about turning over a new leaf.

Yesterday does signal, however, a new phase in the masterplan, dubbed 'Operation Switch' about five years ago. Now that I have completed my formal education as a visual artist, it is time to look for a job, and finding a job at this side of the world means that I will need to get work permit first. I consciously made the decision to first graduate, and build a portfolio, and only then to start the formal procedure to get a visa. Over the next few weeks, I hope to start sorting out the formalities.

In the meantime, feel free to take a look at my portfolio site, which features my final film titled 'City Colors', and a good selection of other artwork I have worked on over the past four years. Enjoy!

11 Seconds

Last month I finally found time to join the '11 Second Club' , a monthly animation contest where competitors create an animation which fits a given sound fragment. My education focusses on animation exercises, and the Club gave me an opportunity to do a short movie from start to finish. Although the final score for my entry 'Office Hours', 45th out of 127 entries, was a little disappointing, it was really rewarding to see how the various parts of my education, i.e. storytelling, storyboarding, layout, animation, cleanup and inbetweening and background painting, fit together. I hope to give it another try in July.

This effort was even more rewarding because I used my own software, dubbed 'Sweatbox', to assemble the various parts of my movie. I was never really happy with the available products for line testing, like Flipbook, Toonboom Pencil Test and Monkey Jam, so I decided to write my own. Now, Sweatbox needs a lot more polishing before I even consider publishing it, but being able to combine old and new expertise gave me a lot of satisfaction.